Complaint Review: Palmetto Marketing

In the spring of 2002, a girl came to our door in Austin, Texas claiming to be in a magazine selling contest for her school. I wasn't home and my boyfriend told her that he didn't need any magazines. The girl told him that he could subscribe to children's magazines and they would be sent to the local children's hospital.

My boyfriend is not from the U.S., perhaps a little naive to the scams in this country, and he thought this would be a nice thing to do. I saw the receipts on the table when I got home from work and asked him about it. When he explained the situation, I immediately got the impression that this was a scam, especially since the recipient box on the receipt said simply "Children's Hospital" - it did not mention the specific name of one of our local hospitals - and also did not list an address. Amazingly, the girl also managed to mis-spell both "children" and "hospital".

There was no phone or website listing for Palmetto Marketing. We searched the web and found many hits for Palmetto Marketing, all of which were scam alerts, and disturbingly, a story in the Northeast where a person selling magazines for them was the prime suspect in a murder of a woman in her home.

My boyfriend stopped payment on the check he had written to the girl. The fee for this was only about $5 less than he had paid for the magazines, but at least it gave him a bit of satisfaction, and he is now much more aware of these scams.

Won't Get Fooled Again
Austin, Texas
U.S.A.