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Anyone else had a ‘suspicious customer’ recently?
The other week, a woman, dressed quite smartly walked into our office (we’re not on the high street and walk in customers are very rare), placed her handbag on my collegues desk and started asking about what we do, in depth!
The conversation led to her requesting an engineer as her washer had stopped spinning. We advised her of charges etc and booked her in.
Engineer attended, Hotpoint WMA and found that the belt had ‘come off’. Refitted it, tested, charged her and left.
Pretty normal really I suppose but I had a funny feeling about this woman, the whole thing was ‘different’ from start to finish…. Anyways, the other day, I had a call from ‘South Wales Police press office’ asking whether I’d like to advertise in their ‘Force magazine’…. Aparently it is a ‘trusted magazine’ that is issued to all their personell on a monthly basis. I declined, but it got me thinking…….
Would they carry out a ‘mystery shop’ before offering an advertisment space in this ‘trusted magazine’?
If you have been ‘mystery shopped/tested/assesed’ or whatever by anyone, would they have to tell you afterwards?
Anyone else had any similar experiences?
Re: They’re checking!
Anyone else had any similar experiences?
Yes.
After a tube of debor leaked in my van!!!!
😀
Re: They’re checking!
The thing is with a lot of these things for me is that it is desperately unfair to judge anyone on just one job IMO.
I guess that we all make mistakes from time to time and are likely berated for not doing the job right but is it fair to think that any company or soul trader won’t make the odd mistake? On top of that is it fair to think that a setup is fair?
IMO it’s a lot fairer to judge on a body of work, not just the highs or lows.
K.
Re: They’re checking!
kwatt wrote:or soul trader.
” Do you like good music, yeah, yeah “… 😆
PS. I have a pair of Rouge trainers, got them of a rogue trader. 😉
Jim..
This Police Magazine thing is a con, I had the same phone call in Jan 2008 past, it was a very well spoken gent.
I asked him to send out more information but nothing arrived, then in Feb 2008, news broke in press that this was a con and the Police had nothing to do with it..
Re: They’re checking!
Yeah, you get them all the time chancing it with the “I’m calling about the advertising you authorised in…” which is invariably a few months ago in the hope that you don’t recall not agreeing to it. Don’t bite, it’s a con and who knows where your credit card number will be used, but the Mrs might have OM questions if she sees the CC statement before you do.
I actually tell people now that I will not give them a CC number due to the potential for fraud. If they want to invoice me and await a cheque that’s fine but I won’t give the CC details at all now. Too dodgy these days.
Amazes me though how many people we get looking to buy parts who won’t use the payment gateways (which are 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} pukka) but think that they’re safer calling and giving their credit card details to a total stranger. Go figure.
Sorry, I digress, but it’s one of those things where you have to wonder how stupid people really are.
But back to the fraud calls, it sounds like a busy office when they call doesn’t it if you’ve had one but, if you listen really carefully, you’ll notice the background noise loops. It’s a recording. 😉
K.
Re: They’re checking!
Police force, Fire department, Hospitals, Air ambulance, Schools ‘just say no’ mags. God I think I’ve had them all. They’re all cons. If I’m not busy I have a bit of fun when they call and string them along for ages, get right to the point of offering my CC number and then ‘disconnect’ halfway through giving them a false number.
When they ring back I just hang up.
😈But as for the ‘testing’ calls, I’ve had quite a few over the years, and they’re very obvious. I doubt that they catch any bad traders really, except the very stupid ones.
Ive had loads for schools and hospitals sayiing Ive agreed to advertise in there magazine and the final print has been run and am I ready to pay.
Like you say Kwatt I can hear the fake office noise in the background. I thought it was just me they were targeting!
Also ask them about there company and they always hang up.Re: They’re checking!
It may have been co-incedence that I had that phone call after this ‘suspicious job’. If we were being ‘checked out’, surely they’d have to reveal themselves afterwards? Who would it be? Local trading standards? For what reason? If they suspect something bad for some reason and set up things like that, do they just blow the trumpet if a Business is caught doing something wrong?
Or can anyone just do that to different types of Businesses? 😕Re: They’re checking!
The Police Magazine is a con.
I had the same phone call, and he told me he was endorsed by DASA, well they never heard of this lot. He got through the firewall of my receptionists by telling the lass he was phoning from the Avon & Somerset Police, and needed to talk to me on a serious matter.
They run from offices in London Rd Stockport, and if you are taken in, a full page is £900.
I have a neighbour and golfing associate who is a senior member of local plod, and he tells me not to waste my money.
We have had the odd service call where trading standards are after someone else, and they will have us in as part of the exercise mainly to test us out, and to prove the fault is findable as applied to the machine, and then we hear no more.
Alex.
Re: They’re checking!
Maybe it was just a customer wanting her Hotpoint fixing by you very nice guys in South Wales.
The police mag thing is a con.
Jackal
boselecta wrote:Ive had loads for schools and hospitals sayiing Ive agreed to advertise in there magazine and the final print has been run and am I ready to pay.
Like you say Kwatt I can hear the fake office noise in the background. I thought it was just me they were targeting!
Also ask them about there company and they always hang up.Yeah i get this one alright, what’s that about?? This bird phones me and says the books are ready to be sent out to the schools. I say what books? And they tell me they phoned 2 months ago and i agreed to them. I tell them i didn’t recall such a thing. One time they just slammed the phone down and another claimed she had the phone conversation recorded of me agreeing to it and asked would she phone back with the recording. I said yeah and she never called back.
Is this a scam, do they really print these books?
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