Elderly Austintown couple scammed out of $8,700

AUSTINTOWN — An unidentified man stole about $8,700 from an elderly Kleber Avenue couple Friday evening, after being let into their home under the guise of being a utility worker.

The 89-year-old husband had just left the home to pick up dinner when the man knocked on the back door of the home, according to a township police report. He told the man’s 86-year-old wife he “needed to check the cold water to make sure everything was OK.”

The woman let him in, then went into a bathroom to repeatedly turn a faucet on and off, “until he told her to stop,” the report states. The man soon left in an unknown direction after assuring the woman the water was “working fine.”

The couple later discovered $700 cash and a coin collection valued at about $8,000 were missing from the home.

The woman was unable to describe the man’s appearance, the report states.

Neighbors reported a small white SUV driving slowly along the street at about the same time. A neighbor was able to produce surveillance footage of the vehicle, which investigators are reviewing, the report states.

A 72-year-old woman living along New Road reported a similar encounter earlier that day, but the man — claiming to be an electrical worker — couldn’t provide identification and left when she refused to let him in.