I am afraid that we may all be offering sensitive information to a new type of "spy" operating in our neighborhoods. We are not selling the information, but handing it out for free. We are in a sense, committing treason on our neighbors and our OWN homes. I want us all to take note the next time we get that knock at the door, and find the ol' home alarm system folks on the porch here in Riverside. I have noticed that, when these folks come around offering their services at "never before heard of prices" we all get a little too friendly with the information. I have seen them going door to door, in teams, and using the little bit of personal information they got from the guy next door to push their way inside YOUR home. They ask a string of questions about your homes security, and in answering these simple yes or no inquires, you give up the whole house without even realizing that you did.
Whether you buy or not, they ask you for other names of other people (who may not have an alarm) on your street. They want to know if your home was pre-wired, or if you are "currently activated" and do you have contacts on ALL your doors and windows or just one or two? These are not the kind of things to discuss with some guy who walked up and rang your bell out of the blue. Do what I do when they come calling, and tell them that you are not interested in discussing your homes security with a stranger. Let that be that. Then, if you want to really go the "extra mile" for your neighbors who may not know better, go ahead and call the Police. let them get some I.D. from them, and show them that some of us do have a plan, that starts with not allowing shenanigan's on our streets. I'm not saying that all of these people are up to no good, I am saying that it is not worth it to find out. Do business with people you called out on your schedule, not standing on the porch while your dinner goes cold.
3 comments:
Wow. Really interesting. I just had a guy do that very thing the other day but I was thinking it was more of a hustle to sell a cheap system with crappy monitoring.
He tried to shake my hand and I told him I was just cleaning a toilet and wouldn't want to get anything on him...
I had a young man come to my door the day of our last meeting, selling security systems. I explained we had one, he asked about phone lines, etc, he was getting really personal. I eventually asked for his credentials and he did have something that looked pretty official from the City of Jacksonville.
I tried brushing him off by saying, I know how to set the alarm and that my husband makes all the other decisions. He also saw our very nice and barking "big" dog as our back-up security. I saw him the next day walking around and haven't seen him or any others like that in a while. But I agree, never give out any personal information.
Also as I’ve mentioned before, watch what you throw out to sit in the front yard for days. If you are throwing away empty computer boxes, or new TV boxes, you are a great new target. The guys across the street have just junk in their front yard, but a least 1 truck and or car a day has stopped by to go through that trash and you don’t know what it might say to what is on the inside to a potential “true” criminal. Keep your valuable trash (ha, ha) in your back yard or in the bottom of your trashcans.
Thank you for your comments. What really got me going while watching those guy's "work" my street was how many neighbors told me that they were offered free systems, just for giving up names of other people on the block who MAY NOT HAVE AN ALARM SYSTEM!! P.S. I have called JSO twice today, both times for what seemed to be drug sales along West Street. I had a couple of my new neighbors out riding with me tonight, and we all three agreed, that that was most likely what we were looking at. One was on a bicycle, all were wearing the ever present black tank-top. Thanks so much for responding to this site so quickly. I think I will add a quick spot about the whole "trash" deal, because I agree that folks dont think before they put that giant TV box out front. It's a great point.
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