Door-to-door sales persons linked to employee abuse

Editor’s Note: The location of the main subject of the story is not being disclosed for his safety.

Rico Anthony was 17 years old and facing eviction when a young woman selling magazines knocked on his door.

He faced a future of being jobless and moving in with his brother. Anthony had only one response when asked if he wanted a job — one that promised a life traveling the country, earning money and meeting new people while selling magazines.

It would be like MTV’s “Road Rules,” the seller told him.

“Hell yeah, I need a job,” he said. He packed three days’ worth of clothes and did not return for 10 years. The decade would be a dangerous one, filled with lies, drugs and violence.

But, according to many sources, that is the world of the door-to-door sales industry.

Crew Life

Anthony described a typical day on the job as routine. The crew would wake up in a small, cramped hotel room at 7 a.m. to meet with managers by 9 a.m.

The crews piled into vans and headed to college campuses and apartment complexes. Without permits, they attempted to sell magazine subscriptions.

“Most of the kids would lie,” Anthony said. “Let’s say you went to a college campus, most kids would say they were doing it for school or for a trip. There’s a lot of pressure.”

The vans would return five times a day so the managers could see the agents’ progress.

“If you got three sales or better, they’d tell you how much ‘the shit’ you are,” Anthony said. “If you didn’t get very many sales, you were in trouble.”

“Trouble” ranged from verbal abuse to physical beatings. Anthony said he saw agents being beaten by 12 men at once.

At the end of the day, the crews went to the hotel, where drugs and alcohol were common.

“A lot of kids want to leave,” Anthony said. “I wanted to leave. But once you’re on the road for so long, you kind of break ties with your family, and they make you believe this is going to be ‘the life.”’

Anthony said he saw crew members stranded on the side of the road, hours from the
nearest town.

While traveling through Texas, Anthony suffered broken ribs when he was in a car accident that killed two girls.

After about eight years, Anthony was promoted to manager. Suddenly, his life became even more difficult. He was responsible for not only his own actions, but also those of his crew.

Worst of all, Anthony said, he was now dishing out beatings at the request of his bosses.

“I regret a lot of stuff I did,” he said. “I’d become this monster. Lying to kids, telling them how good the job was, and it wasn’t a good job at all.”

A Disobedient Watchdog

The National Field Selling Association was founded in 1987. According to its website, the organization aims to “enhance the image of the direct selling industry.” Members are expected to comply with a code of ethics.

Incidentally, the NFSA’s president, Vincent Pitts, had his fair share of unlawful run-ins with his magazine subscription companies.

According to Dunn County Wisconsin Circuit Court documents, Pitts was sued in 2006 for not running a background check on a sales agent who beat and sexually assaulted a woman.

In 2000, the Fulton Daily News reported  that Pitts’ company, Palmetto Marketing, made a million-dollar settlement with the family of a woman murdered by a sales agent in central New York state.

Earlene Williams, director of Parent Watch Inc., which helps people leave the traveling sales industry, said the NFSA is as much of a danger as many of the crews it pretends to try to clean up.

“Nearly all the board of directors have had serious lawsuits against them,” she said. “Their defense is always that the workers are independent contractors and therefore are businesses unto themselves.”

The sales people aren’t independent contractors, and the companies usually settle these lawsuits out of court, Williams said.

A call to Pitts’ Florida company, Sunshine Subscription Agency, was met with limited response, and several e-mails sent to the NFSA received no response.

Indiana Ties

Two large magazine sales clearinghouses reside in Indiana. Media reports and court documents show both had crews involved in fatal van accidents. The clearinghouses are located in Michigan City.

Publishers Consulting Corporation, according to its website, is a family-owned magazine subscription firm that has been serving the industry for more than 60 years.

In 1999, a van packed with 14 members of a magazine sales crew traveling through Janesville, Wis., flipped, killing seven and injuring five others. The crew’s company had Publishers Consulting Corporation as a clearinghouse, which currently shares its address with no less than six different subscription agencies, according to Wisconsin court documents.

Publishers Consulting Corporation did not respond to e-mails requesting comment.
A 10 minute drive away is American Community Services. This company only seems to share its address with one other agency, yet its history, according to media reports, appears to be more sordid.

In 1992, a van piloted by a driver with no license and carrying agents hit a median and overturned, killing five passengers and injuring six others.

In 1998, another salesman raped a 67-year-old Plano, Texas, woman and threatened her with a kitchen knife. Later that same year, two agents severely beat a retired alderman on the courthouse steps of Coravallis, Ore.

American Community Services could not be reached for comment. According to the Better Business Bureau, the company may no longer be in business.

The Law

Though most states require door-to-door sales crews to acquire permits, the laws are hard to enforce when groups are constantly moving across the country.

In Wisconsin, “Malinda’s Traveling Sales Crew Protection Act” went into effect this month, promising stronger regulation and fines. The legislation is named after Malinda Turvey, an 18-year-old woman who died in a sales-related crew crash 11 years ago.

In the days before the legislation became active, Turvey’s father, Phil Ellenbecker, called the act “the most powerful regulatory door-to-door solicitation legislation in the country” and said he was anxiously counting down the seconds until its activation.

Ellenbecker is also the creator of Dedicated Memorial Parents Group, an organization that collects and distributes news stories and information about the magazine crew industry through its websites.

In Indiana, most cities have their own codes concerning door-too-door solicitation. Bloomington is one of them.

The Bloomington Police Department frequently receives calls from residents about solicitors, Capt. Joe Qualters said.

“Many just want them checked out because they report them as being ‘suspicious,’ want us to verify the legitimacy of their fundraising effort or are concerned because none of what they are collecting for benefits this community,” Qualters said.

Residents have reported instances where “hard-sell tactics,” “intimidation” and “cursing” were used by sales people as well as occasional theft, Qualters said.

“If a crime occurs, we can investigate it and try to hold someone accountable,” he said. “As you can see, however, simply selling magazines without a permit is just an ordinance violation. Sometimes, the sellers leave the area after an encounter with law enforcement stemming from a complaint.”

An Ongoing Problem

Some former crew members do claim to have found the experience positive, however. A MySpace page called “Traveling Sales Crew Reunion=)” hopes to unite former sales people and shine a positive light on the industry.

“It’s too bad that everywhere you search on the net, the entire traveling sales industry and the millions of good people that have been a part of it are judged by the actions of a few bad apples,” the author wrote on the profile. “I loved my nine years of adventure on the road and I know hundreds of other people who did also.”

The creator of the page did not reply to a MySpace message requesting for comment.
Anthony, now 29, has been out of the industry for nearly two years. He said he has few fond memories of the sales crew. He called the job “the worst life ever.”

“They try to find people that are in a bad time in their life,” Anthony said. “They should stop preying on little young teenagers just to make them a buck.”

Williams said those who remember their experience fondly may not have fully processed what happened to them.

“With any abusive relationship, there are honeymoons,” she said. “Days where you’re beaten, and days were you’re taken to the seashore.”