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This also applies to offline solicitation. Someone came to my door and asked me to sign on to switching my gas supplier. He said it is a supply chain change and
by riantogo 7y ago
This also applies to offline solicitation. Someone came to my door and asked me to sign on to switching my gas supplier. He said it is a supply chain change and will not affect anything beyond I getting a smaller monthly bill, still coming from PG&E. I told him that it sounds wonderful but this is the first I'm hearing of such a thing and I need to research online what it is about before signing anything. He said he has all the details in his paper folder and I can read it. I insisted on doing my own research. He said the deal is off once he leaves and it is my last chance. I told him, "so be it, such is life".
Did a quick Google search the next day and figured the process is legit but people out there have gotten higher bills than before.
Moral is to fight the human-interaction pressures and be adamant on doing your own research. No shame in that.
- stronglikedan 7y agoMy standard response to that sort of thing is, "Sorry, but my personal policy is to not make any decision without sleeping on it first." That usually gets them right to the "deal is off" phase quickly, since there's really no good rebuttal for that. Or they leave their materials. Either way, they leave me alone.
- grogenaut 7y agoYou can in fact close the door on people. This is also effective.
- pc86 7y agoThe fact that people even open the door to strangers with clipboards is hard for me to comprehend. If you don't have a badge and a gun, I'm not opening the door for any reason. If you have a badge and a gun, I'm probably not opening the door.
- jedberg 7y agoIf they have a badge and gun demand that they slip the warrant under the door first. Then call the watch commander to verify it.
- mehrdadn 7y agoDo they just wait around to let you take your time to go back and call to verify?
- jedberg 7y agoI don't know, never been served a search warrant. Obviously this isn't legal advice, but it's what defense lawyer friends have suggested if it ever comes up. I think that popular video about "never talk to cops" mentions something like it too? I assume if they don't wait, it helps your court case. They could always go with the "probable cause" argument, but again this can help your case if you can prove they didn't have actual cause.
- mehrdadn 7y agoI'm less worried about the court case and more worried about what can immediately go wrong if you look like you're stalling.
- jlgaddis 7y ago> ... this can help your case if you can prove they didn't have actual cause. Pro-tip: if they're at your door with a warrant, they have probable cause.
- eythian 7y agoWhat a weird, paranoid idea. Typically people come to my door for legitimately useful or appropriate purposes.
- pc86 7y agoIt's not paranoid, I don't think everybody knocking is coming to get me or anything. I'm just not interested in whatever it is they have to offer. If I'm in the market for a service, I'll do the research and reach out.
- eythian 6y agoThe only people who come to my door are gas people saying that they're going to be turning it off for a period/back on, window washers coming to clean the windows they can't reach from the outside, and similar things. I do want what they offer, because it's useful/important.
- sbarre 7y agoHe also lives in the US, where current laws and general social norms and expectations means there's a much higher perceived/actual risk to opening your front door to a random stranger, so it's less surprising to hear this.. This problem, at least at that level of magnitude, does not exist in other parts of the world.
- Nerevarine76 7y agoHave you ever lived in the US? You're statement is probably only somewhat valid in the worst neighborhoods. People don't shoot you in the face when you open the door...
- setpatchaddress 7y agoPeople come to the door in my neighborhood for only a few reasons: - to sell me on religion - to solicit money for some kind of commercial service, charity, non-profit fundraiser - to sign me up for political stuff And they do this several times a week (pre-COVID). So I never open the door to surprise strangers. It's not paranoia; it's just preventing the waste of my time and emotional energy. I'm not interested in worshipping a sky demon. It's not incumbent on me to figure out whether the service is legit, rent-seeking grift on top of a legit service, or a total scam. I don't have to figure out how to gently turn them down just to keep junk food out of the house.
- rfrey 7y agoWhat? What if it's a neighbour you haven't met asking you over for a bbq? Or somebody who noticed your garage door was swinging open and wanted you to know they'd closed it? Or OMG what if somebody needs a boost because their car battery is dead? Oh man, I couldn't bear it if I became that guy who didn't give someone a boost. Signed, A Canadian HN user
- cobbzilla 7y agoI’d hope none of your hypotheticals would require a “clipboard in hand”, which is the red flag GP mentions - likely it’s a cold calling solicitation.
- distantaidenn 7y agoThis really hit me for some reason. I’m a non white American, and not to exaggerate, afraid of knocking on a stranger’s door. I’d be quite worried if I ever became stranded in a white neighborhood and had to knock on a random door for assistance.
- jlawson 7y agoI hope you'll consider changing your media diet, because your current selection is filling you with irrational racist fear. That's not how the real world is. Consider lolc's comment below: "I once got lost in typical U.S. suburbia and the first door I knocked the guy wouldn't tell me the direction I needed to go but insisted on driving me there. I was conscious of being percieved as a potential threat in that situation. But me being percieved as a likely nuisance to be ignored didn't cross my mind."
- fukpaywalls 7y agoif you have a gun and badge, i'm probably already out the back door.
- reaperducer 7y agoIf you don't have a badge and a gun, I'm not opening the door for any reason. Then when your irrigation system has sprung a leak and is spewing water all over the side of my house, I'm going to go to the valve on the sidewalk in front of your house and turn off the water to your house while your family is trying to shower and make breakfast. That's exactly what happened when my neighbor refused to answer his door one morning at 6am.
- gpm 7y agoYou guys have valves on the sidewalk that anyone can just shut off?
- reaperducer 7y agoYep. They're metal lids labeled "water" that you lift up and inside there is a valve that can be turned. They're very common in most cities in which I've lived.
- chipsa 7y agoThere's usually an internal and an external shutoff valve. Inside is easier when you're working on things inside, but the water company may need to turn off your water, and they can't depend on being able to get inside. So valve on the sidewalk (or in the lawn as the case may be).
- mosselman 7y agoWhat do guns have to do with anything? Why would a badge alone not be enough? Why are you trying to sound so epic? What are you trying to prove? Are you the type of person who brings assault rifles to a protest to make some sort of cowboy-style point? I totally get not wanting to talk to people who are trying to sell you something, but if you are such a bad ass, living in your wild west world, why don't you try bringing up the courage to just tell someone at your door that you won't buy anything from them? Seems easy enough to me.
- msla 7y ago> You can in fact close the door on people. Hence the saying "get your foot in the door" for getting an opportunity to talk to someone.
- naniwaduni 7y agoHopefully ensuring that anyone who tries that just happens to subsequently suffer foot pain will work as a deterrent...
- rsanek 7y agoThough less socially acceptable. I find that to be the primary advantage of gp's approach.
- secabeen 7y agoYep, I have a standing rule that I don't buy anything marketed by someone standing at my front door (I will make an exception for Girl Scout cookies). Someone at your front door is interrupting you, and creating a power imbalance leveraging long standing cultural norms that you invite people in and are courteous. That may apply to neighbors and friends, but not to salespeople.
- graton 7y agoTrue on cultural norms. Myself I have found myself being rude and when I answer the door, I point at the "No Soliciting" sign directly below the door bell and keep repeating "No Thank You" until they leave or I decide to close the door if they persist.
- Swizec 7y agoAs an urbanite: Lol good luck. If you ain’t texting “here” , I ain’t opening the door. What’s a doorbell? :D
- chki 7y agoThis is exactly the reason why there are specific limitations on so called "Haustürgeschäfte" (sales made on the perch of your own home) in German and European law. For example you get a reasonable time period to rethink those sales without any charges.
- thr0w__4w4y 7y agoYes exactly (I've lived in Germany). And where I live now in southern California, thank goodness, it's actually against the law to "solicit door to door" (I think that's how the law is written). Before I lived "here", every weekend, guaranteed, at least 4-5 knocks on the door on Saturday & Sunday afternoon (combined). Trying to sell me something that I didn't need, didn't want, and often it felt like a scam.
- perl4ever 7y agoThere are limitations in the US, too: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2015/08/door-door-sales-and-ftcs-cooling-rule https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2015/08/door-door-sales-an...
- Taniwha 7y ago"We do not give money at the door" "We do not buy things at the door"
- schraitle 7y agoExact same experience about a year ago, I also passed up the deal and ultimately concluded later that it was legit. I then emailed PG&E telling them that whoever is doing this is training people to trust a random, pushy person at the door who shows nothing other than a badge and iPad full of content.
- jnosCo 7y agoThese people work on commission or quota, which is why they're so pushy.
- imglorp 7y agoThere seems to be a huge margin on those things, which bring all kinds of sleazy tactics for third party marketing companies. I had a call from a guy claiming to be from PECO (my power co) with a good deal to switch off of PECO. Indeed we do have alternate generation supplier options, but this smelled. So I asked him several times if he worked for them and he insisted. Finally i agreed and he wanted to route me to a neutral, recorded line, agreement gathering company, but he said it would identify as "xyz energy". Whoops, deal's off, fat liar.
- gowld 7y agoIt's legal, but it's not legit. They are trying to rip you off and they are lying to you.
- gazelle21 7y agoI have a friend who does this. Makes 6 figures, kinda crazy when you think about it. He waS getting close to 20 people a day before the corona virus.
- StanislavPetrov 7y agoIf someone knocks on my door and I haven't invited them over I don't even consider answering it. It doesn't matter to me what sort of uniform they are wearing. The same goes phone calls. I don't understand the obligation people feel to engage in unsolicited meetings and conversations.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago> I don't understand the obligation people feel to engage in unsolicited meetings and conversations. If they get you on the line, you're going to fight against a professional liar on an uphill territory made of cultural norms and basic politeness. Turns out disengaging from a conversation isn't easy. But how do they get you on the line in the first place? Like anyone, you probably have frequent periods of time when you have a lot of errands in progress. Maybe you've ordered a bunch of things on-line, booked a trip, just sent documents to your accountant, and posted your car for sale. Any of these can face roadblocks that generate a phone call. In such periods of time, you'll be more likely to pick up that unknown number calling in, because maybe it's one of the vendors calling with an issue that can either be resolved in 30 seconds on the phone, or 2 days via e-mail. For the bad actors (marketers), it's a numbers game. Personally, I also don't take calls from numbers I don't know... except whenever I run any kind of errand remotely, which is when they usually manage to catch me (only for me to wait until they tell me what they want, at which point I hang up).
- praptak 7y agoJust say "hang on a minute" and mute the phone without disconnecting. Waste more of their time than they wasted of yours.
- ganstyles 7y agoI do this to some extent. Usually if they get me on the line, I have them wait, then come back after a few minutes, then have them wait, pretend I can't hear them well, pretend I don't understand their questions, etc. It's a bit of a burden, but kind of fun. But really my reasoning is that if they weren't on the phone with me, someone who won't fall for their scam, they would be on the phone with someone more likely to fall for their scam, so better me waste some of my time and have a little fun than the next person losing a bunch of money to a scam.
- emiliobumachar 7y agoThanks for sharing. Questionable whether it's legit since they're apparently making false verbal promises of a lower bill. Hard to prove, yes. It's not right just because a corporation does it.
- exhilaration 7y agoJust an FYI, my town (in Pennsylvania) passed an anti-peddling / door-to-door sales ordinance to get these high pressure utility sales guys off our streets. You might want to talk to your city council about doing the same. At this point we can call the cops on them and the cops can issue a citation. I haven't seen them since the ordinance was passed.
- jimmydddd 7y agoMy town (in New Jersey) has a similar law. We have a list at town hall. You can ask to be put on the list. Salesman must not go to your door if you are on the list. Only problem is that charities and politicians are exempt from the requirement.
- jvanderbot 7y agoNothing is ever that urgent. If they insist on immediate purchase, I invariably walk.
- chickenpotpie 7y agoMy policy is before any time sensitive decision is to determine if it is manufactured time sensitivity, that is the company created the time sensitivity. I refuse to act on things that are only time sensitive because someone else decided it should be. Those are traps.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago> Nothing is ever that urgent It took me decades to learn this. I mean, to really learn it. Barring emergencies (like blood squirting out of puncture wound, or part of your house is on fire): NOTHING is ever urgent. You set the pace of your life. You speak when you are ready. You act when you are ready. Take as much time as you need to think.
- JackFr 7y agoWe would only put up our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve when I was growing up, and it was ever so stressful watching my father haggle on the tree lot. My dad: "It's worth nothing to you tomorrow." Tree guy: "You're not gonna have Christmas?"
- Moru 7y ago"No, I will buy a plastic tree for the same price and never buy from you again."
- mongol 7y agoThat is an excellent example. Who really has the upper hand? Depends on how close the competition is, I guess. And how close the competition is to their competitors..
- mcv 7y agoTree guy, you can have Christmas without a tree. I hate Christmas trees. They take up space I don't (didn't; I have more space now) have, and spread needles everywhere. And I'm Christian, so I'm not that big on the pagan symbols anyway.
- loeg 7y ago"Exploding offers" (the deal is off when he leaves) and other hard-sell tactics are big red flags in general, IMO. If I get a whiff of hard-sell it's an automatic and unconditional "no."
- sk5t 7y ago"Oh, do you need me to make an emotional decision? Right now? Hang on a minute--how do you think this is going for us both?"
- gbrown 7y agoI've been working on this over the years, since I noticed a tendency to just go along to make the uncomfortable situation go away. Just having a mental flag helps a lot: "this is probably BS, don't agree to anything."
- hinkley 7y agoPressure sales are an automatic 'no'. Saves so much time and energy, and you rarely if ever actually miss out on anything good.
- sharadov 7y agoI would tell them to fuck off and go back to sales school - these tactics don't work in today's day and age, they worked when information was opaque, you got the world's information at your fingertips now.
- RandomBacon 7y agoThose tactics still work for most people who don't know any better. Most people are still too lazy (even when you tell them it's so easy to save money).
- sharadov 7y agoYeah, sadly there is a sucker born every minute.
- Nextgrid 7y agoSpeaking of school, being aware of sales/marketing/scam tactics and how to defend against them should be taught very early on. I have yet to find a use for some advanced math school tried to teach me when I was a teen, while basic life skills like how to manage finances, deal with scams, etc are invaluable.
- RandomBacon 7y agoWhen someone tells me the offer expires when I walk out the door etc, I just reply "It must not be that good of a deal if you don't want me to comparison shop." I've never run into a salesperson that had a good/any comeback to that.
- jejunebug 7y agoUsed to work for a sales company, impulse is a textbook tried-and-true sales tactic. For everyone like yourself that decides to sit on it another jumps at the offer.
- rdiddly 7y agoThe ol' reverse psychology eh? I don't want this deal. Oh yeah, well you can't have this deal. WHAT!? I'LL TAKE IT IMMEDIATELY!
- r00fus 7y ago> He said the deal is off once he leaves and it is my last chance Standard sales pitch tactic: "manufacture a sense of urgency"
- triceratops 7y ago"I have to talk to my wife/husband/SO/roommate". Works for practically any decision that you need time to make.
- TylerE 7y ago"No." is a complete sentence.
- triceratops 6y agoSome people like non-confrontational ways of saying "No.". Sometimes you really do need to think things over before making a decision. "No" closes doors before you've had a chance to consider.
- TylerE 6y agoIt prevents weasley salesdroids from seizing an opportunity to take you to the cleaners.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- triceratops 6y agoPlease read what I wrote again. How does "I'll get back to you after considering" let "weasley salesdroids" take advantage, as long as you hold firm? If you're not the type of person to hold firm after saying that, you won't hold firm after saying "No" either.
- TylerE 6y agoBecause people don't hold firm. You're just inviting them to pull out another one of their lines.
- triceratops 6y ago
- dweekly 7y agoA simple "No Soliciting" sign can help ward off many such ruses given the further illegality of proceeding with soliciting when such a sign is visible. (This also may signal you are not as easy a mark and therefore not worth their time.) Doorbell cams + Nextdoor/Citizen make this even harder since one skeptic can poison a neighborhood.
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoPlenty of companies here that are like subletters for utilities; they claim to be able to offer you a lower energy bill because they buy up electricity in bulk, but when I looked into it it turns out that in practice they're only cheaper the first year. These aren't energy companies, they're marketing / sales companies. Anyway I went with one of the "source" power suppliers who instead offer a loyalty discount that builds up over time. I'm sure switching suppliers every year will be a bit cheaper in the long run but I choose reliability and convenience in this case. Also because the reseller companies tend to pop up and be bought up / merge constantly. Besides, it gives me some moral peace of mind that I'm paying the company producing electricity directly instead of a marketing middle man.