Colorado Con Artists Going Door-to-Door

April 7 2009, 9:42 AM

The cops simply call them "travelers"--con artists who spend the winter in warm Southern cities, preying primarily on the elderly before heading north to places like Colorado, arriving with the spring sun. The door-to-door scammers promise homeowners that they'll fix up roofs, foundations, or driveways at a discount, according to The Denver Post, but collect the money and disappear without completing the work. Interestingly, it's a crime some have committed for generations, learning from their grandparents, say state prosecutors, who note that people have lost tens of thousands of dollars in scams. In one of the more minor cases, a man and two teenagers were arrested over the weekend for knocking on doors and trying to sell pirated copies of movies on DVD, including "Hotel for Dogs," writesÂ the Greeley Tribune. And while it's not exactly a con, it may leave consumers feeling slighted: With so many big retail chains going out of business, people are discovering that defective merchandise bought in a liquidation often isn't returnable, according to the Denver Business Journal.