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Man knocking on doors late at night, asking for money causing concern for Jacksonville neighbors

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A man knocking on doors in the Riverside-Avondale area has neighbors worried about what his real motive is.

He is claiming that he needs gas money to get to a relative, but then gets aggressive when neighbors don’t hand over cash.

People in the neighborhood have been posting about the man since March on their neighborhood page.

Gauri Chaubhari said she was home alone when she heard a loud knock on the door as she was getting ready for bed.

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"I got scared, but I thought it was my husband, so I opened the door," Chaubhari said.

And that’s when she saw an older man standing at the bottom of her steps.

"He told me his daughter had been in an accident and she lives in Georgia and he needs to fill up gas in his car," Chaubhari said

She said he asked for about $400, but she told him she didn’t have that kind of cash on her.

"He got really aggressive, so he pushed me for giving that money," Chaubhari said.

That’s when she said he started climbing the stairs to get closer to her.

"When that happened, I was thinking, 'Oh, something is wrong,' so I tried to close my door," Chaubhari said.

Chaubari said she shut the door and called her husband, who told her about a post on their neighborhood’s Next Door app.

About six other people posted about a similar man coming to their doors with the same story at odd hours of the night.

One post even included a picture of him from a surveillance camera.

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"He tells everybody that he's their neighbor, so definitely he's not a neighbor," Chaubhari said.

Action News Jax Crime and Safety Expert Ken Jefferson said you shouldn’t answer the door for people you aren’t expecting.

"If you answer the door, he wants to see how vulnerable you are, he wants to see how accommodating you will be," Jefferson said.

The woman said she called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and reported the man.

Action News Jax reached out to the Sheriff’s Office and they couldn’t tell us anything about the recent door knocks.

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