News10NBC Investigates: Here’s what happened after a caller asks a reporter if he wants to sell his house

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – There are plenty of scam calls out there, but one in particular recently got News10NBC Chief Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean’s attention.

He explains:

First, it’s because they called my office landline, not my cell. And they knew my exact address.

When I put this out on Twitter, the responses showed other people got the call, too.

“I got a phone call from a number I didn’t know and I tend to answer them to see what’s going on,” Darin Ledwith said.

When he answered, the caller asked if he wanted to sell his home.

“So I threw out an outrageous number out there like $400,000,” he said.

“Was it Ideal Property Solutions? Does that sound familiar?” I asked.

“Yes it was,” he said.

Ideal Property Solutions is who called me, and it’s who answered when I gave the call-back number to real estate agent Mary Jane Mahon.

“So I then asked him if this was Ideal Property Solutions and he immediately hung up,” Mahon said.

She called back when I was in her office.

“I guess I need you to explain to me how it will all work,” she said.

We can’t broadcast the voice of the person, but I can tell you she asked for Mahon’s address and then asked for her bank information so they could verify who she was.

And that’s when Mahon gave a knowing nod.

“So this answers the question – do they really want to buy your home?” I asked.

“They had no interest in my home,” Mahon said.

I called the same number from my desk and the person who answered immediately asked if I wanted to sell my house.

I identified who I was.

“Is there a manager I could talk to or can I talk to the owner?”

The woman said she could answer me.

“I’m trying to find out why you’re calling people in our community, a cold call, asking to buy their home<” I said.

She didn’t provide an answer and hung up.

Cold calls are illegal in New York. The area code from the calls is Columbus, Ohio. There is a company near Cincinnati with the same name.

I called and emailed the listed owner and talked to a co-worker who said this is not something she would do.

There are other companies with the same or nearly identical name in this country. They’re aware of this problem because they say people call them to complain.

They told me on the phone they don’t cold call and have no affiliation with the calls.