Door to Door strangeness

[dreamshark]

So here we are, wandering around blearily trying to unpack from Minicon when the doorbell rings unexpectedly (rarely a good sign). It's a bouncy, smiling young woman who immediately starts babbling at me about some kind of youth program that's supposed to help kids "develop their communications skills by talking to people" and win "points" towards scholarships. I'm totally not getting what she is trying to tell me until she pulls out a sheet with pictures of magazine covers overlaid with 3 digit numbers. Apparently she's developing those communication skills by selling magazines door to door. I must admit, it's a creative marketing approach, but as far as I could see, she's still just a door-to-door magazine salesperson. I told her (politely) that not only did I not need any magazines, we were about to eat and didn't have time to help her with her communication skills, and she went away.

Has anybody else run into these people? Is there any reason to think that it is anything other than a slightly slimy way to disarm the potential customer with "aw, it's for the kids," so they can sell magazines? I found it rather creepy.

Comments

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

If it's the same crowd that hit us last year, it's a scam. The "kids" they suck in have to pay to get their art and writing "published" in the not-very-often published and very expensive "magazine." If you buy a "subscription" they'll send you something printed 2 years ago with simply atrocious material. Much of the art is signed and dated from years earlier.

Even if it's a different bunch, this stuff is still a scam. Even if you do get the magazine(s), you'll pay too much. And the kids doing the selling never get any scholarships, they get ripped-off too.

But don't mind me, I'm feeling just a bit grumpy today.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

We've had that schtick around here for years.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

In this neighborhood it's kids selling subscriptions to the newspaper.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I've experienced that shtick here and in California both. It's creepy indeed. Some of the "communication" techniques they use are beyond slimy. The day I buy a magazine because some magazine salesman pretended to think I was cute -- just, ew. No. Ew.

Be happy it wasn't Jack Webb selling magazines door to door.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

It's the same scam as the "nursing students" selling magazines that was on Dragnet about fifty years ago. Just slightly updated.

[jiawen]

I saw an article somewhere... City Pages, maybe? It said that there are busloads of kids getting schlepped all over the country by very shady businesspeople, getting the kids to sell magazines under very high pressure. A lot of the kids are runaways, addicts, etc. and the whole thing is just very depressing. But it was City Pages or something like that, so it's not necessarily the most trustworthy source.

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

I had a similar experience here. A 250 lb., 6'3" black man who was about 18 came to the door (my neighborhood is about 2% black) and tried to sell something. He said something to the effect that by buying his product I would keep him from turning to a life of crime. I thought it was a veiled threat, but I didn't buy anything. I looked out the window and saw other kid-adults and a white window van that evidently had brought a dozen or so of them from who-knows-where to canvass my neighborhood. I'm sure the tactic is successful.