article_snippet.sent: In January, an elderly couple in Devon were mystified when a series of dodgy tradesmen kept calling at an elderly couple in Devon home.
article_snippet.sent: The visits took place over five years, but the homeowners could not work out why the homeowners were being singled out.
article_snippet.sent: Following an investigation an investigation emerged that a rogue builder who paved the homeowners drive had left a code in a pattern of blocks to tip off other cowboy traders that the owners were a vulnerable target.
article_snippet.sent: The builder, who overcharged an elderly couple in Devon by £4,000, left the job unfinished in August 2009 but he created a squared pattern of different coloured blocks at the centre of the driveway.
article_snippet.sent: The residents had not asked for a squared pattern of different coloured blocks but thought nothing of a squared pattern of different coloured blocks until other tradesman began calling at other tradesman home in Plymstock offering to carry out work that was not required.