Jun

27

Door to Door Sales

June 27, 2009 | | 7 Comments

I had a bizarre experience yesterday. When I saw my husband last night he told me about a young woman who had come to the house earlier in the day. He and my son were home and said a car pulled into the driveway and a young woman bolted up to the door. It wasn’t raining. No one was chasing her. When Derek answered the door she started talking and didn’t stop. She was selling educational materials.  

Now in fairness to my husband, he can’t keep track of all of the students I’ve had over the years and he figured she was one of my former students. He said she seemed like a real “go-getter” but he was vague in how he got her to leave. When she showed up at our door at about 7:30 pm, I knew. He told her to come back later when his wife was home!

Short of strangling my husband, I went to the door and met this young woman. No, I didn’t invite her in. No, I didn’t know her. We live in the middle of nowhere and seldom does someone come to the door. Yes,  I was somewhat rude. She started talking and didn’t stop and I have to tell you I found it down right creepy. She kept referencing all of these other families in Gowanda that we know, knew all of our names and thought I was the principal. Said she was selling educational materials. When I pointed out that my 21 year old daughter lives on her own and my son is about to be a senior, she just gained steam.

Now what materials could she possibly offer us? And what the heck is a young woman doing going door to door alone? If I wasn’t so annoyed I would have feared for her safety. She launched into something about SAT materials and when I said “NO thank you. My son just took the SAT”, I barely finished the sentence when she said, “I know, just like Taylor Anderson.” Her constant use of our neighbors’ and friends’ names was truly unsettling.

Listen folks:  when she shows up on your doorstep don’t give her any more information about any of us! I figure it’s a matter of time before she’s here in Randolph because she’s already been to our principal’s house in Cattaraugus. Honestly, if some one’s coming to my door they better be up front in the first 30 seconds about the purpose. After all, this woman came to my door uninvited for the sole purpose of selling me something I surely don’t need or want–how polite am I expected to be? Does anyone ever buy anything from her? Who else has had this experience?


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7 Comments so far

  1.    Deb Miller on June 28, 2009 8:17 pm

    We had a girl show up at our house Saturday, late afternoon, trying to sell the same type of items. She started right in before I could even get the door open about all the other families that she had visited in Randolph. She even went as far as to show me the list of names. We were heading out the door so I didn’t let her carry on with her pitch. She was very insistent about wanting to come back to show us the materials that she had that would help our children. I too ended up being rather rude to her because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I am very curious as to whether anyone allowed her to do her whole presentation.

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  2.    Kimberly Moritz on July 1, 2009 10:23 am

    A follow up note to this blog post–according to our town clerk, this young lady has to have a peddler license approved by the town and village. If she shows up on your doorstep, you have an option to ask her to see a copy of it and don’t let her talk to you unless she does. Thanks to the Randolph Town Clerk for this information!

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  3.    Janene on July 1, 2009 3:49 pm

    Yes, she was at our home too. My husband too said, “come back & see my wife”! ugh I have not seen her, but she did mention local student names. I too, beg others not to give our information to strangers that come to your door. We all need our privacy.

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  4.    Karen Senn on July 1, 2009 9:51 pm

    This girl showed up on my deck at 9:30PM (yes…PM) a few weeks ago!! In her extensive name dropping, she mentioned that she knew the Home & Careers teacher at Randolph. Well, since I’m pretty sure that I am the only person at RCS with that title, I knew she was really confused after she gave me someone else’s name. I had to pretty much shut the door in her face as she continued to beg me to let her in my home.
    Agghhh…where is a large, mean & ugly dog when you need one?!

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  5.    Mary Kay Hribar on July 7, 2009 9:42 am

    I, too, had the “pleasure” of a visit from, what I assume, to be the same girl. My visit was rather short though as my dog was working on his Oscar winning mean dog performance when she knocked on my door. My dog is a BIG well trained baby but I, of course, was more than happy to let her think he was the most dangerous thing imaginable and she promptly left my porch. :)

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  6.    Sarah on July 11, 2009 6:02 pm

    The same girl to my door a few weeks ago. I was so annoyed. I was home by myself with my daughter and my husband was at work and my son was at school still. She came back 2 other times when I had told her I was not interested, she also mentioned names of Randolph residents. Its kinda creepy. I haven’t seen her since but I saw her driving around at 9pm, her liscence plate was from Wisconsin. What was she doing all the way here??

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  7.    Donna Meyer on July 19, 2009 7:46 am

    I too had a young lady show up at my doorstep at 9:30 PM a few weeks back. Our living room light was on, but not our porch light. She could have hurt herself on our steps with the light off. I was horrified that she was rattling off names of all my neighbors and showed me a map of where everyone lived. It took me a few moments to get the girl to leave. The last time this happened was a few years back and it was a young man of college age. And yes, I had to be rather rude to both. Keep privacy private. Don’t give out names.

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