COOKE COUNTY, TX - The Cooke County Sheriff's Office is warning residents about a string of scams that have been plaguing the community. Sheriff Mike Compton says when it comes to getting what they want, these thieves will do just about anything.

"They pick targets they can take advantage of and that would aggravate anybody with any sense of decency," said Cooke County Sherifff Mike Compton.

For the last seven months a group of scam artists have been going door to door, primarily in the northeast part of Cooke County, targeting the elderly and trying to convince them that they need repair work done on their property. Sheriff Mike Compton says they can be real smooth talkers.

"They'll come in and in the initial part of it they'll talk religion," Compton said. "They'll talk anything they need to talk about to win the confidence of people."

And once a deal is struck Compton says the thieves will do a minimal amount of work and then demand a large amount of money, sometimes thousands of dollars, and they won't take no for an answer.

"Then they start getting pushy," he said. "A lot of phone calls demanding the money etc..."

"Compton says these crooks are bold. In one instance he says the scammers saw a man building a fence like this one for his elderly mother. They later called her, said they had built the fence, and they wanted their money."

"In so many of these cases we've got us just out right fraud," he said.

Compton says that they have 7 reported cases and there could be many more. He says that typically repairmen don't go door to door, so if you didn't call them, you need to ask for their references. And if they become aggressive, dial 911 immediately.

"We're going to put enough heat on them,' said Compton, "they're either going to leave, quit, or we're going to catch them,"

Compton says the they do have persons of interest and that they are locals.