Southwestern: College Students Selling Kids Books Door To Door

[Cat Herder]

I was really annoyed with these college kids who are "selling books and software for a college internship". They cased my home/property for signs of young children present. They have come to my home three times, now, after being asked to leave.

They ignored "No Soliciting" and "No Trespassing" signs and actually opened and went through TWO doors to come into my backyard on Memorial Day!!!!! These kids could have legally been shot dead. One hour later and they would have been (after dark).

I checked with our local police and this is a marketing ploy by a company in Tennessee called Southwestern. They set up on College Campuses offering an exciting way to make money during your summer so you can afford to not work during the school year.

Southwestern takes these kids and makes them live with a host "family" (college kids), away from their family, so they can make them work long hours for no pay without parental interference. (around 85 hours a week)

They make them pay for the books they sell (then collect the money from the customers themselves), provide their own transportation, food and gas. Often these kids have their entire summers taken and end up OWING thousands of dollars in the end.

Now I just want to offer them use of my phone, a full meal and a one way flight to their parents!!!!

Have any of you heard of this??? They are currently on over 300 college campuses with many trying unsuccessfully to ban them.

[daycare]

OMG how sad... I have not had college kids selling kids books, but I did have a young man come to my house claiming he was in school and he was trying to earn his way thorugh school by selling magazines. He showed me a folder of papers that listed several options to buy.

there was no way that this kid was in school... I am ESL and he was clearly not, but i spoke better english than he did. I also thought that it might have been a scam.

that is really sad that this company is getting away with this....and poor kids are getting suckered into thinking its a good thing.....

[PeanutsGalore]

V. sad. Don't colleges have intranets? Or better yet...access to facebook? There has to be a way to warn students about these creeps before they sign up. Then they wouldn't have to worry about banning them.

So, so many predators in this world...makes me want to cry.

[E Daycare]

This happened to me last summer! A nice R ussian girl who was here on exchange she said. She was very excited to have recived a car to borrow for the summer. She duped me into buying $120 worth of books that I later found on amazon and ebay for a fraction of the price. My husband had me cancel the check and i emailed the company with my reference number to cancel the order.

They make you feel bad and are VERY pushy!!! She asked for something to snack on and water while she was here. It was running into dinner time and wanted to stay. Very awkward. I was home alone at the time and felt sorry for this kid. After reading up on it, its very scam like and once I found the books cheaper online I was like "oh heck no".

This was before I had any backbone. Now if this happened Id say "sorry nope".

[Gurdy]

I had a young college student that came to my house a while back selling magazines. She told me that the company she worked for would drop her off in a neighborhood in the morning and pick her back up in the evening. They told her she would make all this money selling magazines but in reality she actually owed them money for food and lodging. I took her to the bus station and bought her a bus ticket home.

[mrs.meg]

This happens every single summer here. Last summer the kid was male, and very handsome and he clearly had used his looks and charm to get people to buy. We did this a few years back with religious books and homework books and it was so expensive. I told him that we vowed NEVER to do it again, we have TONS of books we have collected over the years and we keep up our library time, too.

It is very very annoying! They are very pushy and hardly take no for an answer!

[GG~DAYCARE]

The Sheriffs office here just put out a flyer on this same thing. We have the right to say no and tell them to leave our property. If they don't listen, we are to call the sheriff right away. I have put the non emergency number in my cell phone if this ever happens to me. We play out front and I have gotten to the point I take my dog out with us. If someone were to approach us who I feel is threatening I will give one warning and tell them I am going to free the dog!! I don't know what the dog would do but they don't know that,,she is just a year old and would probably lick them!!!

[Michael]

V. sad. Don't colleges have intranets?

A computer savvy provider....

[MyAngels]

We have four different colleges in my town, and these "kids" used to run rampant here every summer. The police department finally has cracked down on it, and it seems to have stopped.

I do have a "No Soliciting" sign next to the doorbell, along with an "NRA" sign above it, so maybe that has something to do with it...

[Unregistered]

Please please please understand that over 90% of the people who sell books and magazines door to door have been lied to and are actually in a trafficking ring of sorts. Often times they are beaten drugged raped etc and completely shut off from their lives previously. Go to www.warinternational.org to learn more about human trafficking and maybe we can all help some of these people who 'annoy us' each summer. I just had a gentleman from Latvia (3rd year college student getting a degree in physical therapy) come to my door. Very sad. Please let your local authorities know that these people are here and ask them into checking it out if they are legit or not. Just because they have a vendor permit does not mean they are legit.

[Cat Herder]

Please please please understand that over 90% of the people who sell books and magazines door to door have been lied to and are actually in a trafficking ring of sorts. Often times they are beaten drugged raped etc and completely shut off from their lives previously. Go to www.warinternational.org to learn more about human trafficking and maybe we can all help some of these people who 'annoy us' each summer. I just had a gentleman from Latvia (3rd year college student getting a degree in physical therapy) come to my door. Very sad. Please let your local authorities know that these people are here and ask them into checking it out if they are legit or not. Just because they have a vendor permit does not mean they are legit.

I do know that now, hun, Thank You for elaborating. That was what the original post said, too in the last few sentences.

This was the first I had heard of it and was hoping to bring attention to it here since most of us have kids..

Mine are teens now so it hit home.

[Christina72684]

Yup it happened to me 2 weeks ago! It was the worst timing EVER too! I was about to leave and in a hurry. My 4 month old daughter just had her shots and was running a fever and screaming and crying. My mom was there with 5 kids (6-10yr olds) who were playing in the sprinklers in the back yard and they were arguing. The girl who came to the door was nice, but wasn't really sensitive to the situation I was in. She kept trying to talk over my daughter's crying and didn't say anything nice or comment about her at all. It would have been nice if she would have said, "She's so cute" or "Poor little girl" or something. But all she cared about was her sales pitch. They were really cool books and I would have loved to have bought some if we had the extra money, but we don't right now.

[cheerfuldom]

i had one kid come to the door recently. I finally had the close and lock the door on his face because he would not go away! I don't have signs out front but I think my neighborhood got cased and they knew there were kids here.

[Unregistered]

Southwestern Kids

This company is a scam, they ripped me off for 300 bucks