Door-to-door salesmen selling fresh fish?

[Soffit]

I was a bit taken aback by this when I opened the door as I live nowhere near the coast. The main red flag was that the price was the same for all of the fish £10 per pound.
This is a targeted scam, right?

My mum and dad have a man selling fish nearby ,they live about 50 miles from the coast

We get this in SW London and they are genuine and have been coming for years. Fish comes up from the SW.

Fishman comes to our village every week.

Definitely get them in SW London, thought lots of places had the fishman!

There are fish selling scammers. Fish is often poor quality and the price astronomical. There are also genuine sellers. Personally I probably wouldn't risk it.

It’s not a scam. You give them money and they give you fish.
The quality and freshness of the fish is another matter

We are being warned in our town that door to door fishmen are selling unregulated, un passported fish which is endangered species. Salmon is the key one apparently. The fish itself is perfectly fine, but these men aren't following the proper procedures which is illegal.

We have a fish man with a van that comes round every week. He has a very distinctive and loud horn he honks to let you know he's arrived! DD shouts FISH MAN when she hears it

It's really common in smaller towns and villages around here.

What species of fish are they selling?

Previous thread on this.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3252083-Are-fish-men-a-scam?page=2

Cod, haddock, dover sole, salmon, lemon sole, seabass and a few others - all at the same price! It's not like they were trying to sell turbot but those fishes are probably similar in price but surely not exactly the same?
I googled it and saw a horror story about people who asked them to 'stick it in the kitchen' and handed over their card for payment of around a tenner. When the fish sellers left, their kitchen was full of packaged fish and £200 had been taken from their bank. There was a suggestion that they simply buy it from supermarkets and rip off the labels. I have to admit that I never actually saw any fish but it may have been in a refrigerated van along the road. I just thought that there would be a price list with pictures if it was legit? The worse thing was that I really needed fish for a recipe and it could have worked out beautifully.

Ew.

Thanks for linking to the other thread! On balance, I think it is fair to say that it is more likely dodgy than not if it is a one-off (I have not seen them before).
I am actually so glad that I never fell for it as I don't think I could have eaten it and kept it down (I'm quite fussy about my fresh fish and I have just come back from the coast so I am not actively craving it this week).
I was also freaked out about the fact that he was staring at my rack (I was in my nightie) which is an odd sales technique which made me want to slam the door shut asap!

Not a scam but you have to buy huge amounts of fish which totally fills the freezer. I bought some then remembered DS is slightly allergic to white fish 🤷🏻‍♀️

My Stepdad bought fish from a doorstep seller.

They showed him lots of lovely fish. Then sold him a box of frozen fish saying that the fish he had been shown was identical to the fish in the box.

It's hard to tell what the quality is like when it's frozen and wrapped but when he defrosted it he found that it was awful. Terrible quality and you couldn't tell what type of fish it was.

It as not fit for human consumption It was a total scam.

You could have given it a try unless money is really tight. You could have walked up to his van, had a chat, looked over the fish, tried some, made your recipe.
Fish is expensive and driving door to door is expensive. If the fish wasn't up to scratch, then you could have declined any further sales.
I don't understand all this angst.

In her nightie? 😂

I live on the coast and had a fish van in the street.

The vendor wore wellies but I had a look in the back of the van and it was just insulated boxes of frozen fish.

Not "local catch landed today" as they suggest.

Could be anything from anywhere.

I am not in angst over it. It just seemed really random. It was on Saturday morning when most people in our urban village are either out for the day or gone for the whole weekend. That seemed suspicious. There was also a gradual accent slippage. It started off Cornish and ended up Cockney!

We’ve had these guys. I haven’t bought from them, mainly because my freezer is small and I don’t have room for a load of fish.

I also don’t give money to people who go door to door - so many people come and it gets relentless.

I suspect that there are ordinary fish men and scam fish men (the latter are like the teatowel sellers). They’ve stopped coming since we got a Ring doorbell.

"They’ve stopped coming since we got a Ring doorbell."
Interesting. I still haven't had mine installed. It may get rid of a load of undesirable visitors. I also get the newly-released inmates and the Battersea buy-a-dog-for-an-OAP brigade.

I used to have a really good door to door one with lovely fish from Grimsby

But more recently a rubbish one and the cod was truly awful if it was cod

I did this as a student and the vans were nit even refrigerated.... we had to use dry ice so God knows what temperature the stock ended up at by the end of the day.

I wouldn't buy any food being sold fresh from a van.

We have a fish van and he drives round our town once a week. Like an ice cream van!
But the fish are different prices etc and it's all legit.