Flyers in my door

Here is my experience..

big kids come to sell books for schools/church etc . many times I don't buy as I don't read any of those . But I donate some money ( I hope it is used properly) .But in some cases when I am not in a situation to continue talking to them , I ask them to show up later..they refuse saying it has to be sold right at that momement ,last day etc.. ..

Why would they not show up earlier ? Do schools give such stuff to sell ? My kids are not school age so I do not know .

In another case, the girl could not speak and I was thinking if she has some kind of speech issues , but then she also looked a bit shocked ..
after few mins she spoke out saying " maam u have blood on your head" then I explained to her and told her not to be scared like that. I am glad she asked me instead of going away and calling cops ...

many of you must have figured out.. it is a red dot we put on forehead .. a religious thing .. not blood ..

Anyway just thought of posting .

 

I just remembered an incident I had here last summer with a kid pushing the local newspaper.

Normally I just don't go to the door when solicitors come around, but on this particular day I was ouside washing the car and couldn't avoid him. He ran through the normal sales pitch of 'this will help me go to college' blahblahblah. I told him that newspapers were a waste of trees and I got all of my news in near real-time online for free, to curtail any response he may have. I told him I'd give him a donation, though, for the equalivent amount of a 26wk subscription. So I cut him a check and in the memo field wrote 'DONATION ONLY, NO SUBSCRIPTION'

When my check cleared, I looked at the image online and someone had scratched out my address and put someone else's in the area...they'd also scratched out the entire memo field. I called the paper and spoke with the head marketing person and told them what was happened. She said there was no record of me as a subscriber in their system and when I gave her the address that was on my check, she confirmed that accout had recently been extended 26mo. I told her that manipulation of a check is a felony and she seemed eager to cooperate. After some investigation, it turns out the kid scratched out my info and filled in his parents, giving them half a year of free newspapers...he's not hawking newspapers anymore.

Anyhow, the Marketing lady gave me some good insight into how these solicitors work. She said/claimed that they weren't employed by the newspaper. The paper contracts it out to some other business who gets kids and trucks them around to various neighborhoods. Before the kids are let loose in a neighborhood, the supervisor briefs them on the local schools that serve that area so they can say they're local. Pretty shady.

Sorry for the lengthy post...

 

Brim, that's awful!!! I wonder if they have my missing Girl Scout cookies from 2 years ago too? ;-)

 

OMG I have to verify what is going with the money I donated .

 

This is one of the many reasons I do not respond to solicitations over the phone or at the door. The only exception to this is when my college alumni associations call and then I am only making a pledge - not giving out any information out over the phone.

Legitimate non-profits don't have problems with referring you to their web sites and sending out literature through the mail when requested.

 

christinaandrob,

Girl Scouts do not take checks up front. Only onders. When the cookies come in, the girls go back to deliver the orders and collect the checks. My daughter only had one order that we could not deliver last year. We called and went by many times over about a month. Still don't understand where those people went?? I paid for the order and gave it to someone.

If you need Girl Scout cookies, feel free to send me a private message. They will probably be taking orders in the February time frame.

LvBlands3

 

LvBlands3, thanks for your note. I was completely kidding

 

Hi,
I agree with not having flyers posted, but I also don't want to stop the kiddies or non-profit civic groups.

I called HOA about this one year ago when I moved in. HOA said it needs to be brought up for an amendment to our bylaws.

In other communities where I lived with this type of policy, civic and non-profit groups could solicit door-to-door with an approval from the HOA. Usually the group needed to be "sponsored" by a member living in the community. For example, the troop leader (which is probably a parent) could sponsor their troop to sell mulch or cookies.

Also, for businesses that did solicit their flyers, the HOA would call them and tell them to stop (against policy) and that they could be fined if they did it again.