Is this authentic or a scam?

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

DM is 79, lives alone fine, but gullible. Also recovering from 6 months of chemo, and prone to brain fog.

She told me this morning that she has someone coming later this week to look at her roof insulation, which he told her is glasswool (it is, but that's a very common material for roof insulation) now out of date. He told her when she bought the house (public register info though).

He's promised her that the roof insulation she's got will be old and mouldy and ineffective, and the stuff he's flogging will cut her fuel bills by 70%.... and not to worry about the cost, she'll be eligible for a government grant!

So I've had a Google - I see there is a EC04 grant for people on low incomes. DM is not wealthy but I don't think she'd be considered low income - she has significant savings from the sale of her last house. DM doesn't know if the chap her rang her mentioned "EC04".

I've seen her roof insulation. It's not mouldy (not is mine, it's the same but 10 years older).

Should she let this guy in? I can't be there myself. DD will be there, but she's only 10!

I've just spent a month (successfully) getting a scam £280 charge removed from her phone bill. I'm very wary of randoms ringing DM up and promising the moon on a stick.

Websites like Zoopla show when a house was bought. I’d be very wary of this.

Do NOT let him in.

Roof insulation is a common scam there’s a warning on trading standards about it. I’d tell her not to go for it. Go through energy savings trust or equivalent and they can walk you through your needs and what you’d be entitled to grant wise. Then give your details to approved companies who will do all the paperwork.

Exactly
House sale dates are in the public domain via the land registry at least, and Zoopla much more accessibly.

If you think she needs her insulation replaced find someone qualified to do the job and get an opinion rather that hoping some random insulation sales person will turn up some day with an amazing offer would be.my advice

Can you get his contact details from your mum and either cancel or reschedule for when you are there.

Personally I think it would be best to cancel as there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong.

Failing that leave a note pinned to the door telling him is it is cancelled and tell your mum/DD not to open the door.

Even if it was genuine what's the downside to cancelling it until you can be there?

it' a total no brainer, cancel it

There are grants to help with things like that but she has to contact them and apply / they will say what she's entitled to. Sounds dodgy.

Agree with the above, if its genuine they won't mind about you cancelling to a more suitable time.

I would never get work done by someone who approached me wanting to do it, and would certainly not trust them telling me it needed doing when they stand to make money from doing it. Cancel, do your own investigation of the state of what she has, do the research to find someone reliable with good local reviews to do it - if it actually does need doing.

No, if someone turns up at your door its likely a scam, Contractors and trades people are full to the brim with work at the moment and knowing he has time to walk door to door would concern me.

Invite him in for a cup of tea. Poison it and wrap his body up in a carpet and drop it off at a layby on the first road out of town at 2am. That is the only way to deal with door to door scammers these days.

Ring him and say that either you or your dh (even if there isn’t one) will be there,oh and can I have your company name? Just want to run background checks-can’t be too careful. If he’s genuine (my arse he is) he won’t mind.
If mum disagrees say you wouldn’t be happy with a. Strange man in the house with Dd there alone.

Thanks everyone.
There's nothing wrong with her insulation. She moved in last year, it hadn't crossed her mind to replace it until she got a cold call. Apparently they'd been ringing her at her old house (100s miles away)./ away

Tell your DM not to answer the door
He has got his info from the public domain
She does not need new insulation and he is trying to blind her with science knowing she is vulnerable

.... posted too soon.

It wasn't door-to-door, it was a cold call.

She's very gullible. I don't particularly want her having strangers she hasn't asked in the house at the best of times. That's interesting @SherbertLemonDrop, that she would have to initiate the grant application.

She's told me the name of the "contractor". Their head office is in Bangkok and they are not listed on Companies House.

She's going to cancel and block their number.

Thank for that. She's a liability. 2/3 of my siblings (one of whom has retired!) are sulking with me that age moved close to me (I have the youngest children) and I have "all this free childcare" (they are 11 and 14, and no I don't), but they don't have to deal with her day to day battiness, guilibility and hospital appts.

I get calls like this all the time. I tell them I don't have a roof (or windows or a pension) but I do have an invisible friend called Hubert who wears a wig and lives on bananas. Occasionally one will ask how I know he wears a wig if he is invisible and I say that I can see the wig.

Stuff like this gets them to lose my number PDQ.