kids that sell stuff door to door

squirrely girl · #1 09-16-2002, 06:25 PM

okay. some random kids were in my neighborhood today, i think they live on the street over and a block up. they were going door to door selling stuff like candy and wrapping paper for their school. i felt a guilt trip coming on and so i bought something from each of them (3) here's the thing though, i don't really KNOW these kids and i've been getting the feeling that i'll never see my caramel meltaways and that kinda pisses me off. ehhhhhhhh... anybody ever have that happen to em? buy stuff from kids and never get it?

marissa

madmax · #2 09-16-2002, 06:27 PM

No, but I would never give cash to a stranger. You should have held back the money until delivery.

#3 09-16-2002, 06:29 PM

Thankfully I've never had that happen to me, but I can't stand those friggin kids who set up shop at the shopping center RIGHT NEXT TO THE FREAKING ATMs!!!

There's nothing like taking out a $20 or a $40 outta the machine and having the kids ask you "WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY SOME...?" Errr... You CAN'T say I don't have any money...talk about friggin guilt trip!

KappaKittyCat · #4 09-16-2002, 06:33 PM

I don't like the idea of whoring children out to make a little money for PTA/football/band. My parents never allowed me to solicit, nor will I allow my children to do so. I think it's highly rude and disrespectful of children who do not know any better.

KillarneyRose · #5 09-16-2002, 06:35 PM

I think in this day and age parents who let their children go from door to door soliciting need to have their heads examined.

PandaOnProzac · #6 09-16-2002, 06:37 PM

Tell the 8 year old kid to get a job........

#7 09-16-2002, 06:38 PM

When I was a kid, two girls in my neighboorhood were kidnapped while selling fundraising tickets door to door. With all the recent abductions going on today, I don't know how these parents can let their kids go about by themselves.

I had to sell my boxes of Girl Scout Cookies back in the day--but my mom refused to let me solicit. Either she'd buy the boxes herself or she'd take em to the office and sell em there. Then there's the family--"Well I bought a chili ticket from you last year, so you need to buy at least two boxes from us." That's how it was done!

KappaKittyCat · #8 09-16-2002, 06:48 PM

Yeah, I was allowed to sell my GS cookies, but my mom hocked 'em to her friends & family over the phone and my dad took the order form to work. GS cookies are about the only thing that kids can sell that other people actually want. I know I always buy from the little kids who set up tables in our cafeteria every spring. And I always write them a check when I sign up because (a) I know that the Girl Scouts are good for it, and (b) I want to make sure that I have the money so that I don't stick some poor kid with 10 boxes of Thin Mints. My big grew up in Iowa City and lived about a block from Greek Row. One year she got the brilliant idea that she'd sell all her cookies to the Greeks. Well, she sold the most boxes, but an entire sorority house full of women (which shall remain nameless) welched on their end of the deal. "Oh, I'm sorry little girl, but I don't have that money right now." Her family got stuck with more than 100 boxes of cookies and it took almost a year to get rid of them.

I still stand by my opinion that it's poor form to whore children out like that. And in this day and age there's no way my kids would go door-to-door.

violets · #9 09-16-2002, 06:49 PM

This is an excellent thread. When I was a girl we had 2 children come to our door ostenisbly selling "fund raising" tickets for a "youth group." It was a weekend night and it was dark out. My mother asked the children a lot of questions, reasonable ones like, where are you from, where are your parents, etc...
She got extremely vague answers from the children, so she excused herself to go get her pocketbook. While she was away she called the police.
The police found that these children were being coerced into selling these tickets by a group of young men whom they knew from their neighborhood. The children's parents thought that they were playing basketball at the local Catholic Church when in fact these young men were picking them up at Church and threatening them making them sell tickets and candies bars in different towns.
The young men were eventually arrested.

Many, many school districts have rules against using children for solicitation of any kind. Even though schools and many after school programs are sorely under-funded to use children to fundraise is simply wrong.

doubleblue&gold · #10 09-16-2002, 07:14 PM

Not that I ever see many, but door to door avoidance is easy---just don't answer it! What gets me is the unbelievably huge number of brochures/ catalogs / etc brought by parents to their workplace!

Optimist Prime · #11 09-16-2002, 08:01 PM

I went door to door. I was a little candy whore.

33girl · #12 09-16-2002, 08:29 PM

I sold door to door, but then I lived in Pleasantville

. My mom always went w/ me and we never went to neighbors we didn't know. The trouble is no one knows their neighbors these days.

I would never buy anything from random kids, or anyone random for that matter, that has to be delivered - sorry, but if they want my biz it's going to be COD.

James · #13 09-16-2002, 08:49 PM

Hey clueless ones:

It has actually come out that there are not more abductions now then ever before, but there is more media coverage of it!

Ok? So can we stop saying that there are more abductions now and do some constructive and logical thinking?

cash78mere · #14 09-16-2002, 08:58 PM

i used to sell things door to door...GS cookies, cheesecake for a band trip, etc. everyone did it.

i just gave out the candy sale envelopes for our school sale on friday. there is a note attached from the PTA telling parents NOT to allow their children to solicit.

you probably will get your caramel things...but next time place the order and give the money when they come back with your candy!

Rudey · #15 09-16-2002, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by James
Hey clueless ones:

It has actually come out that there are not more abductions now then ever before, but there is more media coverage of it!

Ok? So can we stop saying that there are more abductions now and do some constructive and logical thinking?

True, the fact is that abductions have gone down in many areas. This is the same thing that happened with sharks a summer ago.

-Rudey
--The smartest kids sold candy outside of Yankee Stadium. We were able to save more of our money for beer last week because of those sweet kids.