A few nights ago there was a knock on my door and at it was a young man selling magazine subscriptions. He said that by selling certain subscriptions he was gaining points to win a $1000 scholarship and a trip to Italy. He showed me a pamphlet with point award information in it and what subscriptions they offered. I really didn't want to buy one but I listened to his whole speech anyway. He told me he was just out of the army (at Ft. Hood no less) and was trying to get into college at the University of Florida. I also got to hear his whole "life story" as I looked at the pamphlets. He said one of the options if I didn't want to buy a subscription for myself was that I could choose to have it sent to troops overseas (as "many" people in my neighborhood were doing this). He inquired about my and my husband's professions as meeting people of certain professions could raise his points more. These points earned were also supposed to be going toward "speech credits" in school.
The money was going to go to one of the listed charities and it was supposed to be completely tax deductible. Being a bit of a sucker for helping people I wrote out a check to for one magazine subscription. He was kind of pushy and tried to get me to do at least two if not more as "lots of people liked to get a few". I was very firm sticking to one and even firmer when he tried to get me to give him cash instead of a check for $71 (which is outrageous in and of itself).
After he left, I had a feeling that this was extremely shady. I put a stop payment on my check after he left. These people need to be stopped. They have very legit looking paperwork, receipts, and pamphlets. Don't get taken in!
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