Our friends over in Sherwood Forest have alerted us to a pine straw scam with potentially aggressive scammers, so please be aware.
Typically, an unmarked truck with two or three younger males will approach your home about putting out pine straw at a good price (typical is $5-6 per bale; they will offer around $3.50 per bale instead). Sometimes the vehicle will have out of state plates.
They will put down just a few bales and sometimes say they laid 5-6 times the number of bales actually put out. They will offer to show you the strings from the bales as proof they laid the pine straw. In most cases, they will say they have left-over pine straw from a job they just completed.
In one case, the homeowner agreed to 80 bales at $3.50 per bale. They worked about 20 minutes and said they had laid 80 bales when they actually put out 10-15. When the homeowner complained, they got very aggressive.
There seems to be several groups operating throughout Atlanta, although one case mentioned a white Dodge truck with an out of state license plate.
We encourage you to use a landscaper you trust or do it yourself.
As always, call 911 if you see something suspicious or illegal.
We also encourage you to loop us in by replying to this email or by contacting our Public Safety volunteers and our Security Patrol & Home Away Watch team of off-duty Atlanta Police officers.
Security Patrol & Home Away Watch
If you're not already a PHCA Member, consider joining today so that you can benefit from our Home Away Watch service.
Thank you to our PHCA Members whose dues fund our Security Patrol service that benefits ALL of PiHi's residents!
