I, like many others, was scammed yesterday. A nice looking, funny young man came to my door stating that his name was Brandon and that he was a neighbor from down the street. When I asked him where, he gave me a valid address. He said that he was in college at Columbus State and was fundraising for a baseball trip to Florida. I asked him what he was selling and he told me that they were collecting donations to buy books for either St. Jude's or Shriners and that his team would get a portion of the money. He also stated that it was tax deductible. He said he only needed 4 more kids to reach his goal and asked if I would sponsor them. He handed me a laminated piece of paper with a certificate of sorts (I didn't read it fully — MY MISTAKE)! On the back was the amounts that I could donate, hand written (should have been a red flag). The amounts started at $96 and increased. I asked him if the minimum I could donate was one child for $96 and he said that I could donate 1/2 a child for $48. I then asked him how I would receive the tax deductible receipt and he said that I could choose which organization I wanted the donatation to go to and that his mom would be sending me a letter thanking me for donating with the tax deductible information included. He then said that part of the deal was that they would wash our house windows inside and out. He mentioned that one of our neighbors said they paid over $450 to have their windows washed last year, so this was really a bargain. I was suckered and agreed to sponsor 1/2 a child. When I was writing the check, I included "fundraiser" in the memo section and then he asked me to leave that part blank because he needed to put my receipt number and his name in that section (should have been the 2nd red flag). I voided the check and wrote another one. He said to make it out to QSI (the red flag was starting to go up in my mind, but I wrote the check anyway). He handed me a receipt and put his name and phone number at the top so that I could contact him for the "chores" aka window washing.
After he left, I looked more closely at the receipt because all those little red flags started going up in my head.in red print, it states the following: "Your first issue should be received within 120 days. Company not in any way related to a non-profit or charitable organization, donation, sponsorship or scholactical program of any kind.in fact it is for a profit enterprise. No free gifts, post dated checks or verbal agreements recognized." It also states that "the salesperson is an independent contractor not an agent or employee of this company.in other words this person is self employed." At that point, the red flags were now blinking neon lights in my head. I googled "QSI baseball" and found numerous reports of this being a scam. Unfortunately, I didn't know this beforehand. I put a stop payment on my check, warned my neighbors, and reported the incident to the police. I hope that by writing this, others will be better informed and will not fall prey to these little scam artists.
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