The “magazine salesman” scammers are back in town, and Gainesville Police is urging residents to be vigilant to avoid potential theft.
GPD has recently seen a spike in the number of citizen reports of these scammers, according to a department press release.
Many groups ask for money for fake magazine subscriptions or try to get into a home to burglarize it, said GPD spokesman Officer Ben Tobias.
“We’ve seen that people will ask to go to the bathroom, and they basically go on a shopping spree inside your house,” Tobias said.
Commissioner Susan Bottcher recently sent an email to commissioners after she noticed the scammers in her neighborhood.
Over the weekend, Bottcher said, she and her husband were driving back to their home in Libby Heights off of 34th Street and saw one of their neighbors outside. The neighbor told her he’d seen the scammers walking around and called GPD’s non-emergency number.
Later, officers responded and made contact with the group. After a criminal history check, all three scammers had burglary and theft histories, and one had served prison time for the crimes, Tobias said.
“These are the people that are knocking on your door trying to get into your house,” he said.
GPD suggests that residents should avoid answering the door if they’re not expecting guests. It also recommends putting a “No Soliciting” sign outside of the house, which gives officers the power to hand out a city ordinance violation citation rather than just a warning.
“It’s very tough for us to catch these people actively committing a crime,” he said.
City officials teamed up to raise awareness of the issue. Police Chief Tony Jones wrote he requested notice be placed in the Neighborhood Crime Watch, and Bottcher emailed and posted press releases on Facebook. City spokesman Bob Woods wrote that officials were coordinating to remind the public to be “vigilant against fraudulent ‘salesmen’ to prevent becoming a victim.”
If anyone sees any suspicious people walking around a neighborhood, the department encourages them to call its non-emergency number at 352-955-1818 — like Bottcher’s neighbor did.
“What I hope is the police presence, as well as the vigilance of the citizens, can tell these people that this is a neighborhood that they’re not going to have any luck in,” Bottcher said.
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 8/28/2013 under the headline "Don’t answer the door for fake magazine salesmen"
