Letters to the Editor
KitchenGirl
Published Letters: 638 Editor's Choice: 39
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@ all the "Its a Fake" writers
[Read the article: An elderly salesman terrorized me in front of my kids!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That was my third thought (after "WHAT??" and "Tinkers!") but I can't stand the triumphalist crowing of all you clowns who write in telling everyone about your superior intellect and ability to spot fakes. It's really obnoxious, kids, and also kind of pointless. Who cares if its fake? The letters that the columns generate are what matters: a glorious collection of problem-solving abilities, smugness, bizarre sympathy, assholery, and occasionally some really heartfelt advice and accounts of personal hardship that are actually useful and applicable in real life.
all make up, folks.
The scam? Yes, that part is definitely "all make up". The letter? Maybe, but maybe not. Real life is a lot weirder than most people like to imagine. The Travellers do exist, they do walk up to people with too-good-to-be-true offers to re-tar a driveway or patch a roof or fix a sagging porch and then walk off with the entire contents of a person's home. Nigerian 519 scams do exist, and they do still manage to hook people (most recently some guy in Australia who was actually held *to ransom*, I think a month or two ago).
I will admit, the switch from "this guy was scaring the hell out of me and yelling at my children" to "do you think I can get a new dishwasher out of it?" was pretty jarring, but I think the Fakey McFakersons are forgetting that there are actually some really dim people in this world who lack even the tiniest shred of common sense (or apparently protective instinct towards their chizzlers), and there are also some really greedy people in this world. Sometimes they come in the same package, and sometimes they even read Salon.
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That's my point!
[Read the article: An elderly salesman terrorized me in front of my kids!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]there are some critical elements that are not possible, such as a national chain offering a woman $14,000 after one phone call, with no evidence of any wrongdoing. Just doesn't happen like that. Ever. National chains have corporate lawyers on retainer. They don't offer $14,000 after one phone complaint. Ever. THAT PART IS MADE UP.
It's made up, BUT NOT BY THE LETTER WRITER.
That is what makes this a scam. It *wasn't* the national chain. If she dialed the number on the piece of paper in her hand, and not from the phone book or the website of the company itself, she dialed a phone bank that was set up by this group of con artists for the purpose of hooking people like her. A phone bank could be used to field complaints and offer "free services" and it could be used as a means of "verification" for skeptical people who think they're calling the real number to check and see if a person or offer is on the up-and-up. Divert, divert!
If we're talking a national chain like Home Depot, let's say, there is no way the president would get on the phone with her and just throw money at her like that without an attorney to have her sign an "I won't sue you" waiver. But if it's the Travelers sitting in an empty storefront office in the next county? Why not? They have plenty of time.
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The art of the con
[Read the article: An elderly salesman terrorized me in front of my kids!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Travellers do exist
yeah, but if you call the national chain after a traveler leaves your house, they'd say they never heard of the dude, not offer you $14,000
And if you call a phone number that the group set up to divert your inquiry away from the national chain and to their own inside man?
They didn't offer her cash, they offered her $14K worth of renovation work, which means that they would gain access to her house for months on end.
I think you should see the film "The Grifters". Or "Dirty Rotten Soundrels", if you'd rather have a laugh.
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A little wide of the mark, so to speak
[Read the article: An elderly salesman terrorized me in front of my kids!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]geeze if someone says there're from Sears, you don't call the cell phone # they give you, you GET YOUR PHONE BOOK, look up SEARS and call for christ's sake. Use ONE Brain cell today.
Are you addressing that to me, or the world at large? Isn't that what I just said? I'm not the letter writer, I'm not the one trying to get a free washing machine out of a non-existant company.
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Actually, this could make sense...
[Read the article: An elderly salesman terrorized me in front of my kids!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After reading other posts, in particular the one describing how national chains subcontract out to local firms, this is a lot more plausible.
If the president she spoke to, and who offered her $14K in remodeling was the president of the *local contracting company*, then yes he might we willing to toss her 14 large in exchange for not losing their contract with HD (or whichever national company this is) if this woman takes it upstairs. A free kitchen remodeling is probably well worth it stacked against the loss of all the business that the national chain sends their way.
I still can't believe she let this guy sit in her house for two hours, though. The first inappropriate word and he would have been out the door.