Cold callers

[Oopsididitagainandagain]

Tell me your cold caller stories! Face to face Scenarios or over the phone!

Today I had a very strange man knock on my door, I answered and he just stood looking at the floor - I said hello? And he started talking really slowly and oddly. He was foreign and obviously trying to sell or canvas something, but he took too long to actually get to any point that I said I haven’t got time (due to my child crying) and shut the door.
On looking at my communities Facebook groups, he’s been acting very oddly all over town and is apparently selling Educational books on behalf of a company and wants to come inside peoples houses to talk about it - hello global pandemic?! he only seems to be targeting those with children and has been seen looking in through people’s windows - I’m assuming to see if there’s toys lying around to indicate a child?
Either way it’s now made me feel uncomfortable in my own home and Unwilling to answer the door to anyone unless I know it’s a delivery guy.

 

[paigelemonade]

Tell me your cold caller stories! Face to face Scenarios or over the phone!

Today I had a very strange man knock on my door, I answered and he just stood looking at the floor - I said hello? And he started talking really slowly and oddly. He was foreign and obviously trying to sell or canvas something, but he took too long to actually get to any point that I said I haven’t got time (due to my child crying) and shut the door.
On looking at my communities Facebook groups, he’s been acting very oddly all over town and is apparently selling Educational books on behalf of a company and wants to come inside peoples houses to talk about it - hello global pandemic?! he only seems to be targeting those with children and has been seen looking in through people’s windows - I’m assuming to see if there’s toys lying around to indicate a child?
Either way it’s now made me feel uncomfortable in my own home and Unwilling to answer the door to anyone unless I know it’s a delivery guy.

Why would you answer?!

 

[lasttime]

I think my worst cold caller experience was when I was at my grandparents looking after my grandad, someone knocked on the door trying to sell double glazing, politely told him the windows where double glazed and he told me they weren't. Got rid of him then 5 minutes later his mate came knocking, same thing again. Double checked after and every window was double glazed. Other than that jehovahs witnesses that catch me off guard and have their kids do the talking, can't really tell a kid where to shove their speech

 

[Justhereforacreep]

We get loads where we live. My partner sits in a chair right in front of our new build huge window which we never close the blinds on and actively ignores the person ringing our doorbell trying to catch his attention to open the door
On another note we’ve never actually answered to them but last year I was emptying the kitchen bin into our black bin which is located out the front - so I opened our front door, walked through the living room into the kitchen grabbed the black bag and went to walk back out but there was a random ass man just standing inside my front door. When he seen me he mumbled oh sorry wrong house and ran. Moral of the story, I don’t open my front door and think leaving it unattended for 30 seconds minimum is safe anymore
Thank god I’ve a mini dachshund now. She tells me if a person even looks at our property sideways #fakedoberman

 

[Oopsididitagainandagain]

Why would you answer?!

I didn’t know the background of him at the time! I have a few deliveries waiting at the moment so I answer the door every time it rings And it was Only afterwards I saw the posts on Facebook telling people to be wary of him

 

[Pippa M]

I always ask for some sort of ID or proof they are from whoever/ whichever firm they say they come from. Most of them have nothing which gets rid of them fast !

 

[DCICassieStuart]

I never answer the door. I don't care that they can see me sitting on the sofa through the window. My husband answers it to EVERYONE and then moans about them afterwards. I keep telling him not to bother answering it. Thankfully he's listened to me during the pandemic, otherwise God only knows who I might find I hanging out in the hall!

Not a cold caller as such, but when my FIL was dying a couple of years ago, we'd been in the hospital with him all night. Got home about 5am and fell into bed. Was woken by the phone at 6.15am. Obviously answered it as it might have been the hospital. "Hello, this is Usman calling from Microsoft" I'm not usually so rude, but I ROARED down the phone at him "Oh go duck yourself from a height you prick" and slammed down the phone.

We've never had a call from 'Microsoft' since though!

 

[Oohthedrama]

Not door to door but I worked in a marketing Call Centre for 13 hours,
8 hours of training, 5 hours on my first day.

left after lunch. Nope. No.

 

[ChampagneBox]

Tell me your cold caller stories! Face to face Scenarios or over the phone!

Today I had a very strange man knock on my door, I answered and he just stood looking at the floor - I said hello? And he started talking really slowly and oddly. He was foreign and obviously trying to sell or canvas something, but he took too long to actually get to any point that I said I haven’t got time (due to my child crying) and shut the door.
On looking at my communities Facebook groups, he’s been acting very oddly all over town and is apparently selling Educational books on behalf of a company and wants to come inside peoples houses to talk about it - hello global pandemic?! he only seems to be targeting those with children and has been seen looking in through people’s windows - I’m assuming to see if there’s toys lying around to indicate a child?
Either way it’s now made me feel uncomfortable in my own home and Unwilling to answer the door to anyone unless I know it’s a delivery guy.

Are you from a certain town in Somerset by chance

 

[Uberrima fides]

I have a notice pinned on my door saying 'no cold callers etc'. It has helped. Also, if you can afford it, you can get doorbells on Amazon which allowsyou to see on your mobile who is at the door.

 

[Bogwoppit]

We have cold callers a lot around where I live, mainly selling double glazing, I tell them I privately rent my house but will pass their details onto my ‘landlord’ if someone tries to sell gas/electric I tell them I’m already a customer they then search for my address but I say I’m new only been with them a month or so or tell them I’m tied into a contract with another company & have to pay to get out of it, they piss off then!

 

[Platypusfattypus]

We hardly get them but my favourite was in 2008. I was having a homebirth with my second and my labour was staring to establish. There was a knock at the door and my his and went to answer as we were expecting my friend to come round. There was a man trying to convince husband to change gas company. Mr P said that it wasn't a good time as his girlfriend was hopefully having a baby at that exact time but this guy was adament he needed to change and that he travelled quite a distance to share this amazing deal. I was shouting "send him in of he's that bothered, I'll tell him to f off" as well as making a weird mooing noise. He soon cleared off. Baby was born not long after. I always wonder how much money we could have saved on our gas bill

 

[Oopsididitagainandagain]

Are you from a certain town in Somerset by chance

Absolutely not

 

[Rockin' Robin]

A family member of mine, fell victim to a phone scammer, which started off as a cold call. They were conned out of most of their life savings. What is even more dispicable, is the fact the the family member was very ill, when the phone scammer was fleecing them out of their money.
I have become very defensive as a result of this. I can be quite abrupt with anyone who rings me now. There does not seem to be any organisation, that will treat this like the serious crime it is. The scammers should receive long prison sentences, their actions have life changing consequences.

Sorry about the rant.

 

[chocolate choux]

I rarely get them as I live in a small block of flats. I don’t really answer the phone unless I recognise the number, especially if the location is somewhere I wouldn’t expect a call from. In the past I used to be more timid but at this point I’d tell them they are wasting their time

The funniest situation happened when I was staying in an Airbnb abroad. I spoke a little of the standard language but the country had an impossible dialect. Anyway, a friend and I were staying in a big block of flats and answered the door to a couple of cold callers trying to sell a phone. It quickly became apparent that neither side could communicate effectively with the other, and after a lot of persistence on their part they left. Next day, they came again. We all recognised each other and laughed. They still tried to sell their crap. Eventually they left. This happened for several days, each time they seemed genuinely surprised to see us again (before moving on to knock at the neighbours) so I don’t think they were preying on us in particular. Just so weird they never immediately moved on despite knowing we didn’t even understand them. A lot of people assumed we were native to the area due to our looks so maybe they thought we were really committed to pretending to be foreign

 

[LaurieLaurie]

I always tell them my parents aren’t home even though I’m a 30 year old who hasn’t lived with my parents for 10 years.
If it’s in public I say I live at home and don’t deal with bills.

I once had a pushy bloke from Virgin media knock THREE times in one day. The third time just to ask to use my toilet, I swore at him and told him not to come back.

 

[Sweetcorn]

When I was younger a man can to our door and my mum answered not thinking much of it (my dad was at work at the time). The guy was selling bunches of flowers!! I think my mum bought one as she felt sorry for him. Then he asked to come in to use our toilet and my mum let him. Luckily there were no valuables in the bathroom and he was just in and out and thanked my mum. He did seem like a really nice guy but you just never know. I mentioned this to my mum last week actually about how crazy she was to actually let him in (no matter how nice he was or how sorry she felt for him). She agreed and said she was just caught off guard, which I guess most people would be. Nothing ever happened or came of it.

Not cold caller related but again when I was younger (teenager) it was a really hot summers day. My aunts and uncles usually came over for a BBQ/garden party when the weather was good. On this particular day myself and a few family members were sitting inside the living room. A guy came into the house and walked past the living room door (which was closed but had some glass panes so you could see through it). My uncle promptly got up and went out into the hall way to see who he was. We had no idea who this man was. He claimed he thought it was his aunts house which made no sense, he walked right past the living room, wouldn’t he have known where it was? My uncle questioned him and asked what her name was or what her house number was and the guy was stuttering and didn’t know what to say. He told him to leave right away and we locked the door. We all thought he was maybe chancing his luck that we would all be outside at the bottom of the garden and not notice him slip in and out again. But again nothing ever came of that. Haha lock your door if you are going to be in your back garden for some length of time.

We don’t live in that house anymore but those two things were the only weird things to happen in 20 years.