I read the column in the March 24 edition of the Sun newspaper regarding the scam. One thing I’m surprised you didn’t mention is that people should be very reluctant to do business with anyone that comes to them unsolicited, particularly for issues like this one involving finances.
I saw this post on Nextdoor also, and also saw a post last week where a guy in Los Alamitos got scammed by some gardener who was going door to door offering to over seed and aerate lawns. Again, the moral of the story should be to not do business with people who come to you unsolicited, and definitely not before you check references first.
Sincerely,
David
Hi David,
Thanks for your email. I appreciate your concern for our community. I do not want to say that all unsolicited business offers are illegitimate, but you are right to be suspicious. In my article last week I wrote that the community can always call our non-emergency number and speak with an officer to help vet unsolicited offers. Again, when in doubt, call us at (562) 594-7232 and we can help determine if an offer is legitimate.
Since you mentioned it David, I want to briefly touch on the use of the Nextdoor platform. Nextdoor.com is a website and mobile phone application in which users can post information about their neighborhood online.
You may notice that we are NOT active on the Nextdoor.com platform and this is intentional. It seems like every week we are forwarded screen shots from the community about things that are posted on this site.
Very often, what is posted on Nextdoor.com is third or fourth hand, sometimes politically slanted, or even worse completely untrue.
A large amount of these posts consists of rumors, unverified facts, and pure speculation based on very little actual information. Posts are sometimes rude or belittling, and detract from actual information sharing. It is inevitable that these episodes of miscommunication begin with a seemingly endless game of telephone, which in turn causes so much misinformation posted on Nextdoor.com.
I’ve written about this in previous articles. The example I used (and I think it is worth sharing again) involves a Nextdoor.com post where someone believed a newspaper delivery driver was a suspect in a crime.
People are now suspicious of an innocent newspaper delivery driver who just happened to be driving through a neighborhood around the same time an unrelated crime was being committed. We can assure you; the newspaper delivery driver had nothing to do with this crime.
What often happens is that someone on Nextdoor will post about an actual crime that may have occurred, such as a car break-in. This gets repeated several times and the next thing you know—there is a perception that several car break-ins occurred. Why is this a big deal for the Seal Beach Police?
Because we have to take time to respond to questions from the public about why there were so many car break-ins. Responding to false rumors takes valuable time and resources away from other, more important, things. Due to the fact that it would take a full time person to respond and correct each piece of misinformation posted on a daily basis, the Seal Beach Police Department has taken a stance to simply not be a part of Nextdoor.com.
Now David, I’m not saying the post you saw about a person getting scammed by a gardener was not true, but I would ask that users of Nextdoor.com take what they read with a grain of salt.
It is good to be cautious but please trust official sources of information such as:
Official Seal Beach Police Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SealBeachPoliceDepartment
Official Seal Beach Police IInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sealbeachpolice/
Official Seal Beach Police Twitter: https://twitter.com/sealbeachpolice
You can also:
Sign up for Nixle Alerts: Simply text your zip code to 888777 to receive text message alerts on your phone with City updates.
And, Visit our City of Seal Beach website often at www.sealbeachca.gov.
At the end of the day, we’re only a phone call away. Or, you can always email us at askacop@sealbeachca.gov and we’ll share your questions with the community in the Sun.
Thanks!
