Keeping up with home repairs can be a struggle, but hiring someone to do work only to be scammed just adds to the frustration.

Agnes Newland, 93, said that is what happened to her recently, and she is determined not to let anyone else fall victim to a man providing door-to-door driveway repair.

“I thought to myself, he is out there doing this to somebody else, and I’m going to put a stop to it so I called the police,” Newland said. “I could have tolerated it, but I felt like he was doing somebody else the same way.”

She said it happened a few weeks back when a man came to her door and said he worked for a Greenville paving company that wanted to expand into the Rocky Mount area.

“I said I couldn’t afford to have my driveway repaired, but he said he already had the tar hot in his truck and he’d give me a good price,” she recalled. “I asked him how much to put a coat on to cover all the cracks and everything, and he said he usually charged $300, ‘but for you and because it is already hot, it’ll only be $150.’”

Newland reluctantly agreed, but within minutes, the man — who introduced himself as Donald Collier — was at her door again.

“I thought he couldn’t have had enough time, but he had a hose on his truck and sprayed it like it was water,” she said. “I went outside and walked to my driveway to see. It hadn’t gone down in the cracks or the two or three sunken places.”

She said Collier took the check from her hand.

“I told him I was not pleased with it at all,” she recalled. “He said just wait until it dries and he went off.”

She went inside, and again, heard a knock at her door within about 20 minutes.

“There he stood and I said, ‘What’s the problem?’” she said. “He said he just wanted to come in and give me a price for putting this stuff in the holes in my driveway.”

Newland stopped him right there.

“I said, ‘I’m not paying you another penny,’” she said. “I didn’t like him. I could tell he was working me. I told him to get off my property. I was so proud of myself.”

She said that between her going inside and him knocking on her door again, the man had filled in the holes then knocked to collect payment for the unsolicited work.

“He went off so mad and said he was going to take (the patches) back,” she said while laughing. “I said he was welcome to do that, but he looked at the driveway and went on and got in his truck and left.”

She waited a few days stewing over the encounter before she called police.

“He was as crooked as a snake and I knew he was taking advantage of someone else,” she said. “I just had to let someone know what was going on.”

Newland described Collier as a clean-cut white man in his mid 30s operating a white work truck with a sprayer and black pavement sealant on the rear truck bed.

Rocky Mount police are investigating the incident.

“Remember, if an individual stops by your door offering unsolicited assistance or repair work, do not agree to any work by the individual or their company without conducting research,” Capt. Laura Fahnestock said. “If you do contract work, obtain an agreement in writing with all necessary information included in the document.”

Newland gave police a flier Collier had given her. The flier reads: Customized paving and seal coating; free estimates; licensed and insured; specializing in asphalt paving (driveways, parking lots, surface treatment and landscaping). The flier also listed 434-566-6236 as a contact number, but when dialed, a message says the person is unavailable.

Newland said she hopes other people her age learn from her experience.

“People are so broke for money and they prey on older people,” she said. “My doctor said they can’t prey too hard on me, though, because I have good senses.”

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 977-1111 or crimestoppers@rockymountnc.gov.

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