Introduction, Part 6

get sued by a victim, so they have to know -- because the judge told them.

While we might think that it’s only “fly by night” companies that send people into our homes to do this to us, in some cases huge companies– yes even Sears might be doing it. Even Home Depot may be on the list.

The overriding concept to understand, “The Big Picture,” is that the product being sold by many of these organizations is often just a token, an excuse, a reason to enter the home and then to defraud, to steal, to pressure, and finally to separate the homeowner from money.

In at least one case the home improvement company makes a hard and fast practice of slapping a second mortgage on the homeowner’s property to secure their outrageously expensive home improvement. And while interest rates may be at seven percent for a second mortgage with Citicorp or Wells Fargo, this one nationwide company has rates on a fully secured mortgage of 14.75%. Their profits are enormous.

The products often cost nearly nothing, are marked up even ten fold over actual materials cost and then the homeowner’s home is often used to secure the loan almost in perpetuity.

It takes a very special breed of salesperson to perpetrate these acts. It takes just as evil a management style. In many cases these salesmen (almost all are men) can actually enter a home and make a sale having never shown the product to the “customer” or having even discussed it with them in any detail.

The appointment with the homeowner is simply a door opener to get the salesman in and to let him do his work on the unsuspecting. The offer of a product simply creates the opportunity to steal.

Here’s one example:

A man already on various “personality disorder medications” is defrauded out of maybe $20,000 by a window company. Here’s how: His son is murdered by the neighbor two doors down. The child was shot in the chest by the neighbor for skateboarding on the sidewalk. Don’t worry, I think this man was nuts way before this all happened and this tragic event did little more to him than actually give him a full blown heart attack in the courtroom. Votive candles were still burning in the kitchen (with faded plastic flowers nearby) when The Window Salesman Arrived.