Posted on 03/07/2011 3:55:28 PM PST by BRL
I got home from work around 6:15 and door to door salesman comes to the door. He has some product that is in a container that looks like a small version of a morton salt container on it. I tell him I am not interested in buying anything and he say something about giving me a gift. I ask him if he is going to give me the product in his hand and he says yes. I then take the product, say thank you and shut the door. I am pretty irritated at this point. He then rings the doorbell and wants his product back and I give it to him and he swears under his breath about not letting him make his pitch. As he is walking off the porch I tell him that he should not lie to people and that he is a liar.
My son thinks it is funny, and my two daughters are really mad at me for being so rude.
Was I too rude? I am so sick of people trying to trick people out of their money and not being straight forward about their intentions.
Furthermore, if these salesmen only get nice people who say no, and suckers, then they will keep ripping people off, so I figure I am sort of doing society a favor for getting in these liars face.
Salesmen are, for the most part, a class of professional liars.
Door to door salesmen are extinct. In the modern world, there is nothing sold by a door to door salesman that is worth buying.
Golden rule
I didn’t know people still did door to door sales. I’d say you were a little rough. But oh well. He’ll live.
Someone selling door-to-door is pretty desperate for money I would think, so I might tend to cut them some slack.
Of course, I am not a heck of a lot better off at the moment myself so I don’t know how much help I could be to them.
I just turn it around and try to sell them my services the just looks confused and leave
A good salesman doesn’t need to lie to make his sales.
You need a good and useful product and a good pitch. If he has a good and useful product, then he doesn’t need to browbeat you into buying it either.
If so, big deal, it's your property and you should be able to be whatever you want to under the law.
If he takes offense, he should find another field to work.
JMO.
I don’t think you were rude. You didn’t cuss him out or anything but firmly stated you weren’t interested. IMHO our homes are our safety zones. When I am at home, I really don’t want to be bothered by a tree service, door to door salesman etc... If it makes you feel any better, about seven years back, our neighborhood had door to door salesmen going around. One man who came to our home was extremely rude and obnoxious. Later, a woman was found tied up and dead from a heart attack in her foyer. The belief has always been that the nutty, rude door to door salesman did it. The police investigated but couldn’t get a name from the company. The employees sort of showed up for a day of work and information was not taken. Be safe and not sorry. Just a thought.
Back in the early 70’s I sold fuller brush door to door. We would offer people a free gift of a cheap spatulea, a brush and a third item I cant remember. Every single time I got the person to accept a gift I ended up selling them something. Every time.
So how do I feel about what you did. I agree with you. I really hate door to door salesmen and it is a paradigm that no longer works. One reason is that back in the day most families were single income. There was always someone at home and the concept of buying from a door to door salesman had a certain “convenience factor”. I cannot believe any company still operates under that paradigm.
Unfortunately, the essence of sales is to get people to buy something that they wouldn’t ordinarily buy, or get them to buy a bigger better version than what they need. This translates into mounds of BS from the successful salesmen. The honest, straightforward salesmen starve quickly and disappear. Only the BSers survive. So, don’t let yourself get upset over the nature of things anymore than you should be upset that bees sting and dogs bark. I would have just said “no thanks” right off the bat and closed the door.
never forget they know where you live
I know, but I would never try to trick people out of their money to begin with. So I have a hard time applying the golden rule.
Rules at our house.....NO sales person after 5pm....AND No Salesperson over the age of 14....we had people in our nbhd last week......I told him we didn’t take sales people after dark ...he gave me the finger and said he would be back (IT WAS about 8:30PM).....Oh, and he happened to be a big black guy)....Neighborhood Watch was in effect (someone had called me to tell me he was heading our way....and then the police were notified because the kind of behavior he exhibited was considered threatening). Oh, and I’m a woman.
If I open the door and see a salesperson or Bible-thumper, I just wave them off, mouth ‘not interested’ and shut the door.
They are like telemarketers. If they get you into a vocal conversation, they have a much better chance of selling something.
Don’t give them the chance.
I used to immediately tell telemarketers, when they started their spiel ‘hi, how is your day going ...’ “sorry, I don’t buy anything over the phone, bye” and I hang up.
Normally, I would say “Be nice. He’s just doing his job.” In this case though, I would say you acted appropriately because 1) he lied, and 2) he cursed in front of you (very unprofessional).
For security reasons, you should first ask any door-to-door salesman for his name, dob, social security number and Visa number. If he gives you that information, carefully write it down and if he still wants to sell you something, tell him you want to buy everything he’s got, but that he will have to accept a verbal IOU because you have no money, no job and a drug habit.
Usually taking the 'free stuff' isn't worth the cost.
I rarely have slam the door in anyone's face. They just go to the next house.
If I don't feel like dealing with it I don't answer the door.
In this case I would likley have told the guy this isn't a good time.
Seemed pretty rude to me. Ya didn’t even let him give you the product “I then TAKE the product’...wow.
In many communities with a “Green River” ordinance, door to sales people must have a city issued license. I have always immediately asked to see their city license. If they cannot produce a license I have called the police and reported them.
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