Getty Police cars parked outside a home
HGTV star Mike Holmes is still reeling after being confronted at his home by a woman who claimed he initiated an online affair with her. The star of multiple home improvement shows, including “Holmes Family Rescue,” called police about the intruder, who somehow made it onto his gated property in Toronto.
Holmes detailed the scary scene on the July 14 edition of his “Holmes on Homes” podcast, revealing the story to his daughter and TV co-host Sherry Holmes, who was stunned as she heard the story for the first time. “This happened not long ago,” he told her.
Mike Holmes Tried To Convince Woman She’d Been Scammed
Mike Holmes/YouTubeSherry Holmes reacts to her dad, Mike Holmes, sharing details of a recent intrusion at his home.
On the podcast, Holmes told his daughter and listeners that while he was out boating one day, his neighbor texted him about an “aggressive” person in the neighborhood who had put a note on his door and was heading toward Holmes’ residence. So the general contractor logged into his Ring app, which is attached to security cameras around his house, and began talking to the woman through the system’s speakers.
“I don’t know how the hell she found my address,” Holmes said, adding that he later learned the woman lives in the nearby Ontario suburb of Hamilton.
“Well, like, how did she get in?” Sherry asked. “She went by your gate and everything and just snuck into your property?”
Holmes nodded. “Right away, I’m going ‘Hi…can I help you?'” he said, explaining that he asked her to come closer to a camera near the garage so he could see her better.
He said the woman then asked if she was really talking to the real Mike Holmes and whether he was at home. The TV personality told her he was not home, but talking to her via his Ring camera. Holmes said the woman then asked if he recognized her.
“And I said, ‘No, why would I recognize you?'” he said.
According to Holmes, the woman then explained that a man on Facebook had reached out to her, saying that he was Mike Holmes from HGTV, and needed her to send him $50. Despite thinking it was likely a scam, the woman said she sent the money anyway.
From that point, the two got into what Holmes described as “somewhat of an intimate relationship,” explaining that the man would send her blurry videos, still claiming to be the HGTV personality, frequently apologizing for having such bad technology.
“‘I love you,’ he’s telling her,” Holmes said, as his daughter Sherry reacted with shock. “I’m not kidding, this went really over the deep end. She sensed it wasn’t right. She wanted to check, she got to my house, and I said ‘This is not me.'”
Holmes Did ‘Everything’ He Could To Shut Down the Scammer
Fortunately, Holmes was able to diffuse the situation and get the woman to leave his property. But, he said, “when she left my house, I’m quite confident that she still wasn’t sure” that she’d been scammed.
“That’s insane,” Sherry said, adding that it was somewhat understandable, given that the woman couldn’t see Holmes’s face as he was talking to her — just like in the videos she thought he’d been on.
“We got his phone number, we got a second phone number, we called the police,” Holmes said. We did everything we could to shut this guy down.”
Holmes encouraged listeners to reach out directly to his company, via the Make It Right website, if they ever think they’ve been scammed by someone pretending to be him.