This story was submitted by TheBAYNET.com reader, Jeff. It in no way reflects the views or opinions of The Bay Net, Bay Media Services, Inc. or the employees of Bay Media Services, Inc.
Door to door magazine sales representatives, mostly young women, are being bullied to perform required sales quotas on a daily basis.
These young reps are mostly from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. They have little or no money and no one really to turn to if things go wrong on this trip. My source is a young girl, 27 from Colorado, named Brittany.
Why do I use the term girl? She was amazingly naive and inexperienced in business as well as in life. She has been sheltered in a controlling marriage for the last seven years to a man 11 years her elder. She was only allowed to have his family as friends and contacts from the small town in Colorado where they lived. She is originally from Oregon.
Recently separated, she took this job from an ad in the paper as a means to get away and travel and meet new people. They’ve been canvasing Wildewood for sure. They drive around in a silver van and stay in packed rooms at the 8 Hotel on 235.
For more of a description of exactly what goes on check out Lohud.com, The Journal News • May 29, 2008 “Cops, Experts knock door-to-door subscription businesses,” Steve Lieberman and Jay Loomis. Or Google “companies selling magazines door to door.” Check out the first(above) and fourth (“Rip off Report: Sunshine…”)articles.
She explained that they would yell at them at their morning meetings. She had to sell 8-10 subscriptions a day for a $20 per diem or they got nothing. I was even threatened by one of the guys she was with to lose her number or he and his boys were “gonna kick my a$$.” I’m sure she told someone that I told her to cut and run from this group the first night I met her. Again, she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box.