TRADING Standards officers are warning householders to beware of callers offering to do repair work on their property.

It follows a case in which a couple in their 70s ended up paying out nearly £1,000 in cash for work which may not have been necessary.

Two men turned up at the home of Mary and Ronald Wolfenden in Dentons Green Lane, Dentons Green, on Thursday, July 27, and said that the flashing had come off the roof and needed repairing.

Mary, told the Star: "At first I told them I wasn't interested but they insisted and said it needed doing immediately as it could blow off and harm someone if the weather got worse.

"The next thing I knew they'd got a ladder. One of them went up and when he came down he said he'd fixed it. But he had a couple of slates in his hand and said that the slates were loose and they needed fixing too, because that was dangerous. In the end we ended up paying £950 and they wouldn't take a cheque they said it had to be cash." Councillor Terry Hanley, St Helens Council's Executive Member for Environmental Protection, said: "The Trading Standards Section are receiving an increasing number of complaints about roving builders. They prey on the elderly using aggressive and intimidating tactics to con them into having work done which they neither want or need.

"Trading Standards have difficulty taking action against this sort of trader as they don't have fixed trading addresses and although their victims have civil rights, the builders usually vanish once they have the money.

"St Helens Trading Standards are advising householders to never agree to have work done by 'builders' who knock at the door without an appointment and never to hand over cash to this type of trader."

He added: "If you do wish to have building work done, get quotations from a number of established builders who are either recommended by a friend or belong to a bona fide trade organisation."