AIBU or just gullible?

[wink1970]

Not sure if this is an AIBU, but...

We just had one of those door-to-door chaps knock, selling dusters, towels etc. He had a council permit (I think, a quick glance) and said he was ex-army (very bad facial injury, said he was a medical discharge).

So, I am a sucker for any ex-forces person or charity and on that alone I bought something I didn't need and had a chat.

DH was home & said afterwards that the salesman was probably an ex-con & we shouldn't open the door to them, it's encouraging door-knocking which can upset some/lots of people.

I think we should support anyone who actively wants to make a bit of money, regardless; at least he's not begging or sitting around on his bum.

what do you think?

In all likelihood, what he had was a knocked up crappy laminated badge with nothing to do with the council at all, and was part of a criminal gang, with dodgy goods bused in from a nearby town or city in order to con as many folks as possible.

At least, that's what they usually are round here.

I think your DH is right and we shouldn't open doors to them. Encouraging them leads to them knocking on doors of vulnerable people who then feel pressured to purchase something to get the person to go away happy.

meant to say, but you could contact the council and ask if they run schemes and issue peddlers / door to door salesperson permits.

At least then you'd know.

Your DH is right, in the chat you had he might have gathered info about you so you might be making yourself a target. You can always check with the council but it's really better to be safe.

Plus there's the ones who use it as a distraction. While you're at the front door, an accomplice is trying your back door. Scary stuff.

I don't think I'd do it, but I'd say you were being kind, not gullible.

I wouldn't answer the door. Like others have said, the goods are probably illegal or it's part of a distraction burglary.

I wouldn't buy anything from a door seller. I'm very paranoid about being targeted for crime. Even if it was legal, I really hate people turning up on my doorstep trying to guilt trip/pressurise me into buying things when I'm in my own home. Had a bloke a couple of days ago asking if I wanted to buy a mattress that he had in the back of his van! Probably stolen!

We used to get these visits. Always the same expensive cleaning things. The guys selling them would say they were either on a Keep Britain Working scheme for ex-offenders, (there is such a scheme but not for what they were doing ) or lads trying to earn a bit before joining the army. They had the dodgiest looking IDs they'd wave in my face.

I did buy sometimes as I felt so sorry for them, they were all from the north and seemed to be abandoned in villages around us in the rain to do the door to door. I asked one once how it went, they were bussed down South and slept in Reading for a while and then returned. Sounded grim.

However the wares were so sodding expensive and I bet the guys kept hardly any of it so I stopped, after saying no a few times and hiding in the kitchen they stopped knocking.

Probably a rip off but you were being kind and he would have benefited even if he wasn't ex-forces.

We had that once ben. A guy pulled up in a white van and claimed he was delivering for a local bed shop and couldn't find the shop to drop them off at. Asked us for directions to fictional bed shop and when we said we didn't know where it was he did a big theatrical sigh and said he was never going to find it so he might as well sell them and would we like one We didn't think fast enough to get his reg to report him.

It's a con, someone on here previously had warned people about it. One asked me for £9 for a pair of gardening gloves that I bought in the poundshop!