Two different readers emailed to alert the neighborhood to possible scams this weekend.
Late this morning Steve wrote:
A fellow calling himself “Larry Anderson” called late Saturday afternoon to say that the utility bill for our son’s restaurant was overdue and our power would be shut off.
He said go to the drug store to buy a PaymentPak and call him back with the 10-digit number. “Larry” is probably in Belize or Florida….there is no such person working for the power company. I DID NOT buy a PaymentPak I DID NOT PAY HIM $400! I did call the FBI and I did contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The key is that utility companies do not ask for money order or paymentpak payments, especially on weekends when all the staff has gone home.
The Federal Trade Commission has a blog page about this.
And on Saturday Kristin wrote:
I wanted to put the word out that a man came to my door this evening (Eighth Avenue Northeast and Northeast 94th Street) asking “where we wanted him to deliver our free newspaper”. He said “they were offering free newspapers to people”.
I told him we didn’t take the paper and didn’t want it. He left without trying to come into my home, but immediately got into a truck and drove away instead of continuing on to another house as he should have done if he was in fact selling the newspaper.
This incident was very similar (not the same man) to an incident that occurred last summer at the same time of day/same day of the week (Saturday).
I reported the incident to 911 and she said they would send a car to do a drive-by. Just wanted neighbors to be aware.
The newspaper guy knocked on my door as well. I told him I read it online, when I read it at all (the Times writing and investigative quality is so poor, it is rare that I read it).
And Will, I agree with you 100%. The paper delivery guy races around the neighborhood in a car with a very loud muffler around 4am. I spoke to him once but he didn’t seem to care how much noise he made. I also called the Times to complain, they said the delivery people were independent contractors and they aren’t responsible for how much noise they make are 4am.
I just wish whoever it is that still gets the that trash delivered, would stop.
Lol newspaper? You mean thing that’s a website printed out with yesterday’s news on it? Yes, please go ahead and deliver that where I ask the yellow pages guy to deliver a pre-printed SQL database: directly into my recycling bin. Thanks.
The delivery car that delivers the paper have such a loud car. Why do they yell and slam the car doors at 4 am to deliver newspapers?
As unprofessional as the Seattle Times delivery people are it wouldn’t surprise me if it were legitimate.
The one I saw had on a hoodie and had his face covered most of the time. He had a badge ID around his neck.
Thanks for the responses, the man I spoke with did not identify himself, but hopefully he was in fact with the Seattle Times.
We had a woman knock on our door with the same pitch and when I said I wasn’t interested she asked if I would donate to the food bank, she showed me a document that said Seattle times and food bank.
With respect to the newspaper- we had someone come to our door on Saturday as well (91st & 5th) and he was wearing a Seattle Times hat. He was talking about trying to increase the circulation in the area because there were only 4 delivered papers on the route. Said they would give M-S papers for free if we ordered Sunday only. Seemed legitimate, though we turned him down.