Conned Johns harass Brighton street

Residents of a Brighton street say they are being harassed by punters knocking on their door expecting a prostitute at all hours – only to find out they’ve been scammed.

Some residents of the street, which Brighton and Hove News has agreed not to name, have even resorted to putting signs in the window saying “no sex workers here”.

The most recent visit was this afternoon, when a man knocked on a door in the middle of the street.

The door knockers have all been answering ads posted on sex worker-friendly Viva Street – posted by fraudsters who take payment online and then send them to a false address.

Many have been in the name of Marnie, although more recently the name Johanna has been used. For some reason, the scammers are choosing to send their marks to this small residential street.

The residents have had to track down the profiles on Viva Street themselves and report them, which seems to work for a few months – but then a new profile springs up.

With Sussex Police saying there’s nothing they can do, they are stumped as to how to stop the unwanted door knocks.

One of the residents said: “The knocking is collected at numbers near one end of the street, not concentrated at one exact address.

“Some of the people impacted include an elderly woman who lives alone and young families with babies. It’s been quite distressing for them and they’ve had to put up signs on their doors.

“It’s has happened over three or four periods in the last few years. It stops for months, maybe because of our complaints to the website, but we don’t know why.

“Now the ads have started again with a new profile and name.”

A spokesman for Sussex Police said: “Police received two reports of individuals mistakenly knocking on the doors of properties in this Brighton street during the summer of 2022.

“The individuals reportedly asked for a person who did not live there, having been given the address by a company.

“Residents were advised to contact the company responsible to make it aware of the issue.”

A Vivastreet spokeswoman said: “Vivastreet has a zero tolerance policy towards scams and spam adverts, and we have a wide range of measures in place to detect and block content of this nature.

“We apologise to the residents of this street for the inconvenience they have experienced. We have removed a number of adverts already, and ask that they get in touch to give us further details, so we can ban and block any users linked to them.”