Unsolicited want to buy your RV people

I had someone come on my property and ask if a 4X4 truck was for sale. I said no. It was my father's truck, not mine. It also wasn't running. A few weeks later I left TN to drive 200 miles to my father's funeral. When I got back a week or so later. The truck was gone. It had been towed out of the yard. The Marion County (TN) cops wouldn't do anything about it. I figure it was someone who was related to someone on the force. A week later, someone tried to steal my Jeep. After that, I sat up every night for two months waiting for them to come back. I told one of my neighbours to pass the word around. No one had better come into my yard at night as I was sitting with a loaded gun waiting for the jerks to come back and I was operating on about 2 hours of sleep per day. At the time my husband was working 200 miles away and only came home on weekends. I would often load the kids, the dog and cat up and drive over to stay for a week and them come home. So the house was empty a lot and we lived in a rural area. I got to the point to where I made the kids stay in the car while I checked to make sure the house was empty and not emptied of our stuff. Needless to say, we sold the place after about 6 months. I simply could not sleep there.

NOW, I take a picture of unsolicited "offers" to buy anything. I also take a pic of their vehicle and their tag number. I really don't care if they like it or not.

Back in the 80's, we constantly got door to door solicitors. I created a rather large hardwood sign, 30x2x3/4" that stated in bold letters: No Soliciting. This was placed on the storm door, attached with velcro strips.
One day, the doorbell rang... and we opened the door. Noting they were trying to sell us something, I stated "didn't you see the No Soliciting sign?", No, was the answer... so I opened the storm door, and saw they had removed the sign and set it beside the door. I picked it up, and handling the sign/stick in baseball bat fashion, told them to get lost. It didn't take them long to scram.

One of the best deterrents at our current place of 22 years is a Beware of the dog sign. It's on the tree just after entering the driveway. Many people, including delivery folks, wouldn't get out of their vehicle, as they didn't see a dog... And that's the deterrent.
Lately, the only solicitors we seem to get is odd phone calls on the landline (yes, we still have one) from unknown/random numbers, who never leave a message. How rude.

Sometimes they actually want you to give it to them for next to nothing or learning info for a later outright theft. Apartment neighbors once kept bugging me to give them my second older standby truck to them for nothing even when I said no and finally had to get rude. Thankfully the deadbeats were evicted and all was good.

I fully understand why others get rude and it is the self righteous who are the rude ones.

Cheers from the land of honey.

Jjrbus, and everyone else.
I wouldn’t be paranoid but you have the right to be, because yeah, no one looking to give a fair market price or charge a fair market price for services (the solicitors) is going to knock on your door. Period, end of story. Same goes for mail, email and phone call solicitations.
There are enough people that are either desperate or uninformed enough that this is more prevalent than ever. And it’s 10x worse in retirement areas because you can add age degeneration to the other 2 traits that make people susceptible to getting ripped off.
My in-laws, as savvy as they used to be, regularly ask me or my wife’s sister about these solicitations, as if they don’t remember the last conversation we had or the 10 before that.

Period, end of story, if YOU aren’t the one initiating any potential financial transaction, then you don’t want any part of it. Wouldn’t think it’s that hard to remember or figure out for anyone who’s lived a pile of years on this planet and has at least somewhat avg cognitive skills, but it is. Some out of desperation and some out of age and some out of pure lack of intelligence. Don’t be a sucker…is the moral of the story.
I’m barely over 50 and get mail and phone solicitations semi regularly. Hoping my kids can keep me from selling the farm for $5 when I start hiding my car keys in my cream o wheat!

@Desert Captain, those mfers that trespassed would have been greeted with a shovel in hand, if they were lucky. So we live last house in the corner in a 5ac lots gated subdivision that literally is on the way to absolutely nothing unless you live or are visiting someone here (even though we’re smack in the Seattle burbs). You can’t even drive past our house unintentionally.
Few years ago, musta been a weekend. I’m working in the shop and a car pulls down and dude starts snapping pictures. I run out asking wtf he’s doing and boom, throws the car in gear and takes off…. I caught him before he got out of the subdivision and put him in the ditch. As I was getting ready to disassemble him and his camera he pops out an ID from the county assessor and he was taking updated tax photos. So I let him go with some sage advice….dunno what happened but the pics of our house on the county assessor website are still the original ones from 20 years ago!
The funniest was last winter, bout bedtime, during a storm and power is out, a van pulls up and stops at the top of the drive, like 30 year old white creeper or tweaker van. And it stops and sits there for idk maybe a minute. (Guessin in hindsight he couldn’t see the address on the fence post). We were watching it for a bit then it comes down the driveway. Everything is dark outside since the genny is only powering what needs to be on.
This poor Amazon delivery guy literally threw the package at me when he heard me rack the bolt and said I’m sorry about 16 times while running back to the van.
Glad it was a sweatshirt and not a package of light bulbs! Lol.

Still, seems a couple times a year, me or the kids will run someone off who looks sketchy, waiting for the subdivision gate to open when we pull up. There are a couple elderly couples in our neighborhood, also the only houses they have been burglarized since we’ve lived here.
Our German Shepherds probably help keep us from being more than a fleeting thought as a target though. Even though the insurance company quit allowing me to claim them for the home security discount a couple years ago….lol. Hell, we don’t even own any house keys anymore….if someone accidentally locks the back door we gotta break in…. But if you break in, you better know the dogs names and have a couple steaks to throw to them! :B

PA12DRVR wrote:

time2roll wrote:
Quote them 2x maybe 3x what you paid and let it go if they really want it. I do this all the time with realtors. They never call back.

Or quote them the current price for a replacement and see what the response is. I have to admit that I'm puzzled by the angst about people asking if one's RV is for sale. "Yes" or most likely "No". If one doesn't engage further, what's the risk of the "scam"? If the risk is that an elderly person in a remote area will be attacked, that risk is always present and is neither unique to RV's nor a "scam".

Yes I probably put that wrong. Go with at least 50% over new list price of a replacement. Need money for tax, title, options, etc.

Sometimes I will just answer that they cannot afford it or that they don't have enough money.

Dusty R wrote:
Maybe put a sign on it NOT for sale.

Right next to the “security by Smith n Wesson” sticker!

time2roll wrote:
Quote them 2x maybe 3x what you paid and let it go if they really want it. I do this all the time with realtors. They never call back.

Or quote them the current price for a replacement and see what the response is. I have to admit that I'm puzzled by the angst about people asking if one's RV is for sale. "Yes" or most likely "No". If one doesn't engage further, what's the risk of the "scam"? If the risk is that an elderly person in a remote area will be attacked, that risk is always present and is neither unique to RV's nor a "scam".

I do agree with you that us elderly people are targets. I hate scammers.

I have had 9 or 10 people in the last year or so come onto my property asking if my 24' Class C was for sale. First of all it sits 30+ yards in from the street in a fenced {chain link} gated yard facing my house {not the street}. If it was for sale it would be out at the street, facing out with a For Sale {Se Verde} sign.

Some appeared to be legitimate want to be buyers but a few clearly were scammers. Everyone gets their picture taken and if they don't like it... tough. I feel no need whatsoever to put a
"Not for sale" sign up as it plainly is not.

:R

If the rig has been parked for months, I can see why people might inquire as to whether you might want to sell. And if you have a desirable property, why not? The worst that the inquiry could produce is a firm “no”. One of the parks I owned was bought exactly that way, I asked the owners if they would consider selling and we worked out a deal that worked for both of us. Asking if something is for sale could work out for both parties.