A day after Westville neighbors blew its cover on an apparent door-to-door scam, a “literature sales” company sent young people back on the streets with a new list of supposed charitable causes it claimed to represent.
A young man rang bells in lower Westville Monday asking people to donate money so that the company he works for could donate books and magazines to New Haven’s Mitchell public library branch.
Turns out it was a ruse. His company had never contacted Mitchell Library. There was no plan to send them books or magazines.
The branch’s librarian, Sharon Lovett-Graff, sent a warning to neighbors Tuesday. The warning made the email rounds.
“He has claimed that Mitchell Library staff supplied him with a list of magazines and books that the library needs, and that purchases of the material would then be donated to Mitchell Library,” she wrote.
“Mitchell Library and the New Haven Free Public Library does not engage in this type of activity and does not recruit any agent for this kind of arrangement.”
Meanwhile, Cathy DeNigris, the deputy director of the city’s library system, contacted the company for whom the door-knocker works, “Literature Sales” of Michigan City, Indiana. She said the person with whom she spoke promised to address the issue.
The company subsequently had a young woman knocking on doors in Westville Tuesday night. (She knocked on our family’s door, for instance.) She gave the same rap. Only this time she claimed the books and magazines would go to different charities, not the library. She had a handwritten list of local charities, including a midwestern Boys and Girls Club. She also said that people would help her earn “points” by making donations, points that her employer would convert into help for paying for college.
The door-to-door pitch is similar to one that companies have made for years through armies of outgoing young people dispatched to different city neighborhoods.
Police spokesman David Hartman warned against falling for them. He recommended that if people want money to go to a charity, they should donate directly to those organizations.
Meanwhile, a woman answering the phone for Literature Sales and identifying herself as “Stephanie” (“I don’t out my last name”), responded to questions from the Independent Wednesday.
She claimed she didn’t know about any complaints involving Mitchell Library.
“We have to get approval for the places we send the books and magazines to,” she said. She promised to “check into” the library claim.
