# door to door census scam?



## beeniedubai (Jan 7, 2015)

hey all- just curious

i got the weirdest house call today - a random person rang my doorbell at home around 6 pm in full uniform that has dubai statistics department logo stitched and a badge and everything saying he's from the bureau and theyre conducting a census - i said i wasn't interested in participating and he said it's only 2 questions (i was very suspicious) so i said hurry up:

he asked how many ppl live in our house, our nationalities, how many bedrooms, and then he asked my husbands name and phone number (which i didn't give -- i asked why he needed it and he didn't seem to have an answer except that maybe the government wants to ask him some questions-- wtf?)

does anyone know wth is going on? is this legit or a scam--also if its a scam i am concerned as to what they could do with the meager info i did give them (and would the security downstairs have let them up if it was a scam unless they scammed him too?)

we're in silicon oasis.

WEIRD.


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## Racing_Goats (Sep 5, 2015)

It'd be a brave conman who'd impersonate a govt official here I think - I would guess genuine but more to do with enforcing multiple occupancy regulations than census I think. 

I imagine the immigration and residency processes provide all the 'census' info anyone could ever want or likely know what to do with..


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## w_man (Apr 16, 2010)

We had the same thing. Emaar posted an official sign up in our building stating that Dubai Government is conducting a census and we are asked to cooperate. They even posted a picture of the uniform and the badge to ensure we knew who would be coming.

My understanding is that it's legit. We were asked the exact same question.


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## Stevesolar (Dec 21, 2012)

w_man said:


> We had the same thing. Emaar posted an official sign up in our building stating that Dubai Government is conducting a census and we are asked to cooperate. They even posted a picture of the uniform and the badge to ensure we knew who would be coming.
> 
> My understanding is that it's legit. We were asked the exact same question.


If you answer the door - are you obliged to answer their questions?


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## w_man (Apr 16, 2010)

Stevesolar said:


> If you answer the door - are you obliged to answer their questions?


Not sure. I'm usually not very forthcoming with information if I'm not required to provide it but I have had these guys come by at work before in TECOM and they were pretty aggressive so I decided to just give them the basics. The guy who came to our place was very nice though.

Honestly, they have all the information they need about us - what they are asking for, they already have - maybe just different departments.


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## LewsTT (Dec 7, 2015)

Could it possibly be a crackdown on subletting? Doubt it though as its a bit of an open secret.


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## Sunder (Mar 11, 2014)

beeniedubai said:


> hey all- just curious
> 
> i got the weirdest house call today - a random person rang my doorbell at home around 6 pm in full uniform that has dubai statistics department logo stitched and a badge and everything saying he's from the bureau and theyre conducting a census - i said i wasn't interested in participating and he said it's only 2 questions (i was very suspicious) so i said hurry up:
> 
> ...


Hi,

We live in Mankhool and this happened may be 2-3 months back. The guy went to all the apartments in my floor and asked for no of people living in the house, no. of wives(to which I replied one is enough  and he started laughing). Its a part of Dubai Municipality Census survey. Its a legit, timing was in the evening after 6-7 pm.


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

Here you go 

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/dubai-authorities-launch-2016-census-625778.html


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## SgtRoswell (Apr 7, 2014)

I also had a encounter with such guy last month. He was quite friendly and I happened to see the information he already had on his PDA before I gave him any personal information. 

To my surprise they already had the full data and he was just 'confirming' it. Not sure if thats the case with everybody else.


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