Suspicious caller?

[Huggers]

Yesterday afternoon, Bellenden area, (30/7/15) doorbell rang and man with clipboard started (i think) to talk about 'engineering work in the area' - and when i responded with the usual 'we've done all work we want to do'produced a clip board and said he'd been called out to repair my boiler. He had our address but different name and phone number on slip board. We are so used to random callers, i am assuming it was scam to gain entry into house should off school teens or confused elderly answer door. On the other hand it could be genuine mistake, though i felt he was working very hard to amicably present far too much information ('oh isn't this a council house then?') and wasn't that interested in my suggestion of ringing the number on his clipboard (all hand-written)to find the real boiler customer.

White, male, middle aged, cheeky chappy. I am sure my yawning dopey seventeen year old would have given him full unsupervised range of the kitchen, so a heads up to let em know only to let in the expected!

[Jeremy]

Say - "yes you can come in and look at my boiler, as long as I can take a photograph of you, and take your phone number and car registration".

[JohnL]

I would so much like to have him ring the number.

Sounds more salesperson than boiler engineer :)

[Huggers]

But he backed off quickly, so don't think sales. And did a lot of theatrical sighing. Out of work actor possibly.

[Blah Blah]

If he was legit and at the wrong address he would have called the 'office' to double check the details?

[KestonKid]

Had a similar caller last year, white, middled aged, dressed like a builder. Garbled story about making a lot of noise while cutting down a tree in a neighbouring garden and could he come in and see if any branches were likely to fall into our garden. Knowing that there were no trees anywhere near I refused. He looked quite exasperated and pushed off. He didn't try any of our closest neighbours so am sure it was a complete scam.

[Huggers]

sounds very similar KestonKid. He wasn't interested in trying house next door or phoning up.

[stringvest]

You should inform the police with a description. My dad (in his eighties with Alzheimers) had a man knock on his door . He asked for ?3000 to stop his chimney stack caving his roof in ..... he didn't get the money, the stack was fine. Police informed.

[Azira]

Out of curiosity, do any of the people who have had dodgy callers have burglar alarms?

[Huggers]

Yup, he's got a very deep bark.

What we do have is old lady type net curtains,

[uncleglen]

Stringvest says his dad has Alzheimer's and was called upon. This reminded me of when a relative was unconscious in intensive care and I gave my mobile number to the ITU (it was written in a book at the desk) The only other party with my mobile number with reference to this hospitalisation, were the police. Immediately after this I received endless pre-recorded phone calls from personal injury lawyers and can only surmise that someone from the hospital or the police had passed my number on. It was so invasive at the time that I have become cynical and suspicious about the lack of privacy at these times.

I can't help thinking that our elderly relatives could fall prey to unscrupulous members of the 'caring' professions

[stevie23b]

makes u wonder ug