Trading Standards warning after reports of cold callers offering guttering works

Advice has been issued to residents across Wrexham on how to deal with cold callers.

It comes after reports to Trading Standards of cold callers in the area offering to clean people’s gutters for seemingly cheap prices.

The reports claim that the men, who usually travel in a white transit van, will knock at your door and show you a bucket of dirty water that they claim is from a neighbour’s property which they’ve just cleaned.

They’ll ask if you’d like your gutters cleaning too, hoping you’ll accept. More often than not, they don’t come prepared with the ladders or specialist equipment they’d need to reach and clean the gutters. Trading Standards says it believes that no work is being carried out.

The targets are usually elderly and vulnerable people, who live alone. The men demand payment, and will follow the home owner in to the safety of his/her property and take whatever cash they have. The men then disappear.

Trading Standards advise that if you’re not expecting anyone, don’t open the door. If you do open the door, say you’re not interested and close the door behind you. Never engage with these people on the doorstep, that way they don’t take your money, they don’t come into your home, and you’re kept safe.

If you want to complain or get any advice about goods or services you have bought please contact Citizens Advice Consumer Services on 03454 040506

If you want to report something you think is suspicious, please contact either Citizens Advice Consumer Services on 03454 040506 or North Wales Police on 101