Magazine scam

March 20, 2009 12:42 PM

Any recourse for friend scammed by magazine-subscription salesman?

My friend was leaving an outdoor town-center/mall last night and was approached by a male in the parking lot just after 9pm. He claimed to be with "Worldwide Subscriptions" and said if she bought two magazine subscriptions he could get points towards a trip somewhere. He said she had to pay in cash and even offered her a "piggy back ride to an ATM." She ordered two subscriptions, and he told her the price was $186 and she claims, because of the dark parking lot, she just gave him the money b/c she was scared. She got home, looked at the receipts, and it totaled $86. Any ideas on what she should do? His name was supposedly Jason (ID# 0103)--a search for Worldwide Subscription pulls up "magazine scam" alerts all over the web; the phone number on the receipt (702-245-8074) goes to a voicemail; people online have tracked the address to a trailer-park in Las Vegas, NV.

Side note: she said he moved oddly and asked a lot of weird questions (which "through her off" and reminded me of the metafilter link on hypnotism by distraction with out of place words/actions)--e.g., "So, like, do you have a really big boyfriend or anything?" and "piggy-back" comment.

posted by whatgorilla to law & government (13 comments total)

She's out the money, sorry about that. But she should be grateful she wasn't raped and/or murdered.
posted by killy willy at 12:56 PM on March 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

Assuming she paid cash, it is long gone.
posted by Lame_username at 1:04 PM on March 20, 2009

I hate to say it, but she's SOL. I wonder if filing a police report might be a good idea, though? I could be wrong about that, but it's what I owuld try to do if this happened to me.
posted by tristeza at 1:12 PM on March 20, 2009

I wouldn't hold out any hopes of catching the guy, but your friend could still file a police report and notify security at the shopping center. They likely have a no soliciting policy they could enforce more vigorously and if the police get a few reports they might monitor the area.
posted by Science! at 1:18 PM on March 20, 2009

killy willy, that's one hell of an article . . .
posted by eggman at 1:21 PM on March 20, 2009

It was cash--and I'm sure it's gone. I just wonder how long they'll stay in town and if there's any chance I can find them.
posted by whatgorilla at 1:26 PM on March 20, 2009

if there's any chance I can find them.

... and then what?

Your indignation is well-founded, but it's not like they're going to give you your money back. It's a cash transaction, her word against his. And there are many scenarios involving the unsavory types who run these crews that will not end well for you.
posted by mkultra at 1:34 PM on March 20, 2009

I only hope they're happy with just the cash.
Your friend gave him her address right (to deliver the subscriptions)?

She should call the police and keep an eye out for anything unusual at her home as well as checking her credit report and making sure she wasn't scammed in other ways.
posted by NoraCharles at 1:43 PM on March 20, 2009

I'd report it to the police. I mean, she was scammed out of money (Jesus Christ, $86 no less) and I am sure she's not the first or last in the area.

The odd questions about her big boyfriend are setting off all sorts of alarms for me. Have her be extra cautious about her personal and home safety. Did he get her full name/address anything like that?

And just for the future, she might want to maybe take a personal safety or assertiveness course.
posted by jerseygirl at 1:54 PM on March 20, 2009

She should definitely report it to the police--they can link it to a pattern and possibly track him down, but only if they know about it. A police report will also allow her to report this loss on her taxes next year.

And she also needs to take an assertiveness or rape prevention course (rape prevention because they are often offered free of charge). She doesn't need to be nice to a strange guy who accosts her in a dark parking lot and asks her weird questions. She might also want to keep an eye on her bank account if this guy did give her a ride to an ATM--he might have put a reader on the machine and watched her PIN.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 7:04 PM on March 20, 2009

I keep coming back to this, and am glad you posted it because I've never heard of this scam, and would like to believe that I'd be able to brush off a guy that tried it - but then my mom always tells me to check for guys hiding under my car in dark mall parking lots who'll cut my hamstrings and perform unimaginable horrors after that so I'm always wary in those situations and practically sprint to my car with my airhorn at the ready if I haven't parked in a populated, lighted area and am on my own. /exaggerating slightly

I agree with the need to inform the police (where I live, we can file a community policing complaint report, and I've downloaded it and have a few printed so they're handy) so that this becomes a statistic. Also, mall security, as was said - and her bank, etc. We learned when setting up our Neighbourhood Watch program that communitie with the least tolerance for crime have the lowest rates of crime. For example, when lying guy who claims to be our "neighbour" who "needs money for gas" but will pay us back by leaving a cheque in the mailbox comes around a few times each year, we send out a chain of messages around the neighbourhood and on the Yahoo group alerting that he's around, and to warn anyone new about his schtick (He doesn't pay back, not from the next block, there is no white van -- I got suckered). Maybe others have had complaints too, or need to be encouraged to make them. She could post on Craigslist, just to let more people know of this scam.

But what I keep thinking is missing is that this woud qualify as a media-worthy story, slow news day or not. One of our local stations has a "Safety" segment, where something like this would be mentioned. Our papers, small neighbourhood for sure and larger sometimes too, are always looking for "news"; and if it's even slightly sensational, all the better (if not, some of them will make it so). Presented along with killy willy's article, I could see this happening.

Further...
If she really wants the magazines after all this, she should maybe contact them directly and see if they'll offer some out of goodwill. I mean, if Vanity Fair and others can offer subscriptions for as low as $6 a year via their inserts, surely some will honour her if she shows the receipt and asks nicely? $86, let alone $186 is kind of a lot, when I think of many of the subscriptions I've got, or had. When I consider that our pediatrician's office gets a dozen free copies of Canadian Family knowing that they'll all get taken, I think she might have some luck there. Small consolation, but still.
posted by peagood at 8:21 PM on March 20, 2009

I called the town-center security, to have them run out of that area if they come back--I'm hoping they'll move on to my area of town. As for getting money back, I know they're most likely gone; however, we've got a fairly large net cast out looking for them, and if we do find the guy, he can file a police report if he wants.

Thanks for the craigslist idea (we used myspace/facebook and an email list of about 600).
posted by whatgorilla at 10:58 PM on March 20, 2009

$86, let alone $186 is kind of a lot, when I think of many of the subscriptions I've got, or had.
posted by peagood at 11:21 PM on March 20 [+] [!]

Insert price is not a consideration when it comes to this company. Some disheveled guy came to my door trying to sell me magazines on behalf of Worldwide. Gave me his spiel about getting out of prison and all; I believed it. I felt sorry for him and needed to renew my Playboy subscription anyway so I asked how much it was. It was $35 or so; it was substantially higher than what the inserts advertised ($20) but I figured the guy needed the money.

I go to pull out my wallet and then he mentions "$35, plus fees." Ok, WTF. "How much are the fees?"
"$14.95" he tells me.

Now we're at $50 total for something that would normally cost $20. I'm paying more in administrative fees than I am for the magazine itself. Sorry pal. I gave the guy $5 and sent him on his way.

Assuming this wasn't a total scam, our victim's $86 here probably got her all of two subscriptions, unless she went with one of the two-year deals. There is a small chance that the magazines will start being delivered half a year or more later, which is exactly what happened to me the last time I bought subscriptions from a door-to-door college fundraiser. I paid for a 2-year subscription and ended up getting six months' worth of magazines.

I no longer buy things from people on my doorstep.
posted by Ziggy Zaga at 12:32 AM on March 21, 2009