Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Thieves pretending to be utility workers scam way into Porter seniors' home

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Porter Police are looking for the two men who scammed their way into an elderly couple’s house on Monday, pretending to be utility workers.

The couple was not harmed but the suspects did steal cash found in the woman’s purse.

The incident occurred around 10:30 a.m. Monday, PPD Lt. John Lane told the Chesterton Tribune today, as the couple, husband and wife, were sitting outside their home on Beam Street. The two men, one of them wearing an orange safety vest, were in a white full-size pickup truck with an amber light on top, Lane said, and the couple assumed that they were both NIPSCO employees.

The suspects said nothing to disabuse them of that supposition, in fact told the couple that they might need to shut off the power to the home, and as one of them stayed outside with the husband--confined to a wheelchair--the other went inside with the wife, who was told to stay by the breaker box in the basement. While she did so, the man went through the home, seeking valuables and finding them, in the form of cash in the woman’s purse.

The suspects then left the scene. The couple, meanwhile, was unaware that they’d been stolen from until sometime later.

“Can you get any lower than stealing from these people at this point in their life?” Lane said.

Anyone with information on this incident is urged to call the PPD at 926-7611.

Lane reminded people that all employees of the region’s utilities--NIPSCO and Indiana-American Water Company, for example--are properly credentialed and that folks should never hesitate to ask for identification.

 

Posted 7/8/2014

 
 
 
 

 

 

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