Just had a knock at the door. There are 2 bells at this property, and only one was rung, FOR DEFINATE.
I answered the door and a very flustered man said "oh errm sorry, must have got the bells mixed up, pressed the wrong one, sorry" And then hoverred his finger over the other one.

As I came in, I listened, and sure enough.... nothing!

Now I dont know if he was expecting only my elderly mother to be in, or just trying his luck. But dressed in a polo shirt, and carrying 2 tool boxes, the average joe might think he was genuine if he said gas check or something else. Especially the elderly.

Just thought I would share it, and remind people to always ask for ID. If anyone else gets a knock from this guy, its worth telling the police about.

Thanks Snazy
I know my now deceased mother was nearly ripped of by rogue roof man 5 years ago. Fortuantely next door neighbour thought something was wrong and called the Police who also were great.
Praying on the old and vunerable is a disgrace. Problem also is prosecuting when found and many elderly people are confused.

That's also a favoured way of finding out if anyone is in to see if it's worthwhile breaking in.

The converted house I live was burgled in Jan and I found out recently that another few converted houses in the road have been done since.

The burglars come along and buzz all the buzzers to see if anyone is in. If not, they shove in the door (they target houses with older simple snib locks) and then take their time inside the house to break down internal 'external' doors to the flats since they know there's no-one there to hear or see.

Just to alert everyone that bogus callers are around Forest Hill and targeting the vulnerable.

Two men knocked on my elderly neighbour's door (he's in his eighties) at lunchtime yesterday and claimed that I had employed them to fix a leak in my roof - which they discovered was coming from his house. They demanded ?600 in cash from him in payment. He refused to pay them but was persuaded to give them his telephone number. Later, a man called him, claiming to be the boss and kept pressuring him to pay for the "repairs". Needless to say this was entirely bogus. My neighbour eventually realised that this was a con and telephoned the police. He told me all this when I came home last night. He was quite distressed by the whole experience and by the fact that he's given them his number. He wants to alert everyone to the presence of these scumbags. This isn't the first time he's been targeted by distraction burglars - he thinks that he may be on a "mugs list" and he might be right. I'm sure these scum share information about potential victims but this is the first time that they've claimed to be working for the next door neighbour - I guess to add credibility to their story.

Can you report these incidents to Lewisham Trading Standards, please?

020 8314 6000.

Sorry but why should this be reported to Lewisham Trading Standards?

My neighbour has already reported them to the police. These guys were completely bogus - they were not tradesman. They didn't leave a name or a card. They were lying about working for me - they did not do any work on my roof or his.

Surely this is a police matter rather than trading standards?

There was a sign up in Woodcombe Crescent about this- presumably the same incident? Good work in putting this up.

Yup. My neighbour put it up. He's pretty incensed by the cheek of these b****rs.

We would be extremely interested, to say the least, in hearing from anyone who gets a knock from anyone they consider dodgy (as would the other teams at the station).
As much as most other normal people we hate this kind of crime, and will happily follow up any information given to us as best we can.

As a reminder, our e-mail is PerryVale.SNT@met.police.uk. For the other teams, just put ForestHill or Sydenham at the start instead of us.
Our contact number is 0208 721 2480. If we're not here leave a message and we'll get back to you.