Stories Pour in About Suspicious Cable Workers in Davis

People claiming to be cable workers have been combing residential streets in Davis in recent days, and many residents have found their behavior to be suspicious.

Whether or not this is connected to the (which have started with people knocking on doors or ringing doorbells) is unknown. Either way, police have been getting tons of calls about the suspicious solicitors – specifically cable workers.

I received several emails this morning reporting suspicious people who claimed to be cable representatives. Many have mentioned AT&T U-Verse, but some have also mentioned being third-party workers. In all cases they come off as very pushy, according to the stories below, and have asked concerning questions about when the residents will or will not be at their homes.

“Dispatch has gotten a flurry of calls,” Davis Police Lt. Paul Doroshov told me. “On at least one occasion, citations were issued.”

Doroshov said people should not hesitate to contact police if they feel uncomfortable.

“If somebody is suspicious or something doesn’t seem right, call,” he said. “And I would strongly urge people to be very careful when giving out information to solicitors (in general).”

In the event of an emergency, call 911. If you just want to request extra patrol or speak with an officer, call dispatch at 758-3600 or 747-5400. 

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Many residents shared stories yesterday and today. Here are bits and pieces that came in via email and comments. All names and addresses have been removed: 

1. Monday between 4 and 5 p.m., a guy came to the door saying he was from AT&T and they had just installed "fiber optic lines.” He kept talking on and on, as the dog was barking.  He was probably in his late 20’s, wearing a tie and black pants. He asked me about my TV’s, Internet, home office – now it seems he was fishing for info on what I had in the house.  When he handed me a pamphlet that had all the AT&T info, I told him I would keep it and read it.  He said “oh, no, this is the only one I have. I’m not that high up in the company (?)”  As he was leaving, I noticed he was wearing white tennis shoes with lime green soles. I would not have thought anything of it, except he kept trying to talk to the dog (usually people back up pretty quickly) and then I read about the other experiences (on Davis Patch). 
2. I may have encountered one such person Wednesday afternoon. He came around 5 pm--a stocky, clean-cut white guy in dress shirt & slacks (possibly a necktie also), carrying a clipboard. Said he was there to let us know about new fiber-optic that had been installed in the area & that we could switch to that service. I said I wasn't interested; he was relatively insistent but not exactly aggressive. He might have been an actual AT&T salesman, but later I realized it was possible he wasn't & had just been checking out the neighborhood to see what he could learn about our homes & schedules & the like.
3. We saw the guy reported in the 3rd police report (). Yes, he was hanging out on the street looking into our neighbor's car. When our neighbor asked, "Hey, what are you selling?" he replied "U-verse". This was at 6 p.m. on Wednesday 3/21. When we returned home about an hour later, he was standing on the corner of Bryce & Denali in front of an empty house lot--looked like he was waiting for someone to pick him up.  He had a dark suit on and was carrying a clipboard. Seemed strange to me. The following day, Thursday 3/22, a house around the corner on Isle Royale was broken into and robbed during the day when no one was home. I don't know any other details.
4. Last summer we had an AT&T worker call at our house and tried to sell us an upgrade to their U-verse service. The caller was rude and aggressively selling their service, and told us that he would send their installation engineers to install the service that week, despite telling him that we didn't want upgrade or want the service. I called AT&T to complain … I don't know if the current AT&T workers calling are genuine or not, but I thought I'd let you know that even they’re genuine, employees selling U-verse service are, in our experience, very rude and pushy.
5. We are in North Davis and were visited by these guys yesterday.  My young-adult son answered the door.  At first he thought they were just very persistent salespeople, but something seemed odd to him about the whole interaction.  They kept him talking for a long time and seemed to be pressing him for information about when later they could come back and talk to someone again -- which he now thinks was an attempt to ascertain when the house would be empty.
6. I, too, had a "person from AT&T" come to my door on Thursday, March 22. Similar approach, except it was a young lady in her 20's.
7. Here's the . 

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