Alpharetta door to door magazine scam (Atlanta: sales, apartment, neighborhood)

[windsorslp]

There is a guy in our Alpharetta neighborhood going around selling magazine subscriptions - he will say that part of the money goes toward a fundraiser for a college trip to Europe to study art and that they are going to send the magazines to the troops overseas, unless you want to keep the subscription yourself. He will say he lives in the neighborhood and mention neighbors names (because he has talked to them just prior) and will also make up some stuff if he finds out you don't know everyone, (which few of us do). The brochures and flyer and even receipt all look very good but when I looked up the company name: "united circulation", it comes up with all sorts of fraudulent complaints of people never getting any magazines. They take your cash or worse, get a check from you and then have your personal and banking info. He really goes the extra mile to chit chat and make it seem like he's just a friendly guy fundraising. The complaints on the internet are from all over the country and the person selling always has a similar pitch with a few twists. Anyway, for what it's worth, I just thought I let people know what the internet search says about this company.

[spacelord75]

This is the oldest scam...I have had the exact same ruse attempted on me multiple times over the last decade. I had a guy show up once (this was circa 2001) at my apartment and his spiel was it was a "personality contest" and showed me some raggedly laminated black and white paper with vaguely discernible pics of Europe on it. He would not take no for an answer and was looking for ANY crack in the armor to exploit to get into my place. He even was like "Hey man...I've been walking all day...can I have a Coke?" and I was like "I only have milk and beer." and he was like "Oh man - can I have a beer???" I was like "Seriously??? Get out of here!"

Just imagine if someone could use such motivation and passion for something productive!

[windsorslp]

I know! This guy asked my husband for a cigarette! Sad thing is the internet reports say they use kids as young as 13-14 to do this. The company claims people get their magazines but I have yet to find a report of someone getting them and even if they did, NO money goes to any charity and they never have a permit to solicit door to door. The cops in other states have made some arrests but they just move on...

[windsorslp]

Now I'm getting scared -after reading some of the old stuff on city-data about some magazine sales guys (not going by the same company name as the one that came to our neighborhood but still....) there are reports of rapes, robberies and murders...

[Mattie]

We used to have a busload of kids dropped off in our town every single Saturday to sell candy. I bought a couple of times, then got suspicious because the kids kept asking to use my bathroom. I never thought they were trying to steal, but they were left without any resources for 8-10 hours until the bus came back. That's when I started calling the police if they rang my bell. After a while they moved on to other towns.

[SW30303]

It never hurts to repeat any type of door-to-door scams as a reminder for all of us to be cautious. Since the weather is really bad today in metro Atlanta, I am surprised someone is attempting this, but then again, bad weather does not always thwart thieves.

[RandyWatson13]

That is why you keep a low limit card around just in case. They can't run up charges b/c they will just get declined

[flyonpa]

Two years ago i had the 'college' one come thru, but when she asked for something to drink and i lock'ed the screen door, she then turned and left. I then locked the Front door, and Call'ed the Sheirff, to come check them out, They found 10 (in teams of 2) didn't see the guy she was with till they left. They just ran then out of town. I think...

[windsorslp]

Well now I'll have my eyes peeled for vans or such dropping off people in the area - I've alerted police and the HOA. This guy was in his early 20s....not like a teenager or anything. By the way, he was dressed in hardly anything in the freezing weather, I guess to get sympathy. And yes I fell for it and gave him a check as did a few other neighbors, some even gave cash. I have since put a stop payment on the check and now am going to have to get a new bank account. And I was always pretty careful with this stuff...but he seemed to know so much about the neighborhood...man he was good.

[atlantagreg30127]

Happens in our area all the time. We have several retired police officers who live in my neighborhood - the kids rarely get very far before being picked up by a car.

And no, 8 out of 10 of them are NOT legit.