Sunnyvale, CA - a college-aged looking guy with the self-proclaimed name "Joseph Robbins" ("like Tim Robbins" he said) knocked on our apt. door a little after 5pm. He was Caucasian, blue eyes, about 5'8" or 5'9", medium build but very fit. He started singing a siren song to my bf, who had answered the door, weaving a tale about selling magazines as a contest for school. He said that the magazines would go to the troops overseas and that if he won the contest he'd get to go to Italy. If we bought something, he'd leave a sticker on our door to tell the other people not bother us about it, and we'd have to leave the sticker on for several months. He also said that he wanted to get into the military too, and that it was a good cause. I guess that's their thing - they're saying that you will never see the magazines because they're going to the troops, and they're trying to prey on your sympathies to kids going to school and the plight of our brothers and sisters in arms.

It was the strangest thing. He invited himself into our home by asking if he could use our table, and then stepped inside before we answered. He then proceeded to fill out forms, asking us for our names, pleading with us saying "can I put your name down? Because I'll get points for it." Anything he got from us equaled points for him, and any mistakes, he said, would "cost [him] points." He had a little pack with carbon receipts and laminated cards with magazine names on each side, indicating the number of "points" he'd earn by selling. Different magazines had different point values. He bombarded us with questions about ourselves and our professions - apparently, he'd earn points for putting down what we did for a living, who we worked for, what our favorite colors were, how long we've been working. My BS alarms were going off all over the place, but I wanted to see what happened next, especially because it was fascinating that my BF was just giving him all of this info willy-nilly. I mean - REALLY? I'm pretty sure they're trawling for information which can be used for credit applications or identity theft.

So during the spiel, "Joseph Robbins" also offered tidbits about himself - grew up in the south (but he had a strong So. CAL accent and when I asked him about that he said he also lived in Fullerton, even providing a fake ID card); he could speak one or two lines from different languages; he'd been all over the USA. In one of the places he visited, he dated a Mormon girl. He also said that he'd won top seller 3 times, so I asked him where he'd been (thinking maybe I was wrong and he had gone on an international trip) - but he replied with locations from all over the US: Kentucky, California, Mississippi, the like. He said that when he was down in So. CAL, Jay Leno bought magazines from him, and proceeded to describe the interaction. He was excited by the JL story, and told it to us at three times during the conversation - only first it was at a cafe, then it was his house, then it was the cafe next to the house.

Trying to ease us into getting comfortable with agreeing to give him money, he asked us to choose two magazines early on. Then later, at the end of the conversation, he took out a price list - magazines were listed at about 400-600% of their value, so a normally $10/yr mag. was $48-$68, PLUS there was a $15 "service fee" on top of that on the form. The name of the company on the carbon forms was "Dynasty Technology 211" and the website was "dynasty211.com". When I asked him what the website was again, so I could look it up, he asked to use our telephone because he forgot, and tried to get further into our apt. I reminded him it was on the form. While Googling the company, he said that he wasn't afraid because people do that all the time, and reminded me that he had won top salesperson 3 times already. Looking at my search results, I noted all the complaints about this scam, and asked him to leave. He got scared fast, "voided" our forms and left our place. After he left I also went a step further and looked up the website origins. Today, the "Joseph" visited, is March 10, 2011. The website was registered on January 8, 2011. They've only had that URL or 2 months (and the website really sucks). You can see for yourself here: http://www-whois.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=dynasty211.com&type=domain

This "magazine for the troops" at 600% the cost without you ever seeing the magazines or getting confirmation of it is such a SCAM. Please avoid it! They probably have a website to allay the fears of their marks, but probably also change it (their name) to avoid getting caught. I noticed that the number referenced in another complaint has the employee number 211 - that is now the same number in the website URL. It obviously means something to them. They're probably con artist kids on the way to becoming full fledged con artist adults. And please, avoid the trawling technique of conversational info-gathering for fraud purposes. Asking colors, birthdays, dates of employment - these things can be used to reset passwords on bank accounts, credit card accounts, email addresses, etc. If someone somehow got your SS# and had this info, they could get your credit report with all your credit card info and previous addresses and employers on them as well. They could guess passwords with favorite colors and birthdays and family names and such. Don't give it to them! Don't give them anything! AVOID! AVOID!