Lame window cleaning scam - Goose Green area

[se22cat]

A couple of days ago a badly printed piece of paper was put through our letter box stating something along the lines of "Windows cleaned - will return for payment next week".

Funny, and opportunistic as we had not asked for anyone to clean our windows, and they had not been touched.

A few minutes ago a white guy in his early 50s rang our bell and said he was here to "take payment for the windows done". I told him that we hadn't asked for this, and they hadn't been cleaned, that even if they had been he wouldn't get a penny (should have offered him a chocolate coated pretzel instead).

He then said "the lady who lives downstairs asked". Funny as ours is a house, not flats and my wife hates having her peace disturbed by dirtbags like this.

Anyway, he wandered off muttering to himself. Just thought I'd post a heads up in case you know any elderly or vulnerable people in the area who might get caught by this very old and pathetic con.

[singalto]

Thank you for the warning...

[peckham_ryu]

Did he have the cheek to say hiw much he expected?

[DulwichFox]

You could report to The Police Non Emergency line 101.

The precise legal definition of criminal fraud may vary somewhat by jurisdiction.

As a rule, however, criminal fraud involves a deceptive act perpetrated on a victim which was done for personal or financial gain.

So this Could be criminal Fraud. There Was a Deceptive Act involving personal financial gain.

DulwichFox

[peckham_ryu]

DulwichFox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The precise legal definition of criminal fraud

> may vary somewhat by jurisdiction.

Our jurisdiction is England and Wales Foxy ;)

(The Fraud Act 2006 applies, and covers this window licker, for what little that's worth!)

[landellsrd]

Entirely possible he got the wrong house? We used to have our windows cleaned by a family team who would clean them at some point and pop the note through saying they?d been done and the very nice older chap would come round in the evenings to collect payment.

[HydroSmart]

I run a respectable window cleaning business in and around East Dulwich I never visit customers houses without first agreeing by email or text message, after each clean I email an invoice directly to my customer and either accept card,cash or bank transfer.

Idiots like this make my blood boil, I hope you reported him to the police.

[dbboy]

What's the name of your firm, I'm sure lots of people would appreciate it so we know a reliable window cleaning business

[doogleflip]

Going by what the OP wrote, it sounds feasible that this could have been a mistake. If so it?s a bit harsh calling him a dirtbag and accusing him of fraud. That said, I wasn?t there so don?t know if he came across aggressive in anyway. Given that the OP didn?t mention that he was aggressive in anyway I?m assuming not.

[Countrlass22]

Sounds like he's gone to wrong property by mistake.

Not scam

[se22cat]

I asked around our neighbours, he tried it on all of them the same day.

So, in fact, scam. Reported the turd in human form to the Police, who will, of course, do nothing.

[ianr]

Did he leave the same preliminary note with each of your neighbours? When you say 'printed', do you definitely mean not handwritten?

[Pugwash]

If you attend your local police SNT meetings you will find that all reported crimes/concerns are mentioned and usually a spate of scams/attempted crimes/concerns occur in specific areas/ certain times. The police then have enough/sufficient intelligence to monitor the situation. It may be that a certain person was just released from prison and are back to their old tricks and operating in the local area. We are aware that theft of 4 x 4 vehicles are occurring in areas of ED but neighbouring areas of Nunhead and Peckham are also being targeted which police feel is the work of a particular gang/persons. Awareness of these different crimes/scams etc can lead to increased police patrols.

[se22cat]

The only Police Patrol I've seen in Goose Green in recent years is their pilgrimage to local eateries. Should get a council tax reduction due to zero service!

[Countrlass22]

Oh hell. OK.. That so much filling us in il be aware this guy

Hope the police catch him

[tiddles]

I reported a clear case of drug dealing on the police website (no answer from the phones)

Detailing location, time plus photo of the car and registration.

Never heard a thing.

[se22cat]

Just to be clear I'm not blaming the Police, it's not their fault and they can only do so much with their increasingly limited resources. It's the government and council that have repeatedly screwed ED over to the point where unless you get murdered you can basically forget any form of action from the Police as there's just not enough of them and even when they are able to investigate, find themselves off the beat due to the crazy amounts of admin work.

At least when we had James as councillor he actually pushed for some form of visible policing.