SOUTH SIDE Repair scam bilks elderly man

A businessman has stepped in to try to get the money back.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- An 81-year-old man who lives alone in a tiny South Side house wrote two checks for nearly $18,000 for home repairs worth roughly $1,500.
Police said the man wrote a check on Aug. 2 for $4,752 to Ron Day, a contractor with a Pittsburgh post office box address, to have a broken window fixed and the house power washed. The house was power washed, but the window wasn't fixed.
Two days later, Day stopped back and offered to repair the man's downspouts for $13,100, for which the elderly Meadowbrook Avenue man signed a contract and paid in full, again by check. That work also hasn't been done.
All the repairs should have cost no more than $1,500, reports show. The case has been assigned to Detective Sgt. Chuck Swanson.
Warning
"When someone approaches you and solicits home repairs, you should question their motives, ask what brought them to your house, ask for references, talk to your neighbors," Lt. Robin Lees, Youngstown Police Department spokesman, said Tuesday.
Lees said it's a scam nine times out of 10 when a contractor says, as is the case with the Meadowbrook Avenue man, "Hey, I'm doing work in the neighborhood." Because older people want to maintain their largest asset, their house, they're often gullible, he said.
"It's just so wrong to bilk the elderly," Lees said. "At this level it's felony fraud and the Ohio Attorney General's Office could intercede."
Lees said Swanson will canvass other law enforcement agencies as part of his investigation to see if they have similar home improvement complaints.
Reports show that Day's Ameritech Home Services business phone is a toll-free 888 number that links to an answering service. Day did not respond to a message left with the service Tuesday.
Trying to help
John Reese, a financial planner in Boardman, has stepped in to help the elderly man who used up most of his money, money he needs to live on. Reese said he spoke to Day, who declined to return the money and referred calls to a lawyer whom he didn't identify before hanging up.
"This poor old guy has no one. It's a blatant rip-off," Reese said. "I just want to get the word out. How many other older people don't have anyone, or they're too ashamed to say they got snookered?"
Reese said the contract the South Side man signed has a clause that allows cancellation within three business days but messages left with Day's answering service during that time were not returned. Day called back after the cancellation period and, at first, offered to pay the money back in installments but then declined to return the money, Reese said.
"The worst part, the contract has no time limit before the work can start," Reese said. "I hope he can get his money back ... it represents the bulk of his estate."
Reese said in his 20 years as a financial planner he's seen a lot of atrocities and wondered how people can sleep at night after they rip off the elderly.
meade@vindy.com