Forum topic: Reasons to be on your guard

There I was on the front garden path quietly emptying the panniers on my bike of things I had bought this morning, when I very pleasant-looking young man joined me with: "Did you know you have a couple of cracked tiles on your roof?. We have been working on a roof round the corner using the same tiles as yours and we have a few over which we could use to replace your cracked ones. Here's our card." It looked impressive

But 'cracked tiles' was a surprising announcement, because just a few years ago we had had both slate and tile parts of our roof replaced. So 'No thanks" I said. But he was persistent: "I could put a couple of tiles by the foot of the wall here." he said, "And come back shortly to do the job." "No thanks" I said, but apparently undaunted he persisted with: "OK, but I'll fetch the tiles and leave them with you because we have no use for them now."

And off he went to get the tiles, never to be again except that I think I saw him leave in the passenger seat of an unmarked white van never to be seen again.

In a way the most worrying element of this encounter was 'our card'. Full of information, excellent terms, pictures of work well done, based in Wembley. But when Myrna (my wife) tried to trace the address and place the firm there she couldn't find it, nor its position on a very large scale map of Wembley. Nor could we find the website though a minor mistake on the card could be at fault.

From all this we can't say that there is something odd about all this, but there is enough to prompt careful checking when people appear out of the mist so to speak.

Yes, please do report, very important for the police to have details so they can track.

Thanks for your comments.

I wrote the piece just to put local people on guard in case it was a dishonest approach. But in the light of the comments/advice in the thread I will report it to the police taking the business card with me. Looking at the business card again the range of benefits claimed seem more than a shade too good to be true.

I'll report back if I get any more information.