An Arbor Heights resident just sent in this report, saying a couple things raised his suspicions – read on:
We just had a very sketchy door-to-door salesman come to our house. His pitch was that every house in the neighborhood would be getting the Seattle Times free of charge for eight weeks, and they just asked people to chip in $2 a week for the delivery kid’s tip. And people were being asked to pay the tip in advance, by cash, check, or credit card.
He had a semi-official form with the Seattle Times’ logo on the bottom that he asked me to sign. The form had a field for “Amount Paid” with the number “$20” filled in. I didn’t quite follow what was happening until I saw that he was asking for payment in advance, and then I got very suspicious. I didn’t give him any money and took back the form with my signature on it.
He had no ID from the Seattle Times and no ID at all, in fact. (“I lost mine the other day,” he said. That’s the worst excuse in the world.) At the very least, he’s a terrible salesman. But my gut tells me that he’s running a scam of one sort or another. I’ll be calling the Times tonight to see if they have anyone in this area.
He was about 5’9″, brown t-shirt, stocky build, shorts, very short black hair. The name on the form says “Brad,” but I don’t know if that’s his real name or not.
As always, here’s the link to the city code regarding solicitors. They MUST display an ID and permit.
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