The Monroe Police Department is warning residents of a home improvement scam.  They urge people to be aware of chimney repair scams that often begin with an unsolicited phone call offering a great deal. If the victim is interested in their services, the scammer will go to the victims house for an inspection and find a number of "additional issues." 

They will then try to scare the victim into agreeing to costly or unnecessary repairs by citing fire hazards, carbon monoxide dangers, loose bricks and more. Monroe Police officials say they often do the "repairs" without seeking permits and its shoddy or unnecessary work. 

The victims usually have to call a legitimate company to fix the work that scammers did. 

With home improvement season, Monroe Police are also warning residents of driveway paving scams.  The scammer will show up unsolicited with dump trucks, rollers and spray equipment offering a great deal, but most cases there is no site preparation, the material is applied very thin, and they often use "cold patch" which is designed to be used as a temporary repair job for pot holes. 

Once the job is done they will try to inflate the price by telling the victims they had to use more materials than they anticipated. 

Monroe Police called on homeowners not to agree to work on the spot that they weren't seeking to have done in the first place, and to check the track record of a company before employing them.