Seniors duped into allowing men into their homes

Two elderly Wauwatosa women were tricked by men who posed as utility company employees to gain entry to the victims' homes.

According to Wauwatosa police:

An 87-year-old woman was working in garage in the 6700 block of West Wisconsin Avenue, when she heard a knock on the door about 1 p.m. Jan. 19. She answered and a man said he needed to check on her electrical transformer. She left the garage door open and allowed him into her home.

The man flipped a light switch several times. Then he asked the homeowner to hold her finger on the switch and let him know if it jumped around. Meanwhile, he talked on his cell phone for 10 to 15 minutes, and Then he abruptly left her house.

When she returned to the garage, money was missing from her purse and her file drawers had been disturbed.

An hour later, police were called to a home in the 400 block of North 114th Street.

The homeowner said he had left to do errands, but his 88-year-old mother stayed at the house. He had turned off the television before he left and his mother did not know how to turn it on, so he became suspicious when he found it on when he returned.

His mother said a man from Time Warner Cable had come by to check the cable connection. She let him in and noticed a second man sitting in a plain white van across the street.

A call to the company resulted in no record of a service call to that house.

The homeowner did not believe anything was missing.