Phony meter readers steal thousands from elderly couple

An elderly Wauwatosa couple was scammed out of several thousand dollars by two men posing as meter readers Wednesday afternoon.

According to Wauwatosa police:

The husband was outside shoveling snow outside his home in the 2500 block of North 72nd Street. When he went inside at 2:30 p.m., he found his wife talking to two men, who said they had come by to read the meters.

The men told the couple that they needed to go upstairs and into the basement to turn on all the lights so they could better read the meters. A half hour later, when the men left, the couple remembered that workers for the electric company had come by to change over some meters a few weeks earlier.

They grew suspicious and called police. After a search of the home, the couple found money that had been paid as part of the husband's military pension had been stolen.