RECENT COMMENTS
Beware of suspicious solicitors
In northside they are pretending to be from the elementary school, around here they are selling magazine subscriptions:
Last night at around 6:30 pm on the 2200 block of Grace St. a black man in his early twenties rang our doorbell. He was wearing a white button down shirt. My girlfriend answered and he proceeded to go into the following spiel, punctuated with lots of questions about the neighborhood and my girlfriend: “I am here to work on my people skills. How am I doing? This is my first job, What was your first job? I’ve been talking to your neighbors, (proceeds to rattle off list of names). What’s your name?”. Finally my girlfriend (who has the patience of a saint) asks this guy if he is selling anything. he tells her he is selling magazine subscriptions. When she tells him she doesn’t have time to read magazines, he says the subscriptions can be donated to charities like the Ronald McDonald house. Finally she tells him she doesn’t have any money and closes the door.
A little unnerving but not a big deal, right? Unfortunately, about an hour later the doorbell rings again and when I look out the window I see two young men, same white shirts, obviously selling the same “magazine subscriptions”. I shooed them away and then saw them go to my neighbors door with the same pitch.
They come to my neighborhood on southside, too. There’s some company that loads kids up into vans and drops them off. I seem to remember a story about how scam-y they are a few months back…anyone else see it?
I come across this same scheme before. I think these guys get recruited, “trained” and hauled from city to city giving the same spiel. It hasn’t changed much in 10 years.
I remember reading a newspaper article about this a few years ago…from what I understand, the kids who are “selling” these magazine subscriptions are being duped too. They are impressionable kids, typically from low income neighborhoods, that are recruited by a larger company that pays them little to sell these fraudulent subscriptions. The company offers jobs that require no experience to lure these kids in. Not sure if this is the same thing, but sounds like it.
They were in our area of Churchill 2 nights ago. He came by at at 6pm but I didn’t answer. Stopped by again at 8pm and I told him we weren’t interested.
They have been through the museum district twice in the last week or so…
First time two young guys caught me as I was getting out of my car to go into my house telling me the same…working on people skills, selling mags to earn points to buy beer and a trip to Italy. Then night before last another young guy told me he was earning points through mag sales to support his family-4 daughters and 3 sons or something like that and he had kidney problems and a hand full of bullets still in them. They did however respect the fact that I said know the first time and left.
Glad I wasn’t the only one weirded out by it. I just hope they weren’t also scoping out the place for future reference. I was especially intrigued by the fact that, although only one fellow came to the door, when he left he was followed by a couple other kids.
http://listofscams.blogspot.com/2009/07/door-to-door-magazine-sales-is.html
this link contains some good information–check it out.
Wow, this scam has been around for a while. I was harassed in exactly the same way many years ago in college. I lived off campus in a small townhouse complex and these kids would be dropped off en masse and then make the rounds knocking on doors. When I was dumb enough to open my door, I was told they were trying to get a trip to the Caribbean. It didn’t matter when I told this one person no either. Different kids would bang on my door trying again and again. My complex’s management took no responsibility, citing a tiny sign that said ‘No Soliciting’ on it out front. I think one of these kids came to my house on the Hill a week ago… when I peered out my front window, it seemed like a sales thing to me, so I ignored it. The kid did try for quite a while though, constantly knocking and ringing my door bells multiple times. Best advice, just ignore it as much as is possible. As for scoping out you place for the future, maybe not – although, you never do know.
It happened to me several years ago, I paid cash for several subscriptions. The magazines never came. There was a toll free phone number left for me to call after five weeks if the magazines hadn’t arrived yet. I called the number, and it was a law firm in CA.
I was tricked, and so now I never answer the door for anyone I don’t know.
The sad thing is there are children out there who are really trying to raise money for school projects. Situations such as this one, just make it very hard for the genuine ones.