Do you know what a “mag crew” is? Neither did I, until about 8 last night. A
young girl rang my doorbell — I’d say she was between 15 and 19 — and said she
needed me to judge her public speaking skills.
She was extremely enthusiastic, uncomfortably over-familiar, and scattered.
Her name was Tiffany… I think. And she said she was from North Carolina.
I suspected a scam, so I asked questions. She insisted she wasn’t pushing
religion and expressed contempt for those who do. So then I knew it was
probably a sales pitch. Sure enough, she pulled out some laminated materials
with a list of magazine titles. She said she was trying to earn enough points
to open a business — a salon. My next-door neighbors had just bought a bunch of
stuff, she said, and she was only one point away.
Uh huh.
But I got on the Internet after I shooed Tiffany away and learned, through
the New York Times, about the sordid
world of “mag crews”: largely unregulated traveling sales crews. They’re
often run by unscrupulous people who promise especially vulnerable young people
the world, and then abuse them emotionally and sometimes physically, often separating
them from their families. There are stories of drug abuse, rape, burglary, and
everything else you can imagine.
I called 911, and watched as the cops talked to the girl and the rest of her
crew. I hope she was honest with the cop and that she spoke up if she was truly
in trouble. I wish I had asked her.
There’s a web site devoted to mag
crews and tells you what to do if you encounter one, so you can be better
prepared than I was.
This article appears in Bye bye unions?.
