Home improvement scams have started early in the twin-cities, with one area resident being taken for an estimated $4,000 from men posing as a roofing company.

Last Tuesday, Bloomington Police were called to an address between Lakeside Country Club and Oakland Avenue to investigate a reported scam, Dave White, spokesperson for Bloomington Police, said. A woman was approached by a Hispanic male who said he had roofed her house back in 2002, and he was there to do work for her.

“He said that if she would like, he could seal the roof and fix the shingles and such with a substance that he had for $49 a gallon,” White explained. “She wasn’t exactly sure what she signed. She thought maybe she was signing some kind of a contract or something.”

The perpetrators did some work, the victim was not sure what they did, and after about an hour they came back asking to be paid a total of $3,700.

When the woman attempted to pay with a check, the perpetrators said they could not accept a check, only cash. She went and withdrew cash and paid the men, White said.

“Sometime during this she feels that one of the males entered her house,” White said.  They might have stolen an additional $300 in cash from her home.  The woman might have let one of the males into the home to use the bathroom, at which time they stole the cash.

White said he received a call from a woman who thinks a similar scam was unsuccessfully attempted on her sometime late last summer or early last fall.

“She had some information to pass along,” White said. “Now an officer can follow-up on the information,” White said.

“I think in this case, this person really did work on her roof, because this person recognized the person that came to her as someone that worked on her roof out of a roofing company in Peoria,” he added.

When the woman contacted the roofing company in Peoria, they said they did not work for the company anymore, White added.  It is somebody that would have records of roofs they have worked on in the past, and now they are going around to those locations.

“This is somebody who has actually done roofing work in town, has addresses and they are going around town trying to hit those locations,” White said.

White said the scams usually start when the winter is ending, so they can use various stories that support their scam, causing damage that they need to repair.