The Twins' Story

"I’ve worked in Trading Standards for about 14 years. One of the worst cases I’ve seen is of a Doorstep criminal cold calling twins. They lived next door to one another but in the same house. And they were 84. The Doorstep criminal repeatedly cold called them, and did £19,000 worth of work, or that’s what he told them it was.

We actually found out that it was only worth £1,000. We went out as Trading Standards and intervened and actually got all the cheques cancelled and got all their money back. But a couple of days later the criminal had let himself in the back door of their house while they were sitting and eating their tea and asked them to reissue the cheques, which they reluctantly did.

It wasn’t until a few days later that they actually reported to us that this had happened because they were too frightened to. So unfortunately, they did lose some of their money. These are the sorts of criminals we try to intervene and stop all the time. And it’s also about educating the victims that’s it’s alright for them to say no.”