I can’t believe I fell for this but I did. I wanted to warn
other readers about it.
Dear Editor,
I can’t believe I fell for this but I did. I wanted to warn other readers about it.
I had just arrived home from work one night when a young girl came to the door selling magazine subscriptions for the “local” soccer league. She said that she lived up the road and she named the street that she lived on. We have a lot of new construction going on so I didn’t question her more.
She asked if I subscribed to the local paper, I said yes, and she said well you may have seen the stories about the local soccer league. We are winning and our sponsor dropped us, so now we have to raise some money to go on a trip.
I was trying to fix dinner, help kids with homework etc. She caught me at a very busy time. The temperature outside was about 38 degrees. I asked her what she was doing out in the dark on such a cold night. She said that she had to turn in all of her money that night and she was just waiting for her mom to come home. She said that she had just moved to the area from Texas.
I asked her where she attended school. She said she was home schooled. She asked me if I thought that any of my neighbors would be willing to buy from her. I told her I didn’t think she should be out walking in the dark. (We live in the country on a very busy road).
I offered to give her a ride home but she told me that a neighbor who she had just sold to had offered to pick her up, so I let her go on her way after I had purchased a subscription for $27.
A short time later, I started to wonder about this girl and the fact that I didn’t get the actual name of her team, coach, the fact that I didn’t know anything about her. Something didn’t add up.
I happened to see her standing across from my house so I called her in to get warm and she told me she was waiting for her sister to pick her up, I offered her a ride home and she said that she couldn’t get in to the house because she didn’t have the keys.
I had some friends over and told them about it. They said that they had just seen a special on 20/20 about this very thing.
I called the police to alert them to this scam. The van that actually picked this girl up (finally) was a 15 passenger van registered to a company in San Diego.
I fell for this (still can’t believe it) and I wanted other people to be aware that it can even happen in Hollister.
Rochelle Skow, Hollister
