A man upset that his attempts to scam a Waterloo Region resident weren’t meeting with success ended up getting police officers to visit his intended victim, police say.
Waterloo Regional Police say they received a call Tuesday from a man they say was making “inappropriate and somewhere threatening comments” about the prime minister and the federal government.
The caller gave police an address that he said was his. When officers arrived at that house, that man was nowhere to be found. Instead, they discovered that the man in question had repeatedly called the homeowners and spoken to them in Hindi – their first language – trying to scam them out of money.
The most recent call had come shortly before the call to police was placed, in what police believe was an attempt to intimidate the homeowner.
Police say they’ve had other recent reports of Waterloo Region residents being targeted by scams in languages other than English.
In one case last month, a local Polish-speaking family was contacted by a woman who told them, in Polish, that their niece was in trouble.
A man dressed in what police call “police-looking attire” showed up at the family’s home shortly after the call. The family gave him money.
Police say that incident is considered a criminal fraud, and the niece was never in any danger.
