Increasing Amount Of Door To Door Cons Being Reported

By Cornelius Nunev


Many people who are selling things door-to-door are perfectly truthful and have a tough job. However, not all are, and some want to do more than just to get you hopelessly addicted to infernally delicious cookies. A number of door-to-door cons are being documented nationwide, so the number of them active in many areas may be increasing.

Door-to-door sales growing

According to NBC News, there is a rise being reported nationwide in the number of door-to-door cons, some of which are scamming people out of hundreds and occasionally thousands of dollars, leaving them at risk of needing to get payday loans to survive.

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

There are a good amount of completely truthful 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.

Selling fake magazines

One of the most common door-to-door frauds is periodical cons, according to NBC News. The BBB has received more than 1,000 complaints so far this year about magazine subscriptions, compared to 1,300 for all of 2011.

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

Warnings have been issued in numerous areas recently; local authorities over bogus magazine subscriptions in the past few months contain Lamar County, Colo., according to CBS Denver, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Spokane, Wash., according to KHQ, a Spokane ABC affiliate. These are just a few examples, as the scam is common.

Additional things to beware

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

A lot 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 could be hard to stay from Girl Scout cookies, so avoid those too.




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