{"id":24533,"date":"2023-09-14T08:48:30","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T12:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/?p=24533"},"modified":"2023-09-14T08:48:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T12:48:41","slug":"scam-someone-knocks-on-your-door-claiming-to-be-a-building-inspector-or-a-county-or-utility-rep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/scam-someone-knocks-on-your-door-claiming-to-be-a-building-inspector-or-a-county-or-utility-rep\/","title":{"rendered":"Scam: Someone knocks on your door claiming to be a building inspector (or a county or utility rep)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Although this scam alert comes to us from law enforcement officials in Southern Florida, it\u2019s the kind of scam that anyone living anywhere needs to know about.&nbsp; This particular scam involves individuals knocking on your door, saying that they are \u201cBuilding Inspectors\u201d and that they need access to your residential HVAC system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similar and variations of this scam have been in existence across the United States for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The sheriff\u2019s office in St. Lucie County, Florida, reported yesterday that several residents have contacted their county offices saying that an individual claiming to be a building inspector is knocking on doors asking to check air conditioning units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>He knocks on the front door, shows what appears to resemble a \u201ccounty badge,\u201d and asks for a serial number and access to the rear of their property. This is NOT a county building inspector. If someone knocks on your door in the evening stating they are a county building official or inspector, please call 911 to immediately to report this issue.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>A variation of the scam described above can be seen below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">(1\/3) A member of PEC was the target of a door-to-door scam yesterday afternoon in rural Dodge Center. A gentleman approached the home claiming he was from \u2018their electric utility\u2019 and that the member was overdue for a furnace and air conditioner check. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FiWjbyYtcc\">pic.twitter.com\/FiWjbyYtcc<\/a><\/p>&mdash; People&#39;s Energy (@Peoplesrec) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Peoplesrec\/status\/1130941750586105856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 21, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Source and cover image: St. Lucie County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>~ Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today<\/em><em><br>Follow Richard on&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/richard.webster.31\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Facebook<\/em><\/a><em>,&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rdwebster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;<em>&amp;&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/rdwebster54\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Instagram<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Similar &#038; variations of this scam have been in existence across the U.S. for years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,35,1321,8663,3079,52,2381,1328,2747,5576,11],"tags":[15437],"class_list":["post-24533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-courts","category-education","category-environment","category-human-interest","category-police","category-public-health-and-safety","category-public-service-announcement","category-recalls-and-alerts","category-scams","category-theft","category-top-news","tag-building-inspector-county-inspector-utility-representative-scams","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24533"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24536,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533\/revisions\/24536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acenewstoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}