Been up our road twice today. I don’t begrudge someone trying to earn a crust but a lot of our neighbours (us included) have “no cold called signs” that are totally ignored. Even if you were offering something I need,I wouldn’t buy it from someone that can’t understand a polite request.

It’s not helped by our road being targeted by outright thieves that have gained entry and stolen money. The road is half social housing bungalows for the elderly and so the street seems to attract the down right villianous types so it’s just best to assume them all to be.

Small rant over.

If something can only be sold by cold calling and invading my
privacy, it’s 100% guaranteed to be not worth buying.

Our street has a WA group and as soon as they start at the top, everyone else already knows they’re coming and doesn’t answer the door…

@footflaps. You could have so much more fun than that. Get each house to cordially invite them in, keep them talking for as long as humanly possible and then politely show them the door without buying.

They’d soon stop coming to your road…

They were up our road again tonight, the same 3 guys. Politely lost my rag a little, only verbally mind you. No, I’m not proud of myself.

Claimed to be from Uswitch. Do Uswitch cold call?

I suspect the fact they went up the same street 3 times means they are likely not scammers but who knows?

Theyre lonely and just ant a chat, invite them in to watch a movie or just to chat, after pointing out youve just come out of self isolation and are lonely and would appreciate some comapny

If they are from Uswitch, perhaps you could ask them why, if the website is suggesting now is not really a good time to switch ‘cos there aren’t any good deals around (which it is indeed, I just looked), they are out going against their own advice?

Fat lot of good it’ll do them if they come to my door, I’m away from home for twelve hours a day.

You could have so much more fun than that. Get each house to cordially invite them in, keep them talking for as long as humanly possible and then politely show them the door without buying

And if they are burglars checking out your security this would speed things along.

A power company would only be cold calling if you have been notified prior, tell them you have contacted the police and watch what happens, and take their reg number..that will be parked 2 streets away.

Fat lot of good it’ll do them if they come to my door, I’m away from home for twelve hours a day

They come twice at different times to check that.

Uswitch don’t cold call.

Currently anyone switching would cause a loss for the energy company as the wholesale price of gas is much greater than the cap on energy bills, so no one is looking for new customers at the moment – which makes me think they’re just scouting houses for distraction burglaries etc.

Uswitch don’t cold call.

A handy question I learned after many “we’re calling from O2…” calls is,

Are you calling from O2, or are you calling on behalf of O2?

Ten times out of ten, it was some random third-party bullshit reseller who thought that lying to me in their opening sentence was a great way to start a business relationship.

Shell Energy were mithering folk outside Morrisons today.

From experience doing this one summer at uni, these door to door sellers for utilities are almost certainly employed by one or other part of Cobra Group / DS Max, who offer this a service to utility companies for a fixed campaign cost.

As much as it’s frustrating to you, PLEASE don’t give them a hard time – they’re commission only, generally quite vulnerable and have been exploitatively tricked into a very shady MLM style setup with false income promises – and it can be very hard to get out. Just politely decline.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cobra_Group

https://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/money-opinion/p-s-investigates/just-6-for-eight-days-cobra-533256.amp

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19701

I once worked for a subsidiary of Cobra. Didn’t know I was Self-employed until I asked about expensing my bus fare.

Only bothered with it for 2 weeks.

Ha I did an “interview and trial day” with cobra a month out of uni. Followed some mug around housing estates for 4 hours trying to flog sky or insurance or something of the like before I just walked off. Was advertised as a legit marketing job.

He did his absolute best to avoid saying they were self employed for the whole day and talked more about how one of the managers just got their own helicopter and that would be him in 3 years….

I once worked for a subsidiary of Cobra. Didn’t know I was Self-employed until I asked about expensing my bus fare.

Only bothered with it for 2 weeks.

“Character building experience” 🤣🤣 Absolute shit show of a company and I do genuinely feel for the people who get snared.

and talked more about how one of the managers just got their own helicopter and that would be him in 3 years….

Livin the dream.

Anything that requires knocking on my door or stopping me in a shopping centre/on the street to tell me about is obviously something I don’t want/need. I’d be shopping for it if I did

I just say, “do you have faith?”