Are Burglars Posing as AT&T Cable Workers in Davis?

Update: Many people shared similar stories to the one below since the recent burglaries in Davis were publicized. Police have received a flurry of calls from residents.  

Original Story: After posting a story Thursday about , I received an interesting email from a resident about suspicious behavior involving door-to-door cable workers. 

In an impressively proactive move, the reader dug up three police calls from that same day reporting similar behavior. All of the calls mentioned cable workers, two of them mentioning AT&T U-Verse specifically.

Recent robberies in Davis have played out in a similar way, according to police, with a knock on the door. With that in mind, here’s her story:

The Enterprise had a quote from police saying “the commonality that we’re seeing is the knocking or ringing of the bell.”  This made my encounter yesterday with a “cable salesman/installer” more suspicious. 

While I was at work yesterday, my sister who is visiting and staying at my place called a little before 4 to say that a man was at the door asking for me by first and last name and claiming he was there to install U-verse cable/internet/phone that I had ordered.  She told him I wasn’t home and that she didn’t think I’d ordered that since I already had Comcast cable/internet.  He suggested she call me and check, which she did, and I confirmed that I had not placed an order.  He tried to tell her that I had placed an order a while ago when service was not available in the Davis area, and now that it was available in the area he was there to fulfill the order and install.  He then asked what time I would be home, which my sister found suspicious, so she shut the door.  When he left she told me someone -- she thought it was the same guy but wasn’t sure -- had pushed the doorbell a few times a half an hour before but she was not planning on not answering, but my 2 year old nephew had run to the door and opened it.  She also told me he was wearing black slacks, a black button up and a tie -- not exactly your standard cable installation uniform.  I called AT&T to see if anyone had put in an order in my name, and they said there were no orders under my name, address or phone number and that they had no records of anybody on their staff being sent to my house.

After work, my sister and I went to Picnic in the Park, and my boyfriend stayed home.  I told him about the weird visitor earlier and warned him that he might come back this evening since it seemed he wanted to come when I was off work.  As we were on our way back to my place, my boyfriend called and said a man fitting the description had just knocked on the door and asked for me and said he was there as part of a third party company that sells U-Verse packages.  His story had changed from earlier in the day when he claimed to be working for AT&T and that he was there to install services.  My boyfriend told him we weren’t interested and stood watching at the door as the man walked away. We live near the end of the culde sac on Isla Place. The man walked toward the end of the cul de sac as if he was going to walk onto Anderson. My boyfriend shut the door and kept watching out the window. As soon as he shut the door, the man did a 180 and walked back down Isla toward Ccorona.  My boyfriend went outside and followed him and saw him knocking on a door on corona and when no one answered, going around the side of the house and looking into the windows. Needless to say, he called the police to report a suspicious person.  On my drive back home, I saw the man (my sister identified him as the same one who had come by earlier) one block south of Isla on Corona, holding binder and talking on the phone.

I checked the police logs this morning, and saw three other calls placed about fake U-verse salesmen, one not far from my place.  The man at my house was wearing all black dress clothes and was African American, so definitely not the same person described in the 18:12 call (below).  It seems there were multiple people out yesterday pretending to be AT&T salesmen and looking into car and home windows. I’m not sure if this is related to the string of robberies in Davis recently, but it seems suspicious, and people should probably be aware of it.

Have you experienced anything similar to this? Email me at justin.cox@patch.com or comment below so we can continue looking into it. I currently have a call out to the police and will follow up on this story as I know more. I’m also looking into the existence of third-party U-Verse salespeople as well. Here's police are still looking for in relation to the burglaries. 

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Here are the three police calls: 

• 15:19 Occurred on Oyster Bay Av, Davis.  SUBJ CAME TO RP’S DOOR SAYING HE WAS WITH AT&T – WAS RUDE WHEN RP WOULDN’T LET HIM IN – SUBJ MAY BE RE-RINGING DOOR BELL NOW.
• 17:27 Occurred on Bella Casa St, Davis. SUBJ HAS BEEN CONTINUOUSLY RINGING THE DOOR BELL – TALL HMA OR AMA WEARINGA  DARK BUSINESS SUIT SAID HE WAS WITH A CABLE COMPANY – ASSC W/ A DARK PICK UP – SUBJ ONLY WENT TO RP’S HOUSE AND HUNG AROUND FOR AN HOUR.
• 18:12 Occurred on Bruce Ln, Davis. SUBJ GOING DOOR TO DOOR AND LOOKING INTO VEHS WHEN RP APPROACHED SUBJ STATED HE WAS SELLING U-VERSE PACKAGES FOR AT&T  BUT WAS UNABLE TO PROVIDE ANY ID – WMA 509/STOCKY BUILD BLN HAIR WITH A GOATEE WEARING LY GRAY SLACKS SUIT AND BLUE SHIRT.