Suspicious Enquiry

[Lancashire Cruiser]

Today I had a guy call at the house asking if I would sell my LC95. He spoke in a broad Irish accent and said he had spoken to me before about selling it, which he clearly hadn’t. He said he was a Landscaper and needed a a Truck for towing trailers. There is a Traveler community a couple of miles away and I have been approached before about selling my Ifor Williams trailer, interestingly it can’t be seen from the road so they would have to come on to the property to know there was a trailer actually on the property.
I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt but I was very suspicious of this guy, so much so that the LC is now parked out of sight and with another vehicle blocking it in.

 

[Dave]

Do as you likey!

 

[Shayne]

Bold as brass and if you don't ask you don't get .

I had one amble through my back yard to knock on my back door asking if any of these old trucks are for sale . I didn't much like it but then i figured I'd do the same if i was so inclined .

Doesn't mean they are out to steal it , if they did steal it how far would they get with all the cameras about nowadays they don't much care for rules but they ain't stupid .

Everything is for sale at the right price i think goes hand in hand with that way of life , they don't have the facilities to accumulate so they buy what they need and discard what they don't .

 

[Lancashire Cruiser]

Maybe I’m a bit old school but I don’t particularly like people wandering onto my property without being invited especially when they ask if the trailer is for sale when it clearly can’t be seen from the road, so obviously they are having a look around to see what is there.

 

[diggerdave]

I've had this before, with a bloke enquiring after a particularly ratty-looking 1990 Passat estate provided by work that I had parked on my drive for ages. My mum gets it frequently because she owns a nice VW campervan that she rarely drives these days. She gets rather anxious about it... forgetting the fact that she actually sold a Bedford Rascal campervan years ago to a cold caller for cash (guy turned out to be perfectly genuine). I guess most of these types of enquiry are genuine... chancers looking for a bargain, maybe, in some cases, but genuine. I think it's a massive step between making a (possibly cheeky) enquiry to nicking a car. Granted, I wouldn't like it if someone was actually poking around my property to have a look what was there. That's a bit different.

 

[Lancashire Cruiser]

To be fair I don’t have a problem with someone enquiring if a vehicle is for sale, used to happen a lot at car shows when I had my 911. However the guy who came to the door was driving past, or he said he was and it would be pretty difficult to see the LC as it’s parked in a corner of the property and only just obvious if you were walking past. In the area where we live there has been a spate of vehicle break ins and thefts of vehicles from peoples drives. They have been caught on camera and posted on fB but you can’t see their faces therefore most folks now seem pretty wary of people wandering onto their property.

 

[diggerdave]

I would say that a potential thief wouldn't make himself known by asking after a car face-to-face. I still think it unlikely, but it's probably important not to understimate the potential stupidity of crims (or the power of addiction).

The village down the road from where I live suffered a sudden spate of break-ins to cars, sheds and garages. It's not quite one of those villages where everyone was born there, but it's not far off and it's relatively close-knit. The police are never seen and weren't interested in investigating what they presumably regarded as petty crimes, just issuing reference numbers to those villagers who bothered to report the break-ins. Anyway some of the locals organised themselves and went out in the wee small hours and managed to video the culprits walking round bold as brass trying car doors etc. It turns out that they had just rented a house in the village and when the police were informed they found their garage full of bits and pices of stolen goods. The point being, how stupid would you have to be? To have just moved in to a small community and not think that you might be suspected? And what happened to 'don't sh*t on your own doorstep'?! Not to mention, don't mess with countryside people. There's a lot of shotguns out here and all it would take is to try the wrong house and a moment's flash of rage for you to be on the receiving end.

 

[Tractionman]

Get a dog !
Our border collie used to play a game with people wandering through the back gates, lie low and judge when they were far enough from the gate to make herself known.
Many Hussain Bolts in training, even fat boys who didn't know they had it in them !!

 

[Higgy]

'Loik' dags 'd'yer'.......

 

[Shayne]

Nice to hear such places still exist "digger" I could tell similar stories of the village i will always consider home but instead i'm laughing at the time an uncle of mine went a bit nuts with a shotgun while drunk before his brother disarmed him and rammed his head through his own car window

Because it happened on the main road I guess somebody from out out town drove past and called police so he was arrested . When they knocked on 90 year old Peggy's door to make sure she is ok after her house got shot she replied without hesitation while still half asleep

"I asked him to kill the rat thats been digging up my flowers at night time"

The village often gets ribbed locally as no mans land hillbilly country but i'd be willing to bet its had the lowest crime rate in Britain during my lifetime .

 

[Mick W]

Get a dog !

Your right, low running costs and far more of a deterrent than cameras. Get a few sleepless nights when the dog barks at everything and anything but I’d rather that than find the truck missing or minus a few parts! Luckily the 90 is too old to have a CAT otherwise that would be another thing to worry about…

 

[diggerdave]

Great story Shane!! I can just picture it. We're not totally hillbilly round here (thankfully as I'm an incomer myself) but people do keep their eyes open.

I found myself in a very rural bit of North Lincolnshire a couple of months ago in connection with my work. I was stopped and taking photos in the early afternoon from one of those rural roads that consist of a thin scrape of twenty year old tarmac over mud. I was driving the Colorado, and given the state of the roads I was grateful for it.

I was just about to get back into the cab when a pick up truck drew up behind me. I went over to them to say that I was just about to shift out of the way and sorry for blocking the road, and found four guys dressed head to toe in camo gear. I was politely asked who I was and what I was up to (I think they'd twigged by then that I was dressed in shirt and chinos - I'd been meeting a client). Following my brief explanation they apologised and said that they'd spotted me driving through a nearby village 'in a jeep we didn't recognise' and had followed me to see what I was up to, explaining that they had a local problem with 'people coming up here up to no good'. I assumed they meant hare coursing, but they also told me that they had people coming up and illegally shooting at deer!!! (surely not true?) Turns out they weren't directly employed by the landowner but were a 'local pest control firm' who 'look after the area' because the police take so long to respond.

On the one hand, SHIT... vigilante justice and all that (I didn't see any guns, but presumably they wouldn't be unprepared if people really are shooting deer). On the other hand, who can blame them if the police aren't around. And I know the intimidation that some farmers face from hare coursers.

 

[Shayne]

I think my uncle was released with a caution because the gun was nowhere to be found and they accepted that he will never see it again as gospel . They didn't even ask what happened to the outsider caught giving kids drugs just put him in an ambulance and assumed he fell over ?

 

[Gav missin]

Oil Tractionman I've never even been to yours and I id be rolling not runing

 

[Raj]

another vehicle blocking it in

Not to blame those who came asking, I too lock my eyes on LCs when I see them. I too m doing the same now blocking with other car. I guess LCs are too big, highly visible and attractive. No other car on the market has that bold and big look of LC.

 

[Bob]

In relation to the approach.. when I lived in the town I had a few similar approaches by similar people asking would I sell. IMO they are never to be considered genuine offers, but also unlikely that they are eyeing up your truck for theft. Members of said travelling community don't take landcruisers... the organised criminal gangs do, and use them in robberies where they need something to bash things and still be quick.

I'd be more wary of tools, generators, and perhaps the trailer. The offer to buy was probably a means to get you chatting, to find out if you would have decent tools etc on the property or in the truck. I've been around the block a few times with them, and would be surprised if it was anything different .. but I've been wrong before!

 

[Tractionman]

Now.....if you had a transit....?

 

[Shayne]

or a machine gun ......

 

[wobbly]

Tracker, doesnt stop a theft but may get it back soonest - first 24hrs is important as it'll get stolen and then parked up and left (to see if it has a tracker fitted!) before the strip down starts.