The professional “Repair Scammers” that go door to door looking for fix-up jobs are using kids for their scams.
Lets say you have a fence that needs some repairs. The scammers will pull up to your home with two guys and about three or four kids in a pickup truck. They will point out the needed repairs to your fence, and say since they were just up the street doing another fence repair they could do yours for just $40, plus supplies. You know that is a good price and most handymen would charge more. So you agree, and they say they will drive up to the Lows or Home Depot and get the needed wood and nails and paint and you can keep the left over supplies.
They say the supplies will cost about $100. You give them the $100, and they say they will leave the kids as a deposit until they get back with supplies. Sound reasonable. Off they go with your $100 and the kids stay in your front yard. They drive around the block and park. The kids ask if they can use the bathroom. While one kid is making sounds in your bathroom like he is using it, the other kids are looting your home of anything of value. Then the kids come out and simply walk away. They meet up with their father about a block away and off they go with not only your $100 but also some valuable from your home.
I watched some of the scammer kids in action at a restaurant I owned in Houston, Texas. While their parents argued over a dinner bill at the cashier stand their six kids dashed through the restaurant and picked up almost everything that was not glued or nailed down. They sweep the tables for tips and salt and peppershakers and then they got pictures off the walls and even all the toilet paper from both bathrooms. Each child carried a large black tot bag they filled. The kids dashed out the restaurant door and disappeared into the darkness. The parents quickly paid the bill and said the kids were not theirs and they left. By the time police arrived they were long gone.