IT CAN often sound like a deal to good to resist a smooth-talking operator offering to do maintenance there and then and on the cheap.
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But from local experience, it is too good to be true.
Just ask Calrossy Anglican School's business manager Hugh Castleden.
The latest gang of fraudsters with Irish accents cold-called the office last week.
"They just said they were at the end of contract work and we have some leftover product and we're happy to do it for cheap," he told The Leader.
"Brett Clare, our head of maintenance, had asked them for a business card and they produced a wallet of cash and they said they had no business cards."
Mr Castleden said the group had offered to seal the Simpson House carpark off Tribe St.
"It was just one of those funny things," he said after raising immediate suspicions.
"We rang the police and told them we've got these con guys coming to meet us in 10 minutes time and they said they couldn't do anything. So we just declined their services ... it was just a mutual parting."
But it wasn't only Calrossy a number of other businesses have almost been stung too.
"They had been to the North Tamworth store, he spoke to someone there and then Brett ran into three guys that very day who had been approached by them," Mr Castleden said.
In Moree, residents told police the men, who have an Irish accent, were in the area on Monday offering to seal car parks for drastically-reduced prices because they had finished work in Narrabri.
One Moree business owner was also threatened with violence when he failed to pay the inflated price for work after a cheaper quote.
Barwon police have said residents should be aware of tradesmen asking to paint, repair roofs and seal driveways, who offer cheap deals for "today only", ask for cash up front or pressure you to accept an offer.