Sierra Solutions Encourages Illegal Activity South Lake Tahoe California

The afternoon of October 17th, I was enjoying a few quiet moments in my home. I had just gotten my baby to go down for a nap, when I heard someone pounding urgently on my front door. I normally don’t answer the door when I am home alone with the kids, unless I am expecting someone. The way this individual was knocking, I assumed there was an emergency. He was banging very loudly on my door and continued until I opened it. When I answered the door, I saw that it was a salesman for a cleaning product. He immediately started into his spiel, speaking loudly and quickly. I interrupted him and politely pointed to my “No Soliciting, Please” sign and asked if he saw it. He replied, “Of course! I’m not stupid,” and continued with his spiel. By this time, I could hear my baby screaming upstairs, so I excused myself and shut the door while he was still speaking. After tending to the baby, I looked up the company the salesman represented, Sierra Solutions, and wrote the following e-mail:

“Hi, I just had a very unpleasant experience with one of your salesmen. I have a large, "No Soliciting," sign on my front door, but he chose to knock loudly anyway, waking up my napping baby in the process. I asked if he had seen the sign and he replied, "Of course, I'm not stupid!" I shut the door on him in order to go attend to my child. If he is disregarding my sign, he is likely doing the same to others. This happened today, 10/17/13 at 2:15pm in xxxxxxx, Idaho on xxxxxxxx Drive. Please tell your salespeople to honor such signs.

Thank you,

Kim xxxxx”

The following week, I received a response from Sierra Solutions. After 8 paragraphs of information on their product, they addressed my concerns.

“In regard to your question about one of the Independent Distributors knocking on your door with a no soliciting sign. We actually do recommend to knock on every door, or ring every bell. We believe it is better for folks to know what they are doing at your door rather than for them to walk up and then walk away with no explanation. Plus, we have found that for the most part, when people move homes...one thing they do not bring with them is their no soliciting sign. So just in case someone has moved to a new home and did not put a sign up and their new home just came with a sign we do not want to pass on any potential customers. If  the rep came to your home and awoke your sleeping baby...we are sure that it was not intentional. They conduct business by "cold calling" potential customers, door to door in homes and businesses, it can be tough sometimes and the last thing any of them want to do is upset someone. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

Best regards,

Customer Service

Sierra Solutions”

I responded by informing them of the local law that prohibits this practice.

 “this is not legal. I will be forwarding this correspondence to the city of xxxxx. The law states: 

5.20.050: NUISANCE PROHIBITED:

1. No person, registered or not, shall solicit business at any home or business when such location has clearly posted any sign indicating that solicitation or peddling is prohibited."

In addition, I posted the following on their Facebook page (they have since deleted my comments)

“What the hell?!? Your company actually encourages its “independent distributors” to knock on doors with no soliciting signs posted?

(I then quoted their e-mail, in which they confirmed that this is their practice)

I don’t care if your product is made of freaking unicorn tears and Carebear farts, I would never buy a product from a company with an obvious lack of morals, such as yours. I will encourage all of my family and friends to do the same.”

 I then commented, copy and pasting the local law that prohibits their actions.

Sierra Solutions responded:

 “...From our experience a “No Soliciting” sign does not translate to a “Baby Sleeping” sign. The fact is that our sales reps are trained to canvass entire neighborhoods or businesses to solicit our products. Yes they are trained not to “skip” any homes or businesses...all of us were babies at one time that probably got woken up by accident and we all lived through it!”

Several hours later, Sierra Solutions deleted my original post, along with their comments confirming that they encourage their distributors to engage in illegal activity. Fortunately, before it was deleted, I took screenshots of the entire post.

I feel it is now my duty to inform any potential customers of way Sierra Solutions conducts its business and do whatever I can to keep them from disturbing the public. They are blatantly disregarding local laws and must be stopped.