Reports of Suspicious Solicitors
This was forwarded to us from the Forest Hill Neighborhood Watch:
In the past few days there have been several reports of suspicious men soliciting business in the Westover Hills and Forest Hills neighborhoods. Please exercise caution when opening the doors to strangers. You owe them nothing – not your time or money and you should not hesitate to ask them to leave your property if you are not interested in their product. In fact, I often refuse to open the door if a stranger is knocking. If you are creeped out by someone, please call 911 or 646-5100. Let the police figure out whether the person is legitimate. At the very least, the police will note who the person was, what he/she looks like and will be able to establish a pattern of unusual behavior that may assist in solving a future crime. If it turns out to be nothing, it’s not a big deal and no harm is done.
The first two incidents occurred on Monday evening (8/31/09). A white male, about 5 feet 7 inches, dirty blond hair and glasses approached at least two homes in the 4600 block of Devonshire (between Prince George & Cedar Lane). He was specifically targeting homes with children and said he was selling children’s literature or educational material. During both encounters he acted strangely and could not produce any brochures or company information. He loitered at one house for 10 minutes before someone answered the door.
The third incident occurred on Monday and Tuesday (8/31-9/1) evening and involved a white male, approximately 6 feet tall, wearing a red baseball hat, khaki pants and a grey polo shirt with a VerizonFios insignia embroidered on the front. On both evenings he was observed in the 4400 block of Stonewall Avenue and 4400 block of New Kent. Although he wore a business shirt, his behavior was very unusual in that he wandered aimlessly through the neighborhood, retraced his steps for no apparent reason, only knocked on one door, avoided eye contact and tried to hide his face when spoken to, and said he was trying to find out why 20% of the neighbors did not have a contract with VerizonFios.
The police were called for each incident. If you have seen something similar in your block, please let me know.
Shannon Taylor
Forest Hill Neighborhood Watch Coordinator
www.ForestHillNeighborhood.com
I saw that first kid in the neighborhood early again this morning (8am) on a bike and looking at a clipboard. He gave me a strange foreign name and had an accent. I’ll call the cops if I see him again, thanks for the heads up.
We are new to the neighborhood (Hillcrest) so I didn’t know this was out of the ordinary or I would have called police. I was home sick on Monday and both of these men came to my door on two different occassions. The guy with glasses kept ringing the doorbell and knocking…I was about to call the police when he finally left (on a bicycle). The other guy came later on. I didn’t answer the door for either one. Later on in the evening, the guy on the bike was riding aimlessly down Hillcrest again. Weird…
I live off 33rd and Semmes. Monday evening around 8:50 PM someone rang our doorbell. We had our windows down and asked who it was (we don’t have a peephole.) No one responded. We asked again and a young man ran off our porch down the street.
Then, Tuesday evening at 9:00 PM a woman knocked on our door claiming to be from Libia (i think) and she was selling cd’s of her music. She wanted to come in and play them for us to see if we wanted to buy some. We told her no and we watched her go to several other houses on the block.
After the above report we will be reporting this to the police.
I think this guy came to our house this afternoon, we live in the 1300 block of Leicester. I didn’t answer the door but he rang the doorbell once, waited a very long time then rang the doorbell again and then left. He matches the above descriptions and was also on a bike and looked like he was carrying a clipboard! We’ll definitely be on the lookout for this guy. We are so glad we read this! Thanks.
The guy with the clipboard was in the 1200 block of 46th around 7:30 pm tonight. He wandered up and down the street and only went to one address.
There have been legitimate Verizon Fios salespeople in the neighborhood this week. I spoke with a very nice young lady at length. She was definitely legit. FWIW.
If you don’t want door to door solicitation, you might want a “No trespassing” sign. RPD will enforce those.
[...] ran a story about the suspicious solicitors we reported on recently. Thanks to CSB for providing the [...]
The guy targeting homes w/ children and “selling children’s books” came to our house (cedar lane) on Monday afternoon. He did have an accent, wore glasses and a name tag which I think was Juraj, but my recall could be off. He was riding a bike and I saw him again Wednesday on Forest Hill near Cielito, on his bike.
This afternoon (Friday) a strange woman aggressively rang my doorbell, knocked on my storm door, opened that and knocked on my knocker. I did not answer, but observed her as she walked away. She seemed out of it and/or under the influence of something. Was wearing socks with flipflops, a woolly gray skirt, long brown hair, carrying a plastic bag. She walked away up devonshire toward 45th street.
The same young woman solicited at my home on Friday. She’s apparently an exchange student from one of the Baltic countries, studying in Richmond, living in the area, and was trying to sell CD’s of her music.
When she came to the door, we had guests so I didn’t have much time to converse with her or establish her identity. I did, however, suggest that she might be safer, achieve more success, and be more welcomed if she consulted her teachers about an alternative way of selling her recordings.
We live near Forest Hill Park and have had a visit from the bespectacled young man and the young woman selling her music CDs. The young man came by first early one morning, but I was alone and did not answer the door. He came by a second time and spoke with my husband about children’s books. He was on a bicycle both times, but I did not get his name nor was there any literature provided. I did speak to the young woman for quite some time. She is from Lithuania, which is my own family pedigree, so it was fun to talk to her about Vilnius. She was “introducing herself” to her new neighbors and was asking for donations in exchange for copies of her music. Did not get as bad a vibe from this as from the young male solicitor, but my radar is not perfect. Best to be on your guard, which is a sad commentary on the reality of today’s crimes.
The young woman had the CDs produced locally at Sound of Music. There was an issue with one of the CDs being blank and the City Attorney was contacted. The issue was quickly resolved and the blank was a mistake not an attempt to rip anyone off. The young lady was heading back to Lithuania on Friday so is probably not around anymore.
Wait — the city attorney was contacted? Over a blank CD? Did anyone contact the woman first, or even the Sound of Music?
Anne,
The details of this incident have gotten confused. There was less to this than met the eye.
Jurai is an student from the Czech Republic on a summer internship programme with the Southwestern Company who are a legitimate company who have been selling educational materials for 150 years in the US. Search it on Google and it tells you all about it. His ‘suspicious’ behavior was actually a method to avoid him wasting the time of people who did not have children so would not need the books . . . “He wandered up and down the street and only went to one address”.
The Southwestern Company suggests its agents find out where the children live so as not to annoy people who would not need the books and do not need to be disturbed.
Agents do not purport to be associated with any school system and if asked to leave or told you are not interested will usually leave you alone.
I do not like door to door solicitors as much as anyone here but I do not think that people should waste Police time or be rood and ignore people at their door over someone trying to make an honest living.
Juraj was the young man with glasses on the bicycle. He and another young man from Slovakia stayed with me while they were working here in Richmond. I have hosted the booksellers from Southwestern for 3 summers. They are all outstanding young people. They leave the house at 7am and return at 10pm, 6 days a week. They often ride 50 miles in a day. On Sundays they have day long meetings.
I completely understand about bothersome solicitors and live not too far from Westover Hills in Bon Air but the Southwestern booksellers are exceptionally fine young people trying to make money for school expenses. The books they sell are excellent. As an educator, I would not host them at all if I thought the product they were selling was a ripoff! We saw the news about them on tv and I felt so sorry for Juraj. He worked so hard and then was labeled a suspicious character. He is working on his degree in computer graphics in the Czech Republic and the other young man is studying law.
I understand there is no way to know in advance who the solicitors are but if one should knock on your door next year and he is selling books for Southwestern, take a look at the books!