we were outside doing grass work on a
day like today and a young man came up
to us and asked about selling magazines
to us that he was using it for school
for college and would I be interested
and I said yeah sure Karen decided to
renew her current magazines about to
expire and gave the young salesman a
check for three hundred dollars no
indication that this was a scam four
months later she got renewal notices
from the magazines she thought she had
just paid for she tried to reach out to
fresh start opportunities the company
the salesman said he was representing
but did not get a response she realized
she had been scammed for as long as I've
done this I've never had a problem so I
was really very surprised and shocked
authorities say the young people selling
these magazines were pawns in a scam run
by Samuel Cole and Lorraine Buchanan the
duo promised the young employees a
portion of their sales and drove them
around the country to sell part of the
pitch a percentage of all orders went to
charity and helping people down on their
luck they falsely claimed that a portion
of the magazine subscription would go to
a variety of charities to include troops
in Iraq Children's Hospital various
cancer charities so it was very enticing
for people to buy these magazine
subscriptions there were more than
50,000 victims nationwide with 3 million
dollars in losses postal inspectors say
research is key to all financial
transactions big or small make sure that
the company is a legitimate company lack
of an information on a company is also a
red flag