Scammers impersonating Leamington municipal staff [Video]

The Municipality of Leamington is warning residents about a scam involving individuals falsely claiming to represent its water services department in an attempt to access people’s homes.

Last week, six residents contacted the municipality over a two-day span, according to Leamington’s environmental services manager.

They reported receiving suspicious phone calls from individuals claiming to be municipal employees who needed to inspect their water meters.

“We are definitely glad these residents called us, because it wasn’t municipal staff that was contacting them,” said Shannon Belleau, adding the attempted scam is “very concerning.”

According to Belleau, Leamington staff would only visit someone’s home to install a replacement meter or address a detected leak.

However, even in those cases, the first step wouldn’t involve going to someone’s home.

“We would walk the resident through some troubleshooting options to see if they could locate the leak on their own. That’s why it was bizarre …