Almaden Resident
News
Beware of men in orange vests posing as water district workers
By Eli Segall
Seniors, beware.
The San Jose police recently announced that men impersonating utility workers are targeting senior citizens throughout the city. Wearing orange workman's vests, teams of two knock on front doors and announce they work for the "water district" and are checking on water lines. The resident leads one individual into the back or side yard, while the other sneaks inside and steals property from the house. Stolen items have included money, jewelry, guns and passports.
According to police, the con artists struck in October and hit two homes--one on Calico Avenue near the San Jose-Campbell border, the other on Allen Avenue, near the intersection of Santa Teresa and Blossom Hill Road.
Unfortunately, the practice of targeting seniors for door-to-door, telephone or mail scams is not new to San Jose.
"Senior citizens tend to be a little more trustworthy," said San Jose police spokesman Enrique Garcia. "People try to pull these scams. They say they're with the phone company, cable company, and so on."
Torie O'Reilly, who oversees the Almaden Senior Group at the Almaden Community Center, knows seniors who have been victims of identity theft, credit card fraud, or false checks written in their name.
"This is a big deal for them," she said.
Lillian Swink recently found herself involved in a scam. The San Jose senior received a call two years ago from someone claiming Swink had won free prescription drug deliveries from Walgreen's. Swink had just been prescribed new medicine, which the caller knew about, so the called appeared legitimate.
Swink became suspicious when the caller, who also knew the first four numbers of her bank account, asked her to tell him the remaining numbers on the account to expedite the deliveries.
Swink, confused and unsure of what to do, gave him the information; within a few weeks, $4,000 had been withdrawn from her account by an unknown individual.
"I called Walgreen's, and they said they weren't doing any kind of promotion. I called the police, and they told me I'd been had," Swink said.
Kim Gaddis, a crime prevention specialist in the San Jose Police Community Services Division, said most at-home scams, such as the water district impersonators, are attempted during the day, when retirees are often the only people home to answer the door. However, the holiday season brings an increased frequency of attempts, as both seniors and non-seniors are more inclined to make charitable donations.
San Jose police ask anyone with information about people posing as water district employees to call the burglary unit at 408.277.4401 or Crime Stoppers at 408.947.STOP.
