Marcy Rozelle became uneasy last week after a blond-haired boy with braces rang her West Cary doorbell and sold her a magazine subscription.
The teen, who went by the name Matt Tekach, said he was home schooled and lived "around the corner" with his mother and their golden retriever. He told Rozelle that he played on a soccer team sponsored by Ultimate Power Sales and that he needed to sell magazines for the team's trip to Amsterdam.
Rozelle's $24 subscription to a women's magazine was real. But she soon discovered the story the teen sold her was not.
There are no Tekachs in the neighborhood. And when Rozelle researched the soccer team's sponsor, she quickly learned that Ultimate Power Sales is a company with a suspicious past.
"I feel like such a sap," Rozelle said. "I'm a relatively new person to the neighborhood. And I just figured I was helping out a neighborhood kid."
Lawsuits, consumer complaints, police reports and news accounts from customers in Kansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, California and Georgia provide a picture of how Ultimate Power Sales operates with youthful salespeople, who often concoct phony pitches to make a buck.
When teens knock on a door to peddle magazines for the firm, sometimes they tell customers they live in the neighborhood.
Other times, the young adults tell potential customers about their families or how they play on an area sports team. The athletes say they need to sell magazines to raise money for trips to places such as Japan or the Netherlands.
In the past 36 months, the firm's parent company, United Family Circulation, was the focus of 35 complaints filed with the Atlanta Better Business Bureau.
The bureau gave the Georgia-based firm an unsatisfactory rating because United Family Circulation, which also goes by Ultimate Empire Sales, never responded to complaints.
Messages left for two of the company's officers Monday were not returned.
In North Carolina, two complaints about the firm were filed with the Attorney General's Office, according to documents from the Consumer Protection Office. And, in 2002, Gastonia police arrested two men and accused them of fabricating stories to sell magazine subscriptions for Ultimate Power Sales.
When Rozelle's neighbor, Linda Kerschen, was approached by the same blond teen, she didn't recognize the boy from the area, she wrote in an e-mail message. The name of the soccer team he played for was unfamiliar, too, Kerschen said.
Kerschen told the teen to post information about the sale on the subdivision Web site. At that point, the teen threw up his hands and walked away.
These instances are not under investigation by Cary police. The situation would be considered fraudulent if people never actually receive the magazines for which they paid, police said.
But officers are aware of the situation in Rozelle's neighborhood and warned residents to ask questions before buying fund-raising products.
Capt. Dave Wulff said adults who sell goods door-to-door in Cary must have a permit. Wulff encouraged residents to ask salespeople to see the permit before buying items.
Although children don't need a permit in Cary to sell candy or magazines for fund-raisers, Wulff said people shouldn't hesitate to ask for the child's school ID or to speak with the child's parents.
"And never, ever let them in your house," Wulff warned.
(News researchers Becky Ogburn and Paulette Stiles contributed to this report.)
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Revision r1.1 - 28 Sep 2005 - 18:21 by EliMantel
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