Suspected Scam Artists Spotted In Hunker Borough

They'll pick a street - any street.

A phony contractor tells an elderly man answering the door that he needs a new roof, or the bell rings and it's a guy flashing fake utility company credentials. It happens with heartbreaking regularity.

"My neighbor, she called me - she said, 'Sally, don't answer the door because there's a dark car riding through town,'" Sally Stoker said.

That's the first she heard about it.

A pair of scam artists came to Hunker Borough in Westmoreland County last Thursday around dinner time.

A 79-year-old woman found a man at her door saying he'd hit her neighbor's water line and wanted to test her faucet. The woman, a cancer patient, had been napping and wasn't thinking when she let him in.

"I said to my husband, 'I can't believe she let them in.' I can't believe she... because she is spunky," says Stoker, a neighbor of the victim.

A flag went up when the man wanted the woman to go into the basement with him and spoke into a walkie-talkie.

"And then she told him to get out," Stoker said.

The feisty lady actually said, "Get your (blank) outta my house!"

"And luckily for her that worked," says Pennsylvania State Trooper Steve Limani. "She was in a situation that was very dangerous."

Trooper Steve Limani says they are looking for a man with a possible Hispanic accent, 5-feet 8-inches to 5-feet 10-inches tall, wearing a tan winter jacket, work pants and a baseball cap. He left the scene in a smaller dark-colored pickup truck.

"The thing that concerns me is I worry what was their intention when they were in that house."

The trooper asks that no one tempt fate.

"For all your viewers, please, if someone comes knocking at your door - don't answer the door - don't just open up for a stranger," Limani said.