A Burnaby senior who fell victim to a scam is warning other seniors in the city to be leery of who they open their doors to.
Several weeks ago, a man knocked on Eileen Finley’s front door on Gilley Avenue, where she and her husband have lived for the past 50 years. The man politely explained to her that he was in the neighbourhood to refuel equipment at a construction site a few doors down but the fuel had been siphoned from the tanks and he didn’t have any credit cards or cash with him to buy some more.
He asked to borrow $40 from her and before she knew it, she was handing him two $20 bills as he promised to pay her back later that day.
But the man never returned that day, and when he didn’t come by the next day, Finley knew she had been the victim of a scam.
“I knew right away when he didn’t come back the next day,” she said. “But he came back again a week later, can you believe it?”
The second time the man came to the door, both Finley and her husband answered. Finley says she figured he was finally back to return the $40 he had borrowed but instead, he told the couple all he had on him was a $100 bill and that if they gave him $60 he could go get change for them.
But Finley wasn’t fooled a second time. She says she ended the conversation immediately.
Finley described the scammer as South Asian and middle-aged. He was dressed in dirty construction-style clothing and was wearing muddy gumboots. Because of how he was dressed, she assumed he was working with the construction crew two doors down from her home on Gilley Avenue and felt he could be trusted.
Staff Sgt. Major John Buis says this type of scam is relatively common and most often targets seniors.
“We do hear about it on a regular basis, but most people are too embarrassed to tell us,” he says.
Buis says the police have a hard time investigating and dealing with this type of scam because it is essentially a civil matter in that the scammer is “borrowing” money from their victim.
“We can inform people and we can put out an advisory,” he says. “What they (the victims) can do is they can report it to us and then, if we get other ones, then we can dig into it.”
Anyone looking to report such a scam can contact the Burnaby RCMP at 604-294-7922.
