Street harrasser or just a salesman, how to escalate?

My friend (foreigner) was going home today from a bus stop near Guandu. A local man came near her and started to do small talk. Asked questions like what she did etc . He told about his company (atomy) which sells health/beauty products and gave her his card. So far fine.

But then he asked her where she lives. She told Tamsui. He said I also live there. He stopped next bus going to Tamsui and suggested her to get in it. But her specific bus was differernt so she said I don’t want to take this bus.

Then when her bus arrived he also got in the same bus. To feel safe she sat next to a lady. In the bus, he came near her and offered a lipstick made by his company and asked her to try it. She said no and did not accept it. Then he gave her some other product but that also she declined.

The lady next to her got down at Zhuwei. The man was sitting few rows ahead. He kept coming near her and doing small talk. He came to know that she is married and asked if she/her husband knew Chinese. Then he gave a (chinese) booklet to her.

While she was getting down he gave her his company brush (she declined) and gave her his business card and asked her mobile number. She did not want to and said that she will call him if needed.

After she told me this I am confused as to what to do. Should we complain to his employer about his behaviour or let it go?

Thoughts?

Even if she’s over-reacting (I’m not saying she is), the company would still want to know he’s not good PR for them. :2cents:

2 Likes

While annoying, this guy’s behavior doesn’t seem to rise to the level of actionable harassment or stalking. I think your friend should have been more firm in telling him she wasn’t interested in his “products.”

about “stalking”, we don’t know if he got in the same bus just to speak with her or he already wanted to take the same bus.

It sounds from your account like he did, but it would be very hard to prove definitively.

your friend needs to learn how to say bu yao.

Yeah, I would be inclined to just call the company and tell them their sales guy is a complete bell end, as we used to say back home. The police will be 100% not interested.

I’m responsible for buying industrial products and once had a sales guy endlessly calling me and talking utter bullshit (he knew absolutely nothing about the technical features of the product he was selling - he just had a really, really high opinion of his own “sales skills”). Eventually I just hung up on him in mid-blather. I think he got the message. Sometimes these people are just a bit retarded and you have to tell them ‘no’ in single-syllable words (which is quite easy in Chinese, of course).