Doorstep seller still owes £5 in change

LAST week a young man came to our door and tapped on the window.

He had a very good and obviously well practiced spiel about how he was autistic, attended college every weekday on a mechanical engineering course and carried out selling over the weekends to make a little money from commission on sales.

Like I said, he was very good at the presentational side of his sales technique and I broke a cardinal rule of not buying from the door and purchased a couple of items albeit I didn’t really need them.

When it came to paying for the goods, he claimed not to have any change and as we were about to go out, I accepted his promise to return and put the said change through the letter box. I even gave him an envelope to do it.

No prizes for guessing what happened. He didn’t return and I was down £5 on the transaction. Here endeth the lesson.

So if this presentable and very practised rogue knocks on your window, a) don’t deal with him and b) remind him that he still owes me money.

Needless to say, my cardinal rule of not purchasing from the door has now been substantially reinforced and any other callers will receive nothing but a firm rejection; which is a shame really because for the sake of one smart guy, every other honest and genuine person will be the loser. Robert Smith Earlsdon