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SALT LAKE CITY -- Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
A door-to-door salesperson.
As the summer continues, more people are having unexpected knocks on their doors from the many door-to-door salespeople. Homeowners are inundated with offers, discounts, specials, services, and so on, directly at their doors. Why go shopping at the store when residents could wait a few hours and have a salesperson bring the store to them? The point is clear: there are too many door-to-door salespeople.
In Utah, a majority of door-to-door salespeople are recruited from local universities such as Brigham Young University, University of Utah, and Utah Valley University. Depending on the company, these eager students are sometimes promised they will make upwards of $100,000 in a summer. In order to earn this money, they are taught persuasion tactics to bypass resistance and secure sales. These include using people’s emotions to get them to make a quick purchasing decision and using discounts, limited offers and potential loss as tools to get the coveted 16-digit credit card number.
The young man was so amiable and reminded me of my grandson. I never thought for an instance that he was trying to trick me.
–Amy Maclean
Centerville resident Amy Maclean said she signed a one-year contract when she thought she was buying a one-time service.
“The young man was so amiable and reminded me of my grandson,” Maclean said. “I never thought for an instance that he was trying to trick me.”
Luckily, there are a myriad of online resources to help people avoid being wrongfully persuaded by artful salespeople.
People should not feel obligated into buying something unsolicited.
“I didn’t realize until after I had signed the contract that I didn’t really need the service,” said Salt Lake resident Jessica White.Time will tell which companies are trustworthy and which use manipulative techniques; however, that isn’t always clear when presented with a contract at the door. People can be assertive by politely saying they’ll think about the offer and get back to the company through phone contact. This will allow for time to do research and determine if the product is really a necessity.
People may be surprised how much they learn from a half-hour of research on Google about the company’s reputation. Local listings on Yelp, Yahoo, and local review websites may do a better job at offering both negative and positive reviews to see what happy customers have said.
A word of caution: don’t trust everything online. A stellar review from a happy customer may not actually be from a customer. Companies can pay people to periodically leave positive reviews about their products and services in attempts to gain more customers and hide negative feedback in search engines.
By doing research and think about a buying decision for at least a day, people can protect themselves from door-to-door scams.
