Those door-to-door magazine salespeople

[dlk9s]

Just had one of those kids come to my house selling magazines to get points. I've seen this for years and normally I don't talk to them - I just tell them I'm not interested and send them on their way.

This time, I chatted with the guy for a while. I'm not sure why, exactly. He told me he was from my hometown (out of state and he said it first - even showed me ID), so that was interesting, I guess. Also, he wasn't doing this for "college credit" or "to win a trip." He basically pitched me a sob story of trying to get a second chance, trying to do what's right, trying to make some money to support his baby and then so he could eventually go to college. I found this sort of intriguing, so I talked with him about it a little.

I didn't end up buying anything, not because of the money (ESPN magazine, 24 issues for $30 isn't too bad), but because a) I didn't want to encourage this sort of door-to-door peddling, and b) who knows what the hell they are going to do with my info (not afraid of identity theft, just phone calls, etc.).

There were a couple things that struck me as weird during our conversation. One was that he said the company bused him half way across the country just to come here and sell magazines. Seems strange that he couldn't just do that where he lives.

Seemed to me like it's a sort of MLM scheme, based on the upward track he tried to describe to me. His manager makes money off of him, then this kid might eventually move up and have people work under him, etc. I told him that it sounded like a [censored] company and that he should try to find something a bit better.

Has anyone ever purchased a magazine from these types of people? Is there any catch/scam/problem, aside from possibly not getting a great deal?

The company was called Urban Development Solutions - http://www.urbands.com. Website is not very informative. I couldn't find anything about the company elsewhere.

I know these magazine salespeople are nothing new - I was just curious for some reason this time if there was anything more to it than I'm not seeing.