What's the scam here (door-to-door solicitors)?

[Astra]

I've gotten my door knocked on several times by people who claim to be either part of a public speaking contest or part of a communications class. Either way, something about overcoming their fear of speaking and having to talk to a certain number of strangers comes into play.

I only opened my door on each occasion because I thought the people were neighbors. They're always college-aged and in pairs. The first time, they had a laminated card with some magazines on it and attempted to sell me subscriptions, but the card had no company names or identifying information anywhere on it, only magazine logos.

This last time, I let the guy get to the part about "public speaking" and cut him off, asking whose class he was with or who was sponsoring the contest. I really threw him off and he seemed surprised I was already familiar with the scam, but stumbled all over his answers and was obviously making them up on the spot. His partner looked worried but stayed quiet.

I did some looking, but haven't been able to find anything beyond this LJ entry, which sounds exactly like what I experienced.

For future reference, I did contact the apartment complex management and they are all about tossing these people out the next time they come around. The first couple of times they visited later in the evening after the front office was closed and I didn't think the trouble warranted a call to the on-site security officer.

I just can't figure out what it is that they're trying to do. The first ones are the only ones who have gotten to the magazine spiel, the middle two sets didn't get that far and these latest ones denied that they were selling anything (but by then it was obvious I was on to them anyway).

Anyone have any idea what they're up to?

[JoeBentley]

Despite my apartment complex ostensibly having a no soliciting policy, I get this exact scam near constantly. Literally about once a week.

I'm not sure what the angle is, but yeah it seems fishy to me as well.

[Tootsie Plunkette]

I found some recent posts in a West Seattle blog reporting similar incidents, so yours is not unique.

In response to the 2nd story, I had the same guy come up to my front door on Monday afternoon (I’m at 34th / Barton) and say that he’s “talking to people in the neighborhood” but didn’t really say why (other than some rhetoric about a school assignment. I told him I worked from home and needed to get back to what I was doing and he replied with “oh, well you make your own hours, so you can totally talk with me.” ??? Um yeah. I told him to leave and he went on his way. Door-to-doors have been hitting Westwood really hard of late.

OMG I had a guy at my door yesterday saying he wanted to meet 1000 people to get a better handle on public speaking… I HAVE a sign on my door that says “no solisitor” on my door & when I pointed to it he said “I’m not a prositute” that’s when I shut the door on his face (white, 5′10″ & sandy colored hair).

Ah, this site seems to connect it with one of those magazine-sales scams. Perhaps if you'd continued the conversation it would have come down to your buying a subscription.

I got hit by this young man in dec of 08…there i was 7 months preggo and thinking i was helping this guy out. He was telling me how his team was earning point to go to Cancun and this DSS company was sending them around to diffrent states that also help them with public speaking. I asked him if he was in juvie or was doing this for community service or something. He talked me into buying a Turtle magazine for my daughter. He knew a lot about all of the magazines and talked me into it. Stupid me ended up giving him cash because he said if he got it in cash he would get extra points. I had lost the recipts and recently found it. here it is April and still no magazines. I looked up this company finally since I found the recipt to find out this is a scam….ugh I am out of 53 bucks….

[Randa Roo]

Here's an article from MSN that talks about these. I'm pretty sure it's the same scam. I read a story somewhere about one of these shady places that took these kids (some of them runaways) and pretty much held them captive to sell these subscriptions. They went all over the country, and these kids were pretty much at the mercy of their 'bosses.' ETA: Here's one of the stories.

Here's a list of google hits regarding this little scheme. You buy the subscriptions and never get them. No phone calls from the companies, no letters, no nothing.

[Astra]

Thanks, I suspected they were all part of the magazine scam, it's just seemed weird to me that most of them would never even get to the "sell" part. I guess maybe they think spending a lot of time on their convoluted public speaking excuse makes people more likely to buy or something.

[Dark Blue]

We deal with these magazine scams all the fracking time. They go door to door and usually say they are with some local organization or school. That way people will feel more compelled to help them out by supporting a "local" charity or school team or whatever it happens to be they are pretending to be. In reality the kids get driven here in a van from the Phoenix area and dropped off to go door to door all day, then the van comes and picks them up at the end of the day.

Its hard for us to do much about it, becuase even though our city requires a license to solicit door to door, these kids never have one, and it doesn't matter if you warn them or ticket them, because the next day it will be a whole fresh batch of kids who either truly don't know the laws, or feign ignorance of the law (I suspect the latter, because they usually have been doing this a while and a lot of areas have similar requirements). They never have much info on the higher ups of the companies and it wouldn't help a whole lot because they are hours away making it difficult to investigate them for anything.

We have gone as far as arresting the van drivers and towing the vans in the hopes of making it too inconvienent for them to come here, but we still deal with it a few times a year. It definately comes in spurts. Nothing for months and months, then every day for like 2 weeks.

I don't buy anything from door to door solictors because of the scams.

[Dark Blue]

I guess maybe they think spending a lot of time on their convoluted public speaking excuse makes people more likely to buy or something.

Its all part of their dirty tactics to make people feel like scum if they don't "support" their charity/oranization by buyng from them.

I'm sure they would have gotten to the sell spiel if you had let them, and they didnt think you were on to them.

[Christie]

I don't know if this one was a scam in the making or not but a few nights ago we had a young man (well turned out, college age) come to the door saying her represented "World Vision". When I asked if he was collecting money for charity he said no, so then (wanting to get rid of him nicely) I asked if he had some brochures he could leave with me. He said he didn't have any brochures. Um, ok. Going door to door on behalf of a charity but he's not collecting money and he has no literature about the charity to leave with us. So what the heck did he want??

[Chinchy]

This scam turns up every so often at my college campus, and it's happened to a handful of people I know: a nice-looking young person (who may or may not even be a student) will approach you and tell you how (s)he's trying to sell magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser for an academic club, and if (s)he earns the most money, (s)he'll win a prize of some sort. And usually during the pitch, (s)he mentions that you can also donate the subscription to a local hospital.

When it happened to me, I at first didn't realize that it was a scam, but several things gave me the "uh-oh" feeling: instead of talking to me in a place where there were a ton of people around, he and his partner had set up shop in a secluded corner of the caffeteria; the prize seemed ridiculously expensive for a club that supposedly needed to hold a fundraiser; he mentioned that he'd get a bonus if I paid with cash; and, as much as it pains me to admit it, the fact that they'd give you an option to donate your subscription to a children's hospital just seemed to good to be true.

In the end, I listened politely to his pitch, but when it came time for me to make a desision about whether or not I was going to buy, I told him I'd recently gotten laid off and didn't have money to spend on magazine subscriptions, and then walked away as soon as I could.

Apparently, this has become enough of an issue that we--the student body--now occasionally get e-mails from the administration warning us not to buy from these people and to alert campus security if we're approached in this manner. I can only hope people take the warnings seriously...