***Scam Alert***

Many thanks to Miltonian Tara Chambers for sharing this information with our readers.

Dear Neighbors,

I wanted to make you all aware of an incident we had at our home yesterday (Saturday 5/25/09). It was about 5:30pm, I was in the basement with the kids and my husband was upstairs in the kitchen. I heard the doorbell ring, but when my husband didn’t call for me I figured he handled whatever it was. About 10 minutes later I went upstairs and saw my husband sitting at the kitchen table with a young man (white male in polo shirt and jeans, about 19 – 22 years old). My husband was writing him a check. I walked over and asked what was going on. My husband said “this is Steve Burton, they just moved into the neighborhood recently and he is a student at UGA raising money for the school band”. I was very confused because I am pretty up on who lives in our neighborhood (with only 74 homes it’s not that difficult) and as far as I knew there was no “Burton” in the neighborhood. I looked at him and asked where exactly he lived in the neighborhood. He said 410 The Hermitage Drive – 2nd home on the left. I went and pulled out the neighborhood directory and I know who lives in that house and it has not changed ownership in the past 5 years. I then continued through the directory and told him there was no Burton in the neighborhood and that he does not live at 410 The Hermitage Drive. He was very confident and explained that they had only moved here 6 months ago and since he lives away at school he may have the address wrong. He said since they are so new to the neighborhood, they aren’t in the directory yet. I confronted him further by saying the directory is brand new and just came out last week. He said it must be a mistake and he will have his mother look into it. I asked him for his home phone number because I wanted to call his mother and he said he didn’t remember the number and his mother’s cell phone was off right now so that wouldn’t help. He also went on to say that his mother was good friends with Diane Godby (my neighbor) and that she could vouch for him. I called Diane but unfortunately there was no answer at her house. This went on and on. He sat at our kitchen table and told lye after lye and was as confident as he could be. He said he would get his mom and be back in about an hour and get the check from us at that time. He had an answer for everything I confronted him about. I told him point blank “your story isn’t adding up” and he wasn’t flustered one bit. We asked him to leave our house and he had the nerve to ask what other homes he should visit. We said “NONE – everyone here is very suspicious of solicitors and until you can get your mom to confirm that you live here, we wouldn’t recommend he go to any other homes.” He said “ok, I understand and can I have a bottle of water.”

After he left I got in touch with my neighbor (the one his mother is supposed to be great friends with) and she said she has no idea who he is. She said he came to her house and said he was with Milton H.S. He told her a whole different story and got a $20.00 check from her. He was a VERY good scammer. We think he used UGA with us because my husband is an alum who answered the front door with a UGA visor on his head. Diane probably had something “Milton H.S.” around her house that he picked up on.

We called 911 and the Milton Police came out. This part shocks me the most. They stopped the boy and ran his name. They said there was nothing on him in the system and there was nothing they could do except tell him to leave the neighborhood. I was shocked. I said he was obviously lying and scamming people out of money and the police officer said the problem is it is similar to a “used car salesman”. They can say anything they want and try to get you to give them money. It’s a “buyer beware” situation. I still don’t completely understand how this isn’t illegal and why this boy wasn’t arrested, but bottom line is PLEASE BE CAREFUL who you let into your house and give money to. This is a perfect example of why I am so “over the top” about soliciting in Milton. People here are so trusting and generous and we are easy to take advantage of. The officer also said that they had gotten a lot of phone calls over the past few days about this “group”. He then explained to me that the “group” usually busses kids in from South Fulton. They give them the books and magazine subscription forms and anything else they need to make it look legit. He said this wasn’t just this one boy working on his own. It’s a whole group running a larger scam.

Please be careful and don’t buy anything from solicitors. There is no way to tell who is legit and who isn’t in my opinion.

Tara

Tara Chambers