Police target cowboy repairmen

POLICE are investigating more than 100 businesses in Paris who are suspected of running scams involving 24-hour locksmiths, plumbers and other urgent repair services.

In one case a victim had to pay a cowboy locksmith €3,131 for a new lock after locking herself out of her flat - an honest locksmith could have done the job with a sheet of plastic in seconds and for just the call-out charge.

Police say they get up to 2,000 complaints a year about such scams, which is just the tip of the iceberg.

They highlight the source of the problem as the leaflet that is slipped through many letterboxes listing useful local numbers such as mairie, police, pompiers and in amongst the list supposed local firms dealing with urgent repairs.

Jean-Pierre Bouchinet, of the consumer protection service DDPP in Paris, told Le Figaro: "At the moment there are about 200 businesses which are causing trouble and our inquiries are focusing on more than 100 who have been subject to three or more complaints."

He said the firms had a "colossal budget" for advertising, creating fictitious addresses to give the impression of being local businesses and fictitious father and son business names to give the impression of solidity.

Mr Bouchinet said the most common scam was to open a front door after keys had been locked inside. An honest locksmith would use a flexible plastic sheet such as an X-ray to spring open the lock in seconds but the cowboys would smash the barrel or even the entire lock.

He said scam businesses would also regularly get called in to fix a small job - such as a blocked drain - and then "discover" there were other vital and expensive repairs that needed to be done. He said one old woman had been billed for €1,229 for a blocked drain and then the repairmen had returned over the next few days to change the toilet, the mixer taps and the water heater and demanded payment of an extra €9,000.

Other scams had seen a €3.23 tap being billed at €204 or a €0.30 washer being sold for €80.