Unsolicited want to buy your RV people

[jjrbus]

OK I am paranoid, I was not born this way it is an acquired trait. I live in a small out of the way neighborhood and the likelihood of someone just driving by and seeing my rv is rather slim.

I see people post that someone has stopped by and wanted to buy their RV and they are excited. I think they should be very cautious. I poked around the net and found very little on this so looking for some input.

Like I said I live in a small out of the way neighborhood in FL, in winter we get a deluge of door to door sales people from solar setups, roofs, windows. I no longer answer the door, if I am outside when they approach I ask to see their soliciting permit and if they cannot produce one I tell them I am calling the police. This past winter after the hurricane it was about 2 a week!

Anyway last month I had 2 different people stop and ask if I wanted to sell my RV, I am quite rude and tell them to get lost. Any input on this.

https://www.irv2.com/forums/f59/someone-tried-to-scam-me-329657.html

[Grit_dog]

^Lol…

Way better luck with a pair of used size 13 work boots and some empty shotgun shells scattered on the porch.

[Mayor30]

Put up a sign " beware of Dog".

[Chum_lee]

In all my RV travels, my favorite sign of all time was (in big block letters and in addition to a "NO TRESPASSING" sign)

WE DON'T

DIAL

911

There was what appeared to be a single live 50 caliber round hanging on a string inside the RV right next to the sign.

Next favorite:

NO TRESPASSING VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT
SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT . . . . AGAIN

Chum lee

[jjrbus]

msmith1.wa wrote:
I haven't had it happen, but it happened to my parents fairly frequently in the 80's. At the time my dad worked in the service department of an RV dealer. In talking to the salesman where he worked he found out that sales people from certain dealers would drive around asking people if the wanted to sell.

Happened to my bud Fred, they did not want to buy it they wanted to steal it. Probably a $10-$12K RV, they offered him $1500

[msmith1_wa]

I haven't had it happen, but it happened to my parents fairly frequently in the 80's. At the time my dad worked in the service department of an RV dealer. In talking to the salesman where he worked he found out that sales people from certain dealers would drive around asking people if the wanted to sell.

[jjrbus]

Grit dog wrote:

jjrbus wrote:
I have a camera door bell, I have a home security system which also includes the RV, I have a home surveillance system. I recently put a sign on my door that says ATTENTION, if you are not a friend, neighbor or making a delivery do NOT ring the bell or knock on door! Still had one banging on the door!

When I get the calls, I open the front door and ring the bell, then tell them give me a minute someone is at the door and set the phone down!

I do suspect that they buy lists of the elderly and target only us.

I’d suspect telling them to F their hat or pretending to speak an Asian language, or my favorite when the kids were little, hand the phone to a toddler and let them talk to “uncle Henry” on the phone (fun game when you’re drinking btw) would get you less call backs than some polite seemingly legitimate excuse.
What I wonder is the telemarketers now that even if you answer (in Engrish) don’t ever talk or respond. How you gonna sell or scam someone if you don’t try? Is it some other sort of phishing to verify the number is attached to a person?

Poom pood pasa thai die mi ****? My go to when I don't want to talk to someone.

[Grit_dog]

And not only are the elderly more vulnerable, not just to criminal ripoffs, but also legitimate “expenses” that are unnecessary or more economically handled a different way, many old folks also refuse to listen to their trusted kin or children.
Another example (my in-laws and parents of some of my close friends) of unnecessary money out the door. A dollar is worth a dollar no matter how you lose it….
They refused/still refuse to let their trusted daughters, either of them although they’re down to one, now, access and manage or help control their finances. They will almost assuredly end up broke before they die even though they reasonably have enough assets to make it just fine.
My mom did the same. At least she didn’t lose the house but she got herself completely ripped off. (By her own daughter of all people) She refused to let me help or even keep me reasonably informed. Fortunately for her (or not depending on your view because I would have wished she lived much longer) she died just before the money totally ran out and I was able to stop the outflow of funds with enough left to bury her and settle everything.

I’m saying this to make y’all think about this. Call it a public service announcement. I have no real interest in your well being, but if some of you need this advice, you and your descendants will be happy that you did.

[jjrbus]

An FBI report shows crimes against elderly was up 84% in 2022. Got me thinking why am I approached so much. So did some searching and found they are using tax records and marketing data to find elderly victims.

https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/nation-world/fbi-report-elderly-scams-florida/67-16658d62-9f94-46b...

[Grit_dog]

wapiticountry wrote:
If the rig has been parked for months, I can see why people might inquire as to whether you might want to sell. And if you have a desirable property, why not? The worst that the inquiry could produce is a firm “no”. One of the parks I owned was bought exactly that way, I asked the owners if they would consider selling and we worked out a deal that worked for both of us. Asking if something is for sale could work out for both parties.

Lol, of course there’s that 1 in a million legit person…..but this is about the other 99.999% that aren’t.

[Grit_dog]

jjrbus wrote:
I have a camera door bell, I have a home security system which also includes the RV, I have a home surveillance system. I recently put a sign on my door that says ATTENTION, if you are not a friend, neighbor or making a delivery do NOT ring the bell or knock on door! Still had one banging on the door!

When I get the calls, I open the front door and ring the bell, then tell them give me a minute someone is at the door and set the phone down!

I do suspect that they buy lists of the elderly and target only us.

I’d suspect telling them to F their hat or pretending to speak an Asian language, or my favorite when the kids were little, hand the phone to a toddler and let them talk to “uncle Henry” on the phone (fun game when you’re drinking btw) would get you less call backs than some polite seemingly legitimate excuse.
What I wonder is the telemarketers now that even if you answer (in Engrish) don’t ever talk or respond. How you gonna sell or scam someone if you don’t try? Is it some other sort of phishing to verify the number is attached to a person?

[LMHS]

I had someone come on my property and ask if a 4X4 truck was for sale. I said no. It was my father's truck, not mine. It also wasn't running. A few weeks later I left TN to drive 200 miles to my father's funeral. When I got back a week or so later. The truck was gone. It had been towed out of the yard. The Marion County (TN) cops wouldn't do anything about it. I figure it was someone who was related to someone on the force. A week later, someone tried to steal my Jeep. After that, I sat up every night for two months waiting for them to come back. I told one of my neighbours to pass the word around. No one had better come into my yard at night as I was sitting with a loaded gun waiting for the jerks to come back and I was operating on about 2 hours of sleep per day. At the time my husband was working 200 miles away and only came home on weekends. I would often load the kids, the dog and cat up and drive over to stay for a week and them come home. So the house was empty a lot and we lived in a rural area. I got to the point to where I made the kids stay in the car while I checked to make sure the house was empty and not emptied of our stuff. Needless to say, we sold the place after about 6 months. I simply could not sleep there.

NOW, I take a picture of unsolicited "offers" to buy anything. I also take a pic of their vehicle and their tag number. I really don't care if they like it or not.

[BruceMc]

Back in the 80's, we constantly got door to door solicitors. I created a rather large hardwood sign, 30x2x3/4" that stated in bold letters: No Soliciting. This was placed on the storm door, attached with velcro strips.
One day, the doorbell rang... and we opened the door. Noting they were trying to sell us something, I stated "didn't you see the No Soliciting sign?", No, was the answer... so I opened the storm door, and saw they had removed the sign and set it beside the door. I picked it up, and handling the sign/stick in baseball bat fashion, told them to get lost. It didn't take them long to scram.

One of the best deterrents at our current place of 22 years is a Beware of the dog sign. It's on the tree just after entering the driveway. Many people, including delivery folks, wouldn't get out of their vehicle, as they didn't see a dog... And that's the deterrent.
Lately, the only solicitors we seem to get is odd phone calls on the landline (yes, we still have one) from unknown/random numbers, who never leave a message. How rude.

[NamMedevac_70]

Sometimes they actually want you to give it to them for next to nothing or learning info for a later outright theft. Apartment neighbors once kept bugging me to give them my second older standby truck to them for nothing even when I said no and finally had to get rude. Thankfully the deadbeats were evicted and all was good.

I fully understand why others get rude and it is the self righteous who are the rude ones.

Cheers from the land of honey.

[Grit_dog]

Jjrbus, and everyone else.
I wouldn’t be paranoid but you have the right to be, because yeah, no one looking to give a fair market price or charge a fair market price for services (the solicitors) is going to knock on your door. Period, end of story. Same goes for mail, email and phone call solicitations.
There are enough people that are either desperate or uninformed enough that this is more prevalent than ever. And it’s 10x worse in retirement areas because you can add age degeneration to the other 2 traits that make people susceptible to getting ripped off.
My in-laws, as savvy as they used to be, regularly ask me or my wife’s sister about these solicitations, as if they don’t remember the last conversation we had or the 10 before that.

Period, end of story, if YOU aren’t the one initiating any potential financial transaction, then you don’t want any part of it. Wouldn’t think it’s that hard to remember or figure out for anyone who’s lived a pile of years on this planet and has at least somewhat avg cognitive skills, but it is. Some out of desperation and some out of age and some out of pure lack of intelligence. Don’t be a sucker…is the moral of the story.
I’m barely over 50 and get mail and phone solicitations semi regularly. Hoping my kids can keep me from selling the farm for $5 when I start hiding my car keys in my cream o wheat!

@Desert Captain, those mfers that trespassed would have been greeted with a shovel in hand, if they were lucky. So we live last house in the corner in a 5ac lots gated subdivision that literally is on the way to absolutely nothing unless you live or are visiting someone here (even though we’re smack in the Seattle burbs). You can’t even drive past our house unintentionally.
Few years ago, musta been a weekend. I’m working in the shop and a car pulls down and dude starts snapping pictures. I run out asking wtf he’s doing and boom, throws the car in gear and takes off…. I caught him before he got out of the subdivision and put him in the ditch. As I was getting ready to disassemble him and his camera he pops out an ID from the county assessor and he was taking updated tax photos. So I let him go with some sage advice….dunno what happened but the pics of our house on the county assessor website are still the original ones from 20 years ago!
The funniest was last winter, bout bedtime, during a storm and power is out, a van pulls up and stops at the top of the drive, like 30 year old white creeper or tweaker van. And it stops and sits there for idk maybe a minute. (Guessin in hindsight he couldn’t see the address on the fence post). We were watching it for a bit then it comes down the driveway. Everything is dark outside since the genny is only powering what needs to be on.
This poor Amazon delivery guy literally threw the package at me when he heard me rack the bolt and said I’m sorry about 16 times while running back to the van.
Glad it was a sweatshirt and not a package of light bulbs! Lol.

Still, seems a couple times a year, me or the kids will run someone off who looks sketchy, waiting for the subdivision gate to open when we pull up. There are a couple elderly couples in our neighborhood, also the only houses they have been burglarized since we’ve lived here.
Our German Shepherds probably help keep us from being more than a fleeting thought as a target though. Even though the insurance company quit allowing me to claim them for the home security discount a couple years ago….lol. Hell, we don’t even own any house keys anymore….if someone accidentally locks the back door we gotta break in…. But if you break in, you better know the dogs names and have a couple steaks to throw to them! :B