REMARKS
Council Member Holden's experiences with roofing and home improvement scams
1:42:11
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122 sec
Council Member Robert F. Holden shares his personal experiences and observations about roofing and home improvement scams targeting seniors in New York City. He describes how these scams operate, including door-to-door solicitation, fake advertisements in local newspapers, and the use of phony addresses and websites to appear legitimate.
- Holden mentions being personally approached by scammers offering masonry and roof work
- He highlights the blatant nature of these scams, including fake advertisements in local papers and on the internet
- The council member describes a specific awning scam where fraudsters took $5,000 deposits and never returned
Robert F. Holden
1:42:11
Thank you panel for a great testimony.
1:42:13
I I wanna thank captain Pat personally because he does a great job in in going to senior centers and civic meetings and community boards.
1:42:23
So it it's working, and we appreciate your your effort on that.
1:42:28
And chief Savino, I just wanna on the on the travelers, on the roofing scams, you you caught a a couple, but they're still out there.
1:42:38
Mhmm.
1:42:39
And they're out there in force.
1:42:40
And let me tell you how blatant it is because it's be it goes beyond just, you know, ringing a doorbell or going up to a senior.
1:42:48
I've been approached.
1:42:49
I'm a senior, so I come out of my stoop and one of the travelers says, you know, I could do some masonry work or your roof work.
1:42:56
I, you know, I have I have the crew in the neighborhood, and we have a lot of equipment here, and we have a lot of time because we finished the job.
1:43:04
And it's you know, I told him to get lost, but I did report it.
1:43:08
But, of course, he was long gone.
1:43:10
But let me tell you how blatant it is because I don't know if you understand.
1:43:14
They advertise in local newspapers.
1:43:18
We because we yeah.
1:43:19
They these roofing companies will advertise.
1:43:22
They're on the Internet.
1:43:23
They'll use an address that's phony.
1:43:26
In fact, there was an awning company that pretended to be a local awning company, let's say, Middle Village, on 80th Street.
1:43:35
They they actually has you know, and they have a website.
1:43:40
And that's how they solicit, and people come to them when they do a search.
1:43:46
You go to that location and I called the the landlord.
1:43:49
I said, why is this address on 80 Street listed for this owning company?
1:43:52
What what the what the owning company did, phony owning company, they come over with a book.
1:43:57
After the person calls them, They take a down payment $5000 for this awning, you know, and it's $20,000 awning they say.
1:44:06
They never come back.
1:44:07
So it's $5 they got in cash.
1:44:09
But that it's worse than the roofing scam.
1:44:11
Every time I've been fighting this for 20 years.
