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Magazine scammers walk among us
By adamg on Tue, 06/02/2009 - 2:23pm
It's can be tough to be cynical, but beware of any kids who knock on your door and tell you how they're trying to work their way out of poverty in the inner city by selling magazines door to door - especially if they're from "Destiny Sales." Just ask Rhea Becker, who almost fell for it, but thought to Google the name on the kid's clipboard before she gave him a check, then went out and:
... I get back a few hours later and my housemate lets me know that the guy not only came back to the house but rang the doorbell about 50 times and threw stuff at our windows to get her attention. She didn't answer the doorbell (smart move!) and was basically a prisoner in the house until the guy left.
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Comments
Cue video from Office Space
Cue video from Office Space where the guy shows up at the door selling magazines, and it turns out he used to work at a high tech company down the street and makes more with the magazines
I love that part.
"Hi. My name is Steve. I come from a...rough area."
There was at least one big
There was at least one big expose' on at least one magazine sales company, maybe a few years back, which I'm blanking on at the moment. I recall one piece looked like journalism award material, so I'm surprised I don't immediately find it in Google. The sketchiness is more than just lying to you from a script. Nasty exploitation of kids and stuff.
Is this the one you're thinking of?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/us/21magcrew.html
Bingo
Thanks, I think that's the big one. I take back all the things I said about anon. :)
It's worth a read by anyone who has not already.
Magazine scammers - Houston Press article
Could well have been this one too:
What Mainstream Publishers Don't Want You to Know About Door-to-Door Magazine Sales (Houston Press, 7/15/08)
In Somerville at least...
According to the Somerville police chief, who told a group last week, such solicitors need a permit. If they get abusive, call 911.
yea be carefull of these guys...
There have been a lot of wierd cases in the past few years regarding this. Many times a bunch of late teen/runaway types from across the country hook up with some shady adult who goes to different parts of the country with these kids and this magazine scam.
Most towns require a permit for selling things door to door, and many of these "kids" have criminal backgrounds.
Magazine scammers in Somerville last year too
resulting in this post (followed by various mostly off-topic digressions)
I had an even weirder
I had an even weirder version of this experience years ago in college. I was naive (this was early freshman year) and fell for the spiel of one of these subscription-sellers, a cute young girl. Handed over the dough for about four mag subscriptions, which naturally did not show up.
Until a year later. Sophomore year, suddenly they all started coming to my university mailbox.
Never could figure that one out, unless it was a repentant scammer with excellent record-keeping skills.
There's also been people selling "alarm systems"
lately in Roslindale & JP too, I believe. Not a "casing" scam as originally suspected, but no real literature to provide, and police advised a resident that it's a company that overcharges for its work and then provides no support. Kind of like those quick-fix driveway paving deals...
Not even the alarm systems
But a wireless gizmo that will keep your alarm working after the thieves cut your phone lines before they come in your house to murder you. Always sold by polite young guys who say they're just working their way through college, except they're NOT selling anything, and yet, somehow, they are.
Threw stuff at the windows?
Wow, today is a great day for "reasons everybody should own a firearm" on Universal Hub.
No
Reasons everyone should have a telephone. We have this invention called police, who would stop by and give the young man a talking-to.
That's fine
but what's the endgame? If they don't jail the kid, what's stopping him from coming back and retaliating?
It might happen in some cases
But your typical comments suggest that a gun is a security blanket for all fears that are not addressed by capital punishment.
There's occasionally a place for a gun -- in extremely rare circumstances, in most locales -- but I'm glad that I can have an awareness of security threats without feeling like I need a gun to deal with them.
If Will's mom/dad/grandma/younger brother owned a gun
I'm not sure Will would be alive ... I mean, what teenager hasn't forgotten a key and crawled in a window at some point ... oops!
OK, This I Don't Get
Will - I'm a strong proponent of Second Amendment rights, but I fail to see how having a firearm would have helped this situation. Are you saying that Rhea should have gunned down the magazine scammer? Or, perhaps, her roommate should have waved a gun to frighten him away? The second may have been effective, but either scenario seems like a bit of an over-reaction. Seriously, I'm confused. Splain.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
The latter
If somebody waves a gun at me, I'm getting the fuck out of there. As long as she doesn't fire right off the bat, seems like a good deterrent to me.
Assault
So based on your expected reaction to assault, you advocate it?
Pulling a gun out and waving it at somebody in a threatening fashion is assault. Even if you think assaulting somebody is good fun or a good idea, why would you do it to somebody who knows where you live? If you assault a magazine salesman in this way, even if he's part of a scam or pyramid scheme, he would be well advised to speak to the police about it - which might result in you doing time.
OK
Good deterrent, probably, but - as Sock Puppet points out - under the laws of The Commonwealth, I do believe you could be the one charged with assault.
In addition, say that the scammer is packing. What if he decides that you're not just giving him a warning and he decides to return (what he perceives as) fire? We've now gone from simple harassment, which could have been handled with a call to the police, to a shootout where not only could YOU be killed, but so could innocent folks in the vicinity.
Again, I'm of the opinion that folks should be allowed to carry, but this seems a rather unsafe reaction.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Le plus ce change
I can think of at leat two or three different episodes off the top of my head of Dragnet 1967-1970 that dealt with this exact same problem. And I almost got scammed in Iowa about ten years ago (guy was really pushy and persuasive, gave him a check to get him to leave, promptly stopped payment on said check, never heard again).