Sunday, November 3, 2013

Growing Number Of Door To Door Scams Being Reported

By Cornelius Nunev


Always be cautious about people selling stuff door to door, as a number are rip-off artists. Aside from Girl Scouts trying to get individuals addicted to diabolically addicting cookies, there are numerous door-to-door scams out there.

More frauds at your door

You may end up losing thousands of dollars if you get trapped in a door-to-door scam. This might lead you to needing payday loans to get through the month. There has been a massive increase in these door-to-door cons 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 happen too, but more or less, all of them are salesmen attempting to squeeze as much money out of you as possible without actually providing any kind of service. This is why there has been a huge increase in complaints of these salesmen to the Better Business Bureau recently.

Make sure you know when it is a scam and when it is real; there are a ton of honest salesmen that are actually attempting to sell you something legitimate.

Selling fake periodicals

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

A lot of times, the supposed periodical sales are connected to an educational fundraiser. This is the way they make it seem legitimate. Then, after paying for the magazines, they never arrive.

There are a lot of areas where the scam is common. There have been warnings issued for them recently in many areas, including Spokane, Washington, according to KHQ. They have also been showing up, according to CBS Denver, in Lamar County, Colo., and, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

A few other common frauds

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

There are some legitimate sales, but a lot of them are not, and it can be hard to turn away a poor kid who needs additional cash. Consumer Reports points out that alarm frauds and magazine frauds are much more common in the summertime when college and high school students are employed by scam corporations to sell you stuff.

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




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