People selling household goods for charity door to door?

[jesska]

In Dulwich tonight a young man came to the door with a big basket of cleaning supplies etc for sale for charity. We have had a few people call before with a similar set up, and in the past I have bought some things just to get them to go away. It always seems like a hard sell and the "charities" they seem to be raising money for are always a little vague.

Tonight I was fairly abrupt in telling this kid I wasn't interested this time (and frankly I called into question the pricing and quality of his stuff), so I ask you? am I a just a citizen fed up with buying dubious charity goods, or am I a jerk? He gave me quite a hard time before we finally agreed to disagree about the efficacy of his enterprise, ahem. But I feel like I shouldn't have to explain myself on my own doorstep. I said I wasn't interested (perhaps not in the nicest possible way) but that should have been the end of it, right?

[uncleglen]

Yes, right. They are really annoying because if you have bought their stuff before they seem to know about it and really pile it on.

[The Minkey]

Granted it's annoying to have someone knocking at the door with unwanted and overpriced things for sale but the way I look at it, we have the good fortune to be able to close the door and return to whatever it was we were doing in the comfort of our home, while the seller has to carry on knocking doors knowing hardly anyone is going to buy. I've done some shit jobs, and I know how it made me feel at the time. The first time someone called round, and I declined to buy anything, he looked so dispirited as he moved off down the road, I trotted after him and bunged him a couple of quid. It didn't open me up to a flood of dishcloth sales people. I reckon they turn up on average once a year, maybe less. A firm but polite 'No thanks, really not interested' seems to have worked well so far.