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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Just to warn you all. Last night a man rang my door bell and asked if I had "received the paper work about the local telephone exchange being upgraded?" Then he asked if I had a landline. This sounded familiar to me from doorstep scam discussions on HoL - thank you HoL for a true community service - so I got rid of him quickly. I presume it is some kind of phone selling scam. I would not have answered the door if I hadn't been expecting a friend. I live on Beresford.

Tags for Forum Posts: scam

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Unsolicited communications (phone/doorstep) from strangers normally share one thing in common: effrontery. They often start off with a question, without introducing themselves. The safest thing is to ignore whatever they say, especially if its a question, and before anything else, establish exactly who they are and who they represent.

Utilities salesmen and women are proably the worst offenders (e.g. "I'm from the phone/electricity company" – they often try to imply or suggest they represent the company with which you already have a billing relationship)

I relish giving bollockings to such types. I informed one such salesman that he had been misleading (about who he represented and what he was doing). He countered by saying it wasn't misleading. I bellowed at him, "If I say its misleading, it is misleading!". He got the idea that a sale was unlikely and he withdrew ...

Thanks for posting this, I had the same one yesterday. He had no ID and asked a vague question about my phone and was it a landline. I wasn't sure if he was trying to sell me something or checking to see who was home, he went from door to door making notes on a scrap of paper and wasn't carrying any leaflets/ briefcase or anything to back up his vague story.

Hi Josephine, thanks for letting us know. Isn't it better to quickly answer the door anyway, though - we also hear a lot about burglars checking if we are in or not.....

 

I've had a number of weird people come around recently too including someone who claimed to be a builder and wanted to repair some broken tiles in my front garden immediately for "only" £25. Or maybe he was just an unemployed person desperate for work, I don't know. I told him to give me his business card as I didn't have £25 on me anyway and needed to discuss with my husband - he said he had no cards with him and appeared to lose interest immediately...

Oh yes I agree best to answer when people call so they know you are in. I meant I would have picked up the entryphone but not opened the door. Thanks for your replies. Good point Clive about a question as an opening gambit tactic.
We never seem to have strange visitors in the Gardens (or at least we don't) it sounds like a real problem on the ladder roads. I think you lot should start making it known to these idiots that you're onto them, the last thing you want is a vulnerable person opening the door to one of these low lifes.

We had the telephone bloke the other night, very well dressed bloke. Asked me about my talk talk line, I said we have Virgin and that was it, he left?

 

Also a lady on Thursday night pleading with me that she needed to get back to Colchester and needed some.....SLAM....the door went.

Ah, we had her last Wednesday...
We had him (the telephone exchange man) in Beresford on Thursday night. We think that he is trying to work out who everyone is with so that whichever company he is working for can then come round with a 'better' offer.
Has anyone reported these incidents to the Police?
I had the same experience on the door as well.  The one I had was trying to convince me that the Internet was now free.
Same here, on Pemberton. I got flustered, I always do now since I accidentally slammed the door on the real meter man a while ago. Seems like I get someone weird calling at least once every few weeks here (I guess I'm including the numerous folk who try to convert me) and I really hate the sound of my doorbell these days. Oh and the guy who told me the internet was free was still on the street an hour or so later when I went to the shops, he was leaning on my neighbour's wall to write something on a bit of paper.
We had him last Friday twice in one day.  First experience he got flustered when I asked what he wanted.  He started to go on about telephone lines and I stated that I wasn't interested.  He had no identification and at one stage looked over his shoulder to a guy in a still running car across the street.  This made me nervous so I told him to leave.  He asked if he could come back later to which I responded - come back and I'll call the police.  2 hours later he came back forgetting that he had already been to my address.  Apart from the running car following him (probably for a quick get-away in the event of police being called) I also saw him making notes in front of my next door neightbour.  When I tapped on the window and told him to move on he ran away.. be wary people.

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