Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Door-To-Door Scams Increasing

By Cornelius Nunev


Many people who are selling things door-to-door are completely truthful and have a tough job. However, not all are, and some wish to do more than just to get you hopelessly hooked on infernally scrumptious cookies. Numerous door-to-door scams are being reported nationwide, so the amount of them active in many areas might be increasing.

Fraud artists running door-to-door scams on the rise

You might end up losing thousands of dollars if you get trapped in a door-to-door scam. This could lead you to needing payday loans to get through the month. There has been a massive increase in these door-to-door frauds recently, according to NBC News.

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 take place too, but more or less, all of them are salesmen trying to squeeze as much money 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 Bureau 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.

Frauds for magazines

There have been over 1,000 complaints this year at the BBB from door-to-door magazine cons. That number was only 1,300 for all of 2011, which means the periodical frauds have grown to be the most common.

Door-to-door salesmen show up and offer magazine subscriptions. After you pay for them, they never actually come. A ton of times, they disguise the scam behind some kind of educational fundraiser.

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 magazine subscriptions have been showing up recently. They are just a couple examples too since there have been a bunch of warnings issued in areas.

More cons

Other common door-to-door frauds, according to NBC News, include home repair cons and "security system" frauds. The latter could possibly be either a "test" of a security system or door-to-door burglar alarm sales, which just like the magazine frauds will result in a system that never arrives or one that is poorly installed and woefully inadequate.

A bunch 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.

Also beware of Girl Scouts selling cookies. Those things are addicting.




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