Two girls, purporting to be students at UGA came to our door selling magazines. They said they were selling magazines and books that could either be sent to us or donated to charity if we didn't want them. They said that they "had to sell subscriptions/books in blocks of 4." They said that they needed to get a certain number of "points" and they could go to Barcelona. After we commited to buy things from them, they asked if we wanted to come by their place to have custard and "shoot some balls." They said that one of their fathers was a doctor who lived in our neighborhood. We don't really remember their names, but I can tell you that we both remember their faces and appearance. There are so many solicitors that come through our neighborhood that it gets hard to tell what is really and what is fake. The company we were to write our checks to was "Direct Circulation, Inc." and asked use to write two separate checks. They even had all their paperwork and things to mark down. One of the "students" was a heavy-set girl with dark brown hair and the other was shorter and didn't really seem to know what she was doing. It seemed like the heavier girl was walking her through the paperwork, as if she was less experienced or something.
We are getting ready to move to Japan, so I had decided to get some English materials, in case I was going to teach people when I went there. Our neighborhood has a web community and there are some people who have posted about this being a scam. You know, we definitely haven't received the books or magazines after about a month. We do have the check carbons. I don't know if they were just using the company as a front for getting money, but in any event, this has set us back about $250. While I usually don't buy anything sold door-to-door like this, this event will cause us to show much less hospitality to anybody coming to our door for any reason.
I am wondering if there is a way to cancel this order and get our money back. On the receipts they gave us, it says the sale can be cancelled before midnight of the 3rd business day after the sale. However, it is clear, based on the stories recounted by others in the neighborhood, that these girls were telling different stories to everybody. One person even said one of the girls said her parents lived on a street in our neighborhood that doesn't actually have any houses with addresses located on that particular street. I would hope that the fact that they said we had to get 4 would be enough to cancel the order altogether if that were not true. I plan to try calling the customer service phone number again on Monday morning, to see if I can actually talk to anybody.
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