BELLEVILLE, Ill. – A knock at their door.

“It gets kind of spooky,” David McFarland told FOX 2.

Two men claiming to be utility workers walk into a couple’s home, telling them there’s a gas leak and that they need to leave their home.

“Something like this that hits home it’s going to make you think twice before you open the door to someone,” McFarland said.

On Tuesday night on 42nd St. in Belleville, two men in a truck with flashing red lights and covered up license plates walked inside a couple’s home and left with cash and credit cards before the homeowners could tell something was off.

“I’ve never heard of that before,” McFarland said on Wednesday. “Some guys must lay awake at night trying to figure out how to screw someone over.”

Once they left, the homeowner called Belleville police and filed a report.

“Actually, it does surprise me, because everybody pretty much knows everybody here,” Belleville resident Elizabeth Dionicio said.

Dionicio has lived in the area for about three years. It’s not the first time people living on the street have been theft victims. Last year, Dionicio and a number of her neighbors had their cars broken into.

“(They took) money and credit cards,” she said.

McFarland’s lived in the neighborhood his whole life, and despite the ups and downs, he has no plans of leaving anytime soon.

“I’m 59 years old and lived in Belleville, and I’m going to live here until the day I die, so there’s nothing that scares me off,” he said.

Ameren warns people of potential scammers, writing on its website, “senior citizens and non-native English-speaking persons or those searching for employment,” are most likely to be targets of scammers.