Very slippery slope...
Still the ring leader's mistake was letting the fake technician in to the house. It's a worrisome trend but anyone with a bit of common sense is going to be suspicious of any utility or service proactively dispatching a repairman to a home. I mean it's an uphill battle to even get someone out in the same week. Though most of the time you're simply told that there's a service outage in your area.
I wonder if the guy had refused them access if they would have stood down? Or would they have forced their way in? I wonder if the intended precedence is for hotels only and not private residences? Well they probably had no intended distinction.