Don't Buy Your Magazines From Door-To-Door Salesmen This Summer
A couple of years ago, the New York Times did a piece on the poor treatment of teens hired to travel the country and sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door, but they're not the only ones getting the raw end of the deal.
The Better Business Bureau says:
In the last 12 months alone, BBB has received complaints from consumers in nearly every state who bought magazine subscriptions from crews of young adults selling door-to-door. According to complaints, the young sales reps might claim to be neighborhood youth trying to raise money for charity, a school trip, or even for troops in Iraq. The victim pays with a check on the spot, but the magazines never arrive.
Here's basically how it works:
- The companies employ "crews of high school and college-age people who are trying to earn money over the summer."
[See a list of offending companies here.] - The youths will claim they're selling magazines for all sorts of heart-melting reasons:
- to get their lives back on track
- to raise money for a charity
- to pay for a school trip
- to raise money to support troops in Iraq
- In some cases, they'll use hard-sell tactics, including becoming angry if you don't buy something.
- You'll be asked to pay for the subscriptions immediately by check.
- That will be the end of it. By which we mean, you won't receive your magazines.
We think there are better ways of buying magazine subscriptions and of supporting teens, charities, and troops, and there's no reason the two worlds need to be mashed together on your front porch without warning. The BBB takes a slightly more nuanced view of the subject, however, and they provide some tips for those of you who want to buy door-to-door magazines but don't want to get ripped off. The most important one is the person selling should always provide the following two things:
- a receipt
- "a completed cancellation form that customers can send to the company to cancel the agreement"
The BBB notes that "by law [the FTC's Three-Day Cooling-Off Rule], the company must give customers a refund within 10 days of receiving the cancellation notice."
"BBB Warns Against a Summer Scam Going Door-to-Door Nationwide" [BBB]
(Photo: Listener42)
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Comments:
I have a strict policy of never buying anything again from a door-to-door person. I've been burnt before and I still have vivid memories of the painful experience.
A friend of mine did this when she was really young. She said it was interesting. SHADY as hell and interesting. (She was young and dumb, even she admits it.) Don't turst 'em!
Howabout don't buy anything from people selling crap door-to-door unless you get it in your hand immediately?
These cases are so sad: it's the closest thing to child slavery that exists in this country, including turning a blind eye to drug use (mainly speed) and beatings then abandoning them hundreds of miles from home with empty pockets if impossible quotas aren't met.
People should be jailed who run these companies.
If you ever wonder what the service industry would look like if Libertarians ran things, look no further.
In the summer I get these almost daily. Why would I pay for some punk kid to go to France? I want to go to France!! :-P And yes I mean it when I say punk kid. Often they heavily emphasize FHM or other "mens" magazines usually using perverse language and swearing when trying to sell to me. How does this make me want to buy from you? And what about me screams, "I bet this guy wants half naked ladies?" I think they have similar scripts too. The last few guys all told me I could just send them the subscriptions when I told them I wasn't interested. So now I'm not only sending you to France but I buying you nudie mags too.
The worst has to be the company that sent a mentally and physically handicapped kid. I felt really bad and did succumb to the sales pitch. Not only were there ~4 different hidden fees but I never received any magazines.
@Riff-Raff: Yeah, I should have mentioned that above: DO NOT tell the salesman about your plan to embezzle from the company where you work. Unless you really like Vibe.
About the only thing I would consider buying (actually, ordering) from a door-to-door salesperson is Girl Scout cookies and she better be wearing her GS uniform. Cookies get delivered then she gets her money. No up front cash. But then again, between a former co-worker and my next door neighbor, I don't have to really worry about a d-t-d GS cookie seller.
Yeah my brother did this gig for a while. It's really hard to sell enough magazines to actually profit because you travel and the company charges you for room and board. You have to sell so many a day. They had all kinds of lies and depending on your "look" you had a different one... ranging from being an ex con, to raising money for a school trip. My brother once told someone he was also doing a food label drive and asked them to give him all the labels off of their canned goods an people did it.
They even lied to Hispanic people that they could get the magazines in spanish, which they could not. It was a really shady business an I personally would not buy anything from a door to door salesman.
@Papercutninja: Duh. But just because that's obvious, doesn't mean that some people will still fall for it, or that this shit is still highly shady and unethical.
Isn't is easy to come up with fake 'receipts' and cancellation forms? How is that reliable at all?
This brings me back to my middle school days. God I hated having to hawk magazines to our neighbors. I felt bad that we pressured them to buy overpriced magazines so they would not look bad to our parents.
I fell for it when I was 19. Now as a general safety/avoiding annoyances tactic my policy is not to open the door unless I know who it is.
I've had a couple of people come to my door with this BS. Why are people still patronizing door-to-door salespeople? In the age of the internetz? You can buy anything, from anywhere, at any time of night or day, and have it delivered to your front door from the internet. Sometimes for free! If my memory serves me correctly, these people were slightly disheveled and they didn't drive up in a car.
They even ignored the 2nd "No Solicitors" sign near the doorbell... there's one on the lawn at the beginning of the driveway. No one ever got crazy with me though--they wouldn't win the crazy-off, so that's a good thing! :-)
I keep saying it over and over: there's no law that says you have to answer your door. If you knock on my door and I look out the window and don't know you, I ain't opening it.
Yeah, I don't do business with door-to-door salespeople anymore.
And that includes those clowns you send around pushing FIOS, Verizon.
@Raekwon: If you would just take that Hustler calendar down from the entrance hallway, they'd stop trying to sell you Maxim. :D
I dunno about this...I bought one year from a kid that came by, and it was a very good experience. He was a good salesman, in that I bought something I didn't particularly need, but felt unpressured and good about it in the end. He was definitely not a neighborhood "selling magazines for the football team" salesman, but from one of these larger companies.
Apparently they have some kind of signal, where if they make a sale (or even if not?) they put a little tag on your door so you don't get bothered again.
Anyway, the next year someone else came by, and I bought again, but didn't end up getting my magazines. I never figured out whether things were just misfiled or it was a scam (I'm non-cynical enough to acknowledge both as reasonable scenarios), but I was only out about $20 so I didn't bother making a huge stink about it.
I haven't got a magazine salesperson in a while, but despite the security people roaming the apartment complex, we still get a lot of sketchy dudes with a box of chocolate bars or sodas, trying to sell them for 3 dollars apiece for various "charities". I don't even open the door anymore...just call the office and let them deal with it. Luckily, I don't have any kind of windows near my door, so I don't have to bear the dirty looks when they see me purposefully ignoring them.
These people come to our apartment complex quite often these days and they're not exactly the friendliest people on earth. I just tell them I'm busy and walk away.
But the first time they came I actually opened the door because I thought they were neighbors since a lot of young people live here. Very next day there on the news was a story about a rapist disguised as a magazine sales...
Happened to me last summer - I forget what magazines I ordered, but I ended up getting a crappy subscription to Dwell. Ugh.
Two girls selling subscriptions offered to make out with each other if I bought some. They were too skanky for that to be even tempting.
I had the boy-with-tub come to my door this week. I told him "no" immediately. He then asked to come into my home so he could use the phone. I told him "no" again.
Bye bye
@Trai_Dep: Doesn't actual child slavery exist here? That came up in the post where the woman tried to sell her baby.
This past week, 3 high-school aged kids came to my door and claimed they were raising money for charity. They claimed it was for Foodshare, and I would simply right my name down on a form and give them cash or check. I asked them "Foodshare really tells you to go door-to-door asking for money?"
I'm fairly sure this was just a group of kids trying to get money for nothing. I googled the situation and didnt find much on it.
My Mother-in-law has signed up for several magazines for my daughter (who is four and can't read very much) and thus far all the subscriptions have arrived, BUT each time the person selling has had a weird story, the last one claimed she ahd just been raped and was being followed, she did not want the police called and seemed very intent on getting a sale.
@Rectilinear Propagation: I think she was a little ranty and when I (and others) asked her for cites for her daytime-TV spawned hysteria, she didn't follow up.
@HiPwr: Under a Libertarian scheme, the state couldn't intrude on contracts entered into between the two parties, and whatever moral implications arising thereof would be for customers to judge.
Therefore, this would be peachy. Lauded, in fact: Unfettered Free Market RULEZ!
@Rectilinear Propagation: I'm sure it exists. Children are easily manipulated. Is it wide spread? Probably not. But there are probably some adults who use children as labor/slaves.
I used to get these kids all the time. In our neighborhood they were practicing public speaking and getting over their "shyness." Not a single one of them seemed shy to me.
Anyway, I don't answer my door anymore. My friends know to call me quick before they come over. I've had knocks on the door after dark and since I live alone I don't take chances.
@nakedscience: So I could enter into a contract with my neighbor two houses down to kill my wife and in the Libertarian world, it would be enforceable and legal?
I never got one of them at my door but I did get caught by one of these guys at the mall once while I was waiting for the bus. (One of the cons of having to wait on a bus is getting targeted by the creeps.) He pulled the "helping us urban youth" deal but what was weird was that he claimed that the act of selling was what was helping them. (They had a job instead of being on the streets.)
Then he told me he was supposed to be going door-to-door but that it was too cold for that. I think it was in the teens that day and windy so I'm not surprised to hear that they're treated badly all around.
This happened to me last summer. She came in my garage while I was fixing a lawnmower and she told me she was addicted to crystal meth and blah blah blah. She said something about a contest where she wins points and asked what I did and since I was a college grad she got 500 points, etc.
Then she's like what magazines do you read, I told her and she hands me a thing for 3 subscriptions. I told her I didn't want it and she asked me why I don't believe in second chances or helping people change their lives. I told her to GTFO.
I've got a friend sucked up into one of these scams. He's leaving for "sales school" in two weeks. He'll be back home in four, guaranteed.
@Trai_Dep: Except that no Liberatarian would expect someone to enter a contract against their will.
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine
There was a Dragnet episode or two featuring the door to door magazine scam - and that was 40 years ago!
@Trai_Dep: But you would also be able to shoot door-to-door salespeople on your property, eliminating the practice by one way or another. Sounds like the free market works pretty well to me.
The best pitch I ever had from one of these mag sales people is when the sales girl knocked on my door, with tears in her eyes, saying that someone in the building had shouted at her and was following her. It was the only time I have ever been remotely tempted by this scam. Still didn't fall for it. It was amazing how quickly she went from being afraid to everything being OK when she realized I was not going to buy anything..
@nakedscience: Yes, and controlling their own destiny. No one is forcing teens to sign up to sell magazines door to door.
'Steve': "Good evening sir. My name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I was addicted to crack, but now I'm off and trying to stay clean..."
Michael Bolton: "Wait! You used to be addicted to crack?!"