For being terrified after visit from Nottingham Knockers?

It's not the OP's phraseology, Read the link posted above.

But i thought the whole point is to sniff your tenner to discover how much cash you have hidden in the house before burgling you??!?

Much as I would be highly unlikely to give cash to a doorstep seller, hell should freeze over before I'd give them my card details.

Yep, they have card machines.

Nah. Like the beggars they will get one of those card machines.

I hope everyone who posted something mean has enjoyed feeling superior. I won’t be looking at the thread again (and will think twice before posting another in the future!).

Sorry to hear this but honestly don’t worry about it. People will always have a wide range of opinions on here and some will rush to tell you you’re BU or OTT etc - I’ve probably did the same on other threads 🤣

As an individual and especially as a woman, I feel everyone’s entitled to their opinion but I don’t let anyone on here make me ignore what my gut is telling me!

I decide the level of risk I’m comfortable with and my own comfort levels. I certainly won’t let random MNetters make me feel bad about feeling uneasy or taking extra precautions when I’ve experienced something.

You probably won’t see any of this if you’ve left the thread, but FWIW there have been posts since then supporting your view that interactions with these people can be disconcerting and unsettling at the very least!

Merry Christmas 🎄

They came round here in the summer. No reports of any burglaries but I didnt find it as straightforward as you suggest. I was put under a lot of pressure to buy rubbish and I found it disconcerting and stressful.

This chap suddenly appeared at the back door, which was open (out of sight from the road) as we live rurally. The dog was no use, fussing over him.

I didnt like it at all and felt ridiculous afterwards, for buying one overpriced bit of that because I didnt feel strong enough to challenge him on ridiculous lies. And that's what they rely on.

That’s horrible! You definitely did the right thing calling the police.

For all the people teeheeing at the OP or rolling their eyes when someone on MN (such as me) says they don’t answer the door to strangers - this is exactly why many of us don’t.

I’d rather not open the door and run the risk of that kind of negative interaction which would then play on my mind and quite frankly both alarm and disgust me .

If I know it’s a delivery person or postman of course I open up , but I don’t see any value in answering the door to complete randoms when I’m a single woman living alone.

Service people such as the gas engineer who came today book appointments in advance so I’m expecting them. Even my neighbours will usually text me if they’re popping around or I’d recognise them through the spy hole.

People can and do generally buzz up using the secure video entry thing and explain who they are before I give them access to the building.

If they’ve somehow followed a resident in and skipped the buzzer part that’s on them.

There’s no reason for me to have unknown knockers at my front door unannounced, so I will continue to not answer.

If it’s that important they’ll leave a card!

We've had them a couple of times and I've called the police both times, because I was worried for elderly neighbours.

The first struggled to take no for an answer and was swearing walking away.

The second just spoke right over me and had his hand in his pants the whole time. He was terrifying and quite aggressive. My husband had started coming down the stairs because he could hear something wasn't right. On this occasion the police did come out and I saw them patrolling a few times.

I'm generally confident saying no to sales people or shutting them down if they don't take no for an answer. But these were definitely not the kind of people you want calling to your door... or the door of your elderly neighbours.

It strikes me that the knockers must be on an increasingly sticky wicket. Many people don’t keep much, if any, cash in the house, so to survive are the knockers provided with very sophisticated card readers that manage to work perfectly every time no matter how poor the signal ? If so many people would be more worried that the card readers were being used to pinch their card details so would probably decide not to purchase if they didn’t have cash.

I predict that the knockers will fade out, like rag and bone men, knife grinders, onion sellers, the Kleeneezee man, the encyclopaedia salesman, and all the other itinerant sellers who used to enliven a bored housewife’s day.

😂😂😂

OP, people really don't need to knock at your door and try to sell you dishcloths to 'assess your house for burglaries'. 'Nottingham Knockers' make money by scamming you with shit goods at vast prices and a sob story, not by casing the joint.

If a would-be burglar wants to see if your house is easy to break into, they can see that simply by looking at your house. They don't need to knock at your door.

The only way I can think of this as 'casing the joint' is, perhaps, and giving all meanings the loosest possible definition, checking which houses might have a dog.

Knocking on doors and seeing if someone answers might be a way to check if anyone was in, but opportunistic burglars are most likely to just try the door to see if it's locked, dash in, grab things and dash out. Knocking first to check if there's a dog that might raise an alarm would be sensible.

Yep, anyone who doesn’t immediately agree that it was an immensely traumatic event is labeled as a keyboard warrior, harsh or nasty!

We are v v lucky to live next door to as man who is 6'7" built like a castle and has anger issues.
His standard response when opening the door is to menacingly say "Fuck off" at whoever it is.
As a result no body in our street gets unsolicited callers anymore.

If I was thinking of burglarising someones house or scamming them out of money I wouldn't announce to them I was an ex. con.

This is making me laugh. My ex was a Nottingham knocker for a while (literally, from Nottingham and travelling to other towns selling cleaning products door to door). He and everyone else in the group with him were just hard up and trying to make a little cash, nothing else. He has never committed a crime of any kind.

If all someone did was knock on the door and ask if you want to buy something, and when you said no they went away, then all the rest of this hysteria is just ridiculous.

I didn't say it was offensive. I said I resented the phrase "Nottingham Knockers".

Imagine the grief you'd get if this was called
The Scouse Scam or the Dublin Doorstep.

We get them regularly and no burglaries-even after DH once bought a £20 duster from them 🤦‍♀️

I now see them as a bit of a joke: I had one a few years back who was trying to charm me, when my moggy came into view. He’s big, but he is quite clearly a cat. Nottingham Knocker: “oh he’s lovely. Is he a Border Collie”? (And have now outed myself as I couldn’t not share that with all those near and dear to me!!)

Yes! It really gives you an insight into how people live. They're also not interested in examining it at all, not only replying to the meaner questioning posts as "judgemental" or "unkind".

The police disagree with you:
'The “sales pitches” can also be part of a wider operation to identify burglary targets.'
https://www.westmercia.police.uk/news/west-mercia/news/2022/october/beware-of-nottingham-knockers-selling-items-door-to-door

No one is going to make much money selling over priced dish cloths door to door so it's hardly surprising that there is likely to be more to it.

I don't know why people are being so bitchy to the OP, why not just tell her it's fine? People are always so desperate to feel superior on here.

YABU to be "terrified", seems a massive overreaction!

an elderly lady across from me had a man push is way in past her and refused to leave until she gave him money. She was very badly shaken.

They're often in our village, sometimes 2 together.
My dog hears them talking and knocking on neighbours doors and barks furiously so they never come to my house.