Salesman

How to win customers, eh?

That attitude makes me mad. I have a 'no cold calling' sticker (with more wording and provided by the local police) on my front door and yet I still get such calls. But, apparently, they aren't selling anything of course! Sometimes I point to the sign and say 'no thanks' and try to shut the door before I get more chat, sometimes I listen and then point to the sign and close the door. But no matter how polite I try to be I always get some clever remark or some rudeness thrown back. Grrrr....

I was so fed up with a certain religious organisation calling, mainly on Saturday mornings that I had a video entry phone set up. I seem to have less trouble now that I am not speaking face to face. It was well worth it.

One of my aunts, just under 5ft with a sweet old lady look, used to have a very good line in looking at such people over her spectacles as if they were upstarts and addressing them at Young Man or Young Lady in that kind of voice. Worked a treat. I am cultivating it.

We are stuck down a country lane now so NO ONE ever comes......but before that we had the old 'Neighbourhood watch - we only answer door to folks we know' type sticker on. Also, I did have a sort of epiphany once that went something like.....99 times out of a hundred I will know who is at door because I am expecting them - also had a window near front door that let me have a sneaky peek, AND there is no law that says you have to answer your door....so sometimes I would just not answer!! Was quite liberating.

I often don't answer if I see it's a salesman. I didn't invite them round. Same with unrecognised phone numbers. I don't answer, but type them into Google Search, and they usually show up as nuisance callers.

We've just installed an answerphone so that we can filter out the non stop calls about the fault on our computer and all the car accidents we've apparently had! The number of calls has reduced dramatically

Where we used to live, we were forever getting gypsies knocking, trying to sell various stuff, always said no, but one time it was a young woman with a little girl about 3, she plonked the little girl on the doorstep, so even though I was refusing to buy, I couldn`t shut the door on her without hurting the kiddie. It was ages before she went.

I keep the chain on the door.

I'd actually be inclined to complain to Sky about this very rude person.

While spending two days last week scrubbing walls, cleaning windows, washing the insides of cupboards etc. at the house from which absentdaughter was moving I noticed a sudden invasion of people in the quiet cul de sac where she was living. It quickly became apparent that they were saturation evangelising. One pair of women walked through the front gate of her house and round to the side where there are large sliding doors leading to the garden. There they stood, staring through the window (not yet cleaned) pointing at Mr absent and me and giving me a feeble grin. I gave them my "I'm only the cleaner" look and ignored them. Eventually they wandered off and joined the colleagues who didn't seem to be getting much response either.

My cctv monitor is in the study and I can watch people coming to the door, I have found that the religious groups are the most persistent and will ring the bell many times just in case I didn't hear. I heard I just choose not to answer.

Have any of you had a sudden increase in the numbers of salesmen? I feel sorry for them, I really do, but I cannot afford to have my windows, soffits, fascia boards replaced and a new conservatory built, I do not want pumped air driven heating, solar panels or a swimming pool, a new drive or a new wall, and some of them are so scruffy I wouldn't want them in my house anyway. So I took the batteries out of the doorbell and removed the knocker. Anyone who knows us pops round the back, including the postman.

The bane of our lives are international calls that give no indication who they are. We think they are boiler room scams ringing to try to sell DH dud shares.

I say 'we think' because we have given up on even letting them start their spiel. As soon as we see the 'international' come up on the phone display we pick the phone up, say no thank you and ring off.

We are signed up on the Telephone preference service, which cannot stop international calls, but have noticed that we are now receiving more calls that come from UK based companies.

Whilst these salespeople are a pain,I have to confess I watch as they enter the downstairs garden gate and climb the stairs to our apartment (we have no lift) then tell them I'm not interested the look on their faces is worth opening the door for on many Sunday afternoon's my downstairs neighbour have been sitting outside with the required glass of wine taking in the scenary and chatting for people to climb up the stairs and knock on my front door and stay for a while,(they must think my dog would answer the door) only to inform them I'm not at home once they desend.

When my children were young we used to get numerous strangers knocking on the door of our remote cottage. It was a while before we discovered that they were all looking for our neighbours down the lane, who were running a nice little Take Your Own Pornographic Photo's business Don't think they qualified for an enterprise grant

Deedaa maybe that is what could be called a cottage industry

The final straw in unwanted 'calls' came a few weeks ago as I was waiting for the bus near where I.live A man came and stood in the bus shelter and then began a conversation about religion. I tried not to answer, but that was difficult. He was a Jehovah's Witness. Obviously I had no chance to shut the door on him and was very relieved when the bus turned up. By the time I was on the bus he had approached an Indian lady who was walking by! How low can these people sink!! ?

I answered our front door yesterday about 6 pm. There were two young people with Red Cross ID round their necks. I was friendly, but refused to contribute, telling them that I never give money to people who come to my door. The young man said, " oh well, we can do it through the window then" in a very sarcastic tone. When challenged about his rudeness, he did apologise but not in a way that made me feel he meant it. The two had just visited my 86 year old neighbour, who lives alone and I do hope she didn't have any sarcastic or unpleasant comments. I don't like people coming to my home uninvited, even if it's those awful cold callers on the phone.