A man came to my door and proceeded to give me the details of the Self Starters program and how it has done so much for his life. He gave me a sad story about drug use, homelessness, and having a child in foster care and his dream to get her back. He was smooth, trying to appear sincere and opening up way too much with a life story as a means to get me to buy some mags for a weirdly set up "point system" that will somehow get him ready to enter the real work force...
He had a semi-professional packet with the magazine descriptions, point system, and list of names of people in my neighborhood that he got checks from (hopefully they were fake people). Of course, I asked to see the packet and flipped through every page reading the material closely. The address for the business seemed bogus, and turns out it is with NO website (unheard of for a "national non-profit"). Also, in his materials there were two entirely separate headquarter locations given. The idea behind this "charity" is completely illogical so hopefully people pay attention past the sob story and don't get sunk into it.
At this point I started to tell the man about myself. I am a social worker who works with the homeless in Houston. I told him I never heard of self-starters before, and that this type of program does not seem right ie. Him going door to door selling mags. I informed him of alternative programs for homeless individuals here in Houston. At this point he began to get charged up and tell me more of a sob story and he had a smooth answer for everything. He left saying "I won't say this to a woman" after taking a dramatic pause after speaking about how much this charity has done for his life. Mentioning how he is living in the holiday inn by the galleria (bogus), has all bills paid, and gets clothes not from a thrift store but self starters gets him clothes from the mall (he was dressed well, in 2nd hand clothing.)
DON'T FALL FOR MAGAZINE SALES FROM ANYONE! Never hand a check to someone you do not know or trust, never give anyone your address, or give them any idea when you will be home alone or your home will be empty.
Also, no real charity will have their homeless going door to door. No real charity does magazine sales.
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