Doorstep scam involving "Deaf and Dumb" people - Greater London

[Guest]

My father buys calendars each year featuring attractive prints by people who paint with their mouths and their feet. They are purchased from a recognised charity. However, this evening, he and I were visited separately by a young woman of sympathetic appearance who claimed to be deaf and dumb. She had some large paintings which she tried to sell at £13, £15 and £17. He felt sorry for her. While he ultimately told her that he couldn't afford to buy, he felt bad afterwards and started to think that he should have bought one. He kept saying what a charming person she had been.

Immediately I had my doubts about her credibility and a quick search on Google revealed that this was almost certainly a scam as it has proven to be in Cornwall, Devon, Wiltshire and Hounslow at least. These people are frequently caught out by the police when seen to be using a mobile phone. So I went to find her. I located her on a nearby street and watched her visiting three homes. There was a purchase at one - an elderly woman in a wheelchair. According to my arithmetic, if the young woman sells just two pictures an hour and "works" a 7 hour day on 300 days a year, she is earning £60,000 pa tax free.

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Deaf-dumb-art-seller-fraudster/story-12934018-detail/story.html

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Beware-deaf-bogus-callers/story-12927067-detail/story.html

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/2044595.deaf_and_dumb_scam_thwarted/

http://www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk/west-london-news/local-hounslow-news/2010/11/25/have-you-been-scammed-by-sketchy-artist-109642-27718395/

So this is a friendly warning to others in the Greater London area. My sense is that she was Eastern European, is probably an international crook and here in Greater London because of the Olympics. Given the likely widespread support and sympathy for the disabled during the forthcoming paralympics, I would imagine these people will be making a mint before jetting off to another country and doing the same thing there. Far better, I think, to contribute to a charity.

[Serial_Apologist]

My father buys calendars each year featuring attractive prints by people who paint with their mouths and their feet. They are purchased from a recognised charity. However, this evening, he and I were visited separately by a young woman of sympathetic appearance who claimed to be deaf and dumb. She had some large paintings which she tried to sell at £13, £15 and £17. He felt sorry for her. While he ultimately told her that he couldn't afford to buy, he felt bad afterwards and started to think that he should have bought one. He kept saying what a charming person she had been.

Immediately I had my doubts about her credibility and a quick search on Google revealed that this was almost certainly a scam as it has proven to be in Cornwall, Devon, Wiltshire and Nottingham at least. These people are frequently caught out by the police when seen to be using a mobile phone. So I went to find her. I located her on a nearby street and watched her visiting three homes. There was a purchase at one - an elderly woman in a wheelchair. According to my arithmetic, if the young woman sells just two pictures an hour and "works" a 7 hour day on 300 days a year, she is earning £60,000 pa tax free.

So this is a friendly warning to others in the Greater London area. My sense was that she was Eastern European, is probably an international crook and here in Greater London because of the Olympics. Given the likely widespread support and sympathy for the disabled during the forthcoming paralympics, I would imagine these people will be making a mint before jetting off to another country and doing the same thing there. Far better, I think, to contribute to a charity.

Thanks for the warning, Lat.

A week ago I had a doorstep visit from a charming young lady claiming to be signing people up for regular donations to some organisation for deaf children which I had never heard of. I should have kept her at the door while I Google checked; instead I just said I never signed up for anything on the doorstep.

S-A

[Don Petter]

We had a similar visitation here in deepest Sussex a couple of weeks ago - A young chap, supposedly deaf with a sack of drawings, holding a message on a piece of cardboard.

We declined! (It did occur afterwards that if he had been deaf we should have had the message on cardboard, not him!)

[Pianorak]

Quite a few years ago a chap claiming to be deaf was knocking on the door and trying to flog some cleaning stuff. At the time I was still fairly fluent in British Sign Language. Alas, my efforts at communicating in BSL fell on deaf ears. Not certain it was a scam as not every Deaf person knows sign language. It's that long ago I can't even remember if I bought some of his stuff.
BTW. You should no longer refer to the Deaf as Deaf and Dumb - very 19th century and very much frowned upon by the Deaf community.

[Lateralthinking1]

BTW. You should no longer refer to the Deaf as Deaf and Dumb - very 19th century and very much frowned upon by the Deaf community.

Well I've learnt something here but not necessarily what was being conveyed.

The deaf people, or people with partial hearing, I have known - not many - and those in the media have all spoken. It has never dawned on me that those who didn't speak were simply deaf and choosing not to speak.

I always assumed that there were two separate conditions - most likely congenital - that meant that someone physically could neither hear nor speak. The term in my mind was therefore one that applied to those who were not simply deaf.

When I feel clearer about the nuances, I will try to take on board what you say. However, I have been down this road before on several occasions. When I was a child, we used to do charity work on behalf of the Spastics Society. The word became virtually unmentionable because of the way it had been perverted by the able bodied. Projects I undertook on the life of Joey Deacon - the great man lived a mile from here - were also undertaken against a background of his name being taken in vain nationwide.

[Pianorak]

When I was involved wih the Deaf Community in the eighties there was a big debate about the benefits/drawbacks of cochlear implants. Those against thought it would mean the demise of Deaf Culture, BSL and the Deaf community. The debate was as lively as is the Cymraeg debate in Wales today.

http://www.bda.org.uk/about.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant

[tsuji-giri]

There's a similar scam claiming to be on behalf of Voluntary Service Overseas. Needless to add, most of the loot goes to the operators.
It's an excellent rule not to do anything over the doorstep.

[Don Petter]

It's an excellent rule not to do anything over the doorstep.

I'll remember that, but it might be a bit late in life.

[Ferretfancy]

We get duster boys every couple of weeks, trying to sell household goods like gloves and dusters, usually of very poor quality. They do have licenses, but the sad truth is that the men who drive the racket treat them very badly, and they get very little for their pains. As poverty increases we will see this sort of thing more and more.

[Serial_Apologist]

We get duster boys every couple of weeks, trying to sell household goods like gloves and dusters, usually of very poor quality. They do have licenses, but the sad truth is that the men who drive the racket treat them very badly, and they get very little for their pains. As poverty increases we will see this sort of thing more and more.

Something which puts one in rather a moral quandary on the doorstep Ferret.

Would "the aurally impaired", "aurally-impaired people", or "people with hearing difficulties" be preferred appellations these days?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Would "the aurally impaired", "aurally-impaired people", or "people with hearing difficulties" be preferred appellations these days?

I think it's the "dumb" aspect that (for obvious reasons) isn't appreciated? "Deaf mute" was preferred a few years ago.

[Don Petter]

According to my dictionary, the 'stupid' meaning of dumb is 'US', so it should be OK to use it here if we want to, or are we yet again frightened of the PCers from across the water?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, "dumb" = "stupid" is now so much more a part of UK English speech than = "mute/speechless" that it hurts feelings (or is used to hurt feelings) regardless of transatlantic sensitivities - and avoiding hurting feelings is perhaps more to the point here than etymology?

Of course, "mute" is nowadays most frequently associated with the silence button on a remote control, so maybe that's out-of-date by now, too.

[Pianorak]

I don't think PC comes into it. The generally accepted practice is (was?): deaf (adj) means both partially and wholly deprived of the sense of hearing. Deaf with a capital D usually refers to a person congenitally deaf, but also used in Deaf Community, hence D/d.
Not sure that the terms "impaired" or "difficulties" (hello S_A!) as well as "mute" would go down any too well. And "dumb" is a definite no-no. Just stick to Deaf and you'll be fine. But I'm no longer up to speed on these things.