A con artist who goes house-to-house claiming he has been in a car accident and needs money, picked the wrong person to scam when he knocked on Darlene Browning's door last month.
The 70-year-old Coquitlam resident is a long time Block Watch captain, a member of Citizen Crime Watch and a Community Police Station volunteer. She recognized the man immediately from a photo she had seen of him at the station and informed him that she knew what he was up to.
"I said 'I know exactly who you are,'" she told The Tri-City News on Monday. "But he wouldn't leave."
The man pressed on with his story, claiming that a neighbour had told him to come to Browning's door and that she would be able to give him $18.50.
His hands were moving around erratically and Browning eventually closed the door on him and called the police. When a Coquitlam RCMP officer who was patrolling the area caught up with the man down the road, he was arrested on an outstanding warrant.
A week after the incident Browning was working at the Community Police Station when a man who lives in the Como Lake area claimed he had been scammed. He had managed to take a photo of the suspect, who was the same man that had been arrested near Browning's house the week before.
"I was so happy when they picked him up," she said. "I was so happy until I heard last week he was at it again. I just shook my head."
Browning said the man is clean cut and well spoken and she can understand how some people might be convinced by his story.
"It's been going on for years," she said. "It bothers me that people are so naive... I would just like him to stop."
Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Jamie Chung said as long as the man is not threatening people or assaulting them when he asks for the money, there is little police can do. Officers were only able to apprehend him because he had unrelated warrants from Vancouver Island.
However, people should continue to phone the police when they believe they have been the victim of a scam so that investigators are able to keep tabs on the man, Chung said.
"It's annoying but there is no crime," he said. "We do encourage people to keep calling. The more files we have on him, that puts us in a better position to come up with a long strategy on how to deal with the problem."
Chung added that people should not give the man money, which only encourages him to return to the area.
"If he knocks on 50 houses and gets $10 or $20, he will go back to that neighbourhood," he said. "We want people to just keep calling and we will be able to keep an eye on that."
