Homeowners, beware: Bogus pine straw salespeople on the prowl

ATLANTA — Police across north Metro Atlanta are warning homeowners to be careful after they received reports of bogus pine straw salespeople gouging homeowners.

“You’ll have a couple of gentlemen come up,” said Officer Sean Thompson, spokesman for Roswell police. “They’ll pose as pine straw distributors.”

Thompson said the crews often tell homeowners they have excess pine straw to sell at a discount.

“They’ll put maybe one or two bales down and then come back and say, ‘actually we need to use more, so now we need more money’ and they’ll become aggressive.”

Thompson said in some cases, the suspects will exponentially increase the price of the bales after putting them down.

Milton police told Channel 2′s Mike Petchenik they stopped one crew and warned them not to come back, and Roswell has an ordinance prohibiting soliciting without a permit.

“If you have a ‘No Soliciting’ sign on your property, they shouldn’t be coming on your property,” said Thompson. “If you tell them to leave, they have to immediately leave.”

Neighbors told Petchenik scammers anger them.

“That’s terrible,” said Jill Jacobsen. “They’re just taking advantage of people.”

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