Door-to-Door Magazine Selling Kids: Protecting Yourself While Helping Them

It may have happened in your neighborhood: the doorbell rings. At the door, a clean-cut young adult smiles at you, brochures in hand. "Hey, listen, I'm trying to win points toward a scholarship, and I'm hoping you can help me out." He extends his hand to shake yours, and you extend your housework-stained hand to him. "Great! My name's Jim. Your neighbor Julie just told me you might be interested in taking a look at this." And he places a brochure into the hand you don't quite jerk back fast enough.

What just happened? Most people assume the following:

The kid's from around here; if you ask, he might cite the local high school or a community college.
FALSE.

The kid's really looking for ways to raise college money.
FALSE.

You're pretty safe in this situation.
FALSE.

The kid at your doorstep is a predator.
TRUE.

There is no way this predatorial embryonic salescreep is a victim.
VERY, VERY FALSE.

The Truth About Door To Door Magazine Sales

The typical young person engaging in this kind of activity is often even younger than he or she appears, but most are at least eighteen. They've been recruited by "no experience necessary - high paying sales" classified advertisements, usually in lower-income neighborhoods or mid-size cities. The sales manager gets them in, reels them in with a sales shpiel, and convinces them that, no, there are no positions left here in your hometown, but if you'll join us, we're driving over to Dayton (always a town hundreds of miles away) and you can work with us there for a while before coming back here.

After a hard-sell pitch, enthusiastic encouragement by the other young salespeople, and a pack of lies about the great future there is for the kids who go through this process, the young person -- almost always naive and inexperienced -- joins the van crew. He or she is in for a big surprise.

Life In A Door-To-Door Sales Crew