A man intervened in 2023 at the home of an elderly couple for a facade renovation in Ouveillan. €5,000 per bill. He came back this week to change five tiles. €1,000 quote. Except this time, the couple called surveillance agents.
Cédric Herbelin and Florence Bonazza are ASVP in Ouveillan. These public highway surveillance agents avoided a scam, with the support of the Vinassan gendarmerie, which could have cost vulnerable people dearly.
It all started with a phone call from a senior couple. In 2023, someone came knocking on their door to offer work on their facade. A renovation which would have consisted, according to Florence Bonazza, of “two coats of paint and high-pressure jet cleaning. I had seen the quotes and invoices and I knew they had been cheated. Yesterday, the lady called us to warn us that the same gentleman had shown up at their house. He went up on the roof and took some tiles off them. The broken covering elements, perhaps by the man himself, are left outside while the suspected crook leaves, promising to come back and change them. “He told them it would be €1,000 and asked them for part in cash and the other by check.”says the agent.
“We went there and the lady contacted this gentleman using a business card. We had not found him on the internet. How he looked down on her when she reminded him that he had intervened without authorization , I took the phone to explain to him how it was going. I am an entrepreneur’s wife. I asked him to come back the same evening to put back the tiles and that I would find out from the Chamber of Trades. hung up.”
On advice from the ASVP, the defrauded owner filed a complaint with the Vinassan gendarmerie. There, the entrepreneur calls him, but the gendarme picks up the phone to strongly advise him to repair his misdeeds.
This Tuesday, December 17 in the morning, the man came to put the tiles back in place, but he could not be apprehended. “We wanted to see him and we asked the lady to call us. When she did, he took the phone from her and only gave it back when he left.”
He was not unmasked, but the scam was avoided. Here’s a couple who can spend the holidays with an entire roof over their heads.
