Door-to-door frauds growing

Police and news agencies are reporting an increased amount of door-to-door scams across the country. There might be a bigger number of operators attempting to rip people off, so be cautious about everyone knocking on the door and attempting to sell you stuff. Resource for this article:

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More cons at your door

According to NBC News, there is an increase being reported nationwide in the number of door-to-door cons, some of which are scamming people out of hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, leaving them at risk of needing to get SPAM LINK REMOVED payday loans.

The salesmen will come to your door and offer you a product for some payment. Then, they will not ever really deliver the goods. There are other things that happen too, but more or less, all of them are salesmen trying to squeeze as much cash out of you as possible without actually providing any sort of service. This is why there has been an enormous increase in grievances of these salesmen to the Better Business Agency recently.



There are a good number of perfectly honest operations doing sales door-to-door, or “home sales” or “direct sales” as they are called in the marketing industry, but one has to keep their eyes peeled.


Magazine cons common

The most common door-to-door scam is a periodical scam. In all of 2011, there were 1,300 complaints, according to NBC News, at the BBB. This year there have already been over 1,000 grievances.

Usually, the con is that the door-to-door salesman will show up and sell a person one or several magazine subscriptions, only for the magazines to never arrive. It's also common for the periodical “sales” to be connected to some kind of fundraiser, often for a high school or some sort of educational trip.

Lamar County, Colorado, according to CBS Denver, the Dallas Fort Worth Area, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Spokane, Washington, according to KHQ, are all areas where bogus periodical subscriptions have been showing up recently. They are just a couple examples too since there have been a variety of warnings issued in areas.

More scams

You should stay away from home repair frauds and, according to NBC News, “security system” scams. The security system cons sell you a burglar alarm that ends up being really bad or just never arrives just like the periodical cons do.

A variety of high school students and college students are sent around in the summer time to sell periodicals and alarm systems, according to Consumer Reports. Some are legitimate but some are not.

It can be hard to stay away from Girl Scout cookies, so keep away from those too.

Sources

<a href="http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/08/14/13261342-door-to-door-scam-operations-on-the-rise">NBC News

<a href="http://news.consumerreports.org/home/2011/05/get-the-most-out-of-your-alarm-system.html">Consumer Reports

<a href="http://www.khq.com/story/17277916/south-hill-scam-widens">KHQ

Most cities have an ordinance that requires door to door salesman to have a permit. I know my city does, and it is mostly for weeding out the frauds. If someone comes to your door, ask to see their permit. If they don't have one send them on their way, and if they seem real sketchy call the police department's non-emergency line and report it.

I think this is spam, lol....

But, it is still a good tip..

grove street for life!


Whenever I see one of them I say "not interested" and shut the door. That's charities, sky, newspapers, everyone. And I throw out the avon catalogue as soon as they litter it through my door.

shudder. I detest face to face sales. I have a policy of not buying anything from companies who send sales people to my door. and Ive switched power and phone companies before for it. Annoys the hell out of me!

:blink: - did I just become a grumpy old man?

and I despise face to face fundraising. The majority of this type of fundraising is done by third party companies who charge charities exorbitant amounts of money, promising massive conversion rates. Which is true, but the drop off rate is about 60% in the first 6 months. Which means that the charity never actually recoups its costs sufficiently to make it a reasonable fundraising method. Its unsustainable and ineffective.

and annoying.

over here the chuggers (they annoy you in the street instead of at your door) have to disclose how much they get paid when asked by law.

ren wrote: over here the chuggers (they annoy you in the street instead of at your door) have to disclose how much they get paid when asked by law.

Chuggers here tend to set up camp outside supermarkets and the like.

I really like that idea. Here they tend to get minimum wage, but also commission per sign up. Personally, I don't think its an ethical way to raise money.

we've got these too.
The only ones I like aren't chuggers at all, they're the boyscouts, instead of standing in the lobby and stopping everyone trying to get out, they're at the till helping with the bagging. they're kids who don't get paid, making themselves useful, so they get something from me if I carry cash.