Two men scam Walsall pensioner out of £200 pretending to be garden workers

Arriving in a silver pick-up, the suspected conmen let themselves in to the woman's house after coming through the side gate at around 10.30am on Wednesday, telling her they were working on a plot of land near her garden, and needed to hire a skip.

She described the eldest of the pair introducing himself as 'Steve', and said that both showed her fake ID badges.

Now her daughter, Marilyn Sambrook, wants to warn others.

Describing the incident, Marilyn said: "My mum lives on her own and is fully independent. There's a patch of land near her garden which belongs to neighbours, who are good people and maintain the land extremely well, they have it well protected, fenced and gated off.

"The men must have seen this land from the road, thought it was easy pickings, and took advantage of that. They pretended that they were going to be doing some work on it and replace the fencing, which they needed a skip for.

"They said all they needed my mum to do was pay £200 for a skip, and she believed them. While they were talking to her, one of them even went over and pulled on a branch to try and make it more believable.

"These people are very clever, and as you get older you might get more gullible to these things. They even had lanyards on, and were complimenting her on how clean her house is."

Marilyn is warning others to lock their gates and doors.

"These people will travel around, I'm sure they will visit Aldridge, Great Barr, Walsall, even Streetly and target vulnerable people."

Mrs Wills was not injured during the incident, but her daughter worries it 'could have been a lot worse.'

The police have been approached for comment.