It might have a lot to do with the respective District Attorneys' offices. Lake Big Ego is in Clackamas county. No Schrunk problem. Portland is in
Multnomah County. Big Schrunk problem.

Of greater interest is where is the Or. DOJ / Or. AG Hardly Matters? The AG's office has a variety of effective civil tools (Unlawful Trade Practices Act, ORICO) with which to deal with these scammers .

Relatively simple to obtain civil penalties against the companies which can be registered in the states where the companies bank, and simpler still to do till taps at the banks.

Enjoining the individal sellers and the crew chiefs is simple as well. If the individuals sell again in violation of an injunction, criminal contempt is easier to prosecute than a series of misdemeanor thefts by deception, and folks actually go to jail and serve the time on criminal contempt as opposed to misdemeanor theft by deception.

Been there, done that, still have a half dozen of the Tee shirts in the back of the closet.

Dave Frohnmayer's DOJ used to do that routinely. Then again, Oregon hasn't had an AG since Frohnmayer left.

Jan Margosian, the AG flack on consumer issues talks a good consumer protecion game, but there is no real consumer protection enforcement in Oregon.

Greg MacPherson, are you listening?

LO PD solves problems. Portland PD addresses issues.

Its a touchy-feely thing.

If the customers get the magazines they paid for, there's no theft.

And there's no criminal deception, per "Theft by deception" ORS 164.085, specifically subsection (2): “Deception” does not include falsity as to matters having no pecuniary significance..."

I have no experience with Unfair trade pactices, but take a quick look at ORS 646.608. I'm not sure the sellers storytelling is a violation of the statute, but of course the important point is that the penalties under Section 646 are civil.

So unless there was an injunction in place against this company, seems to me Lake O might be looking at shelling out some dough for false imprisonment.

Abe has his perception in the correct place.

Stanton adds credibility to Shakespeare’s foresight.

LO requires that door to door peddlers have and display a city licenses. This is not the first time these type of folks have been busted in the Wego.

Two days ago a young woman came to our door with a very smooth approach. She showed me her identification and LO business license. (she was from Georgia)When she said she wasn't looking for a donation but just "support and advice" I listened to her spiel for awhile until voila! I am being asked to subscribe to magazines in order to be able to "support" her getting off the streets etc etc.
I politely declined and it took some convincing on my part that I was happy to talk to her but was not interested in purchasing anything.
Poof! She was off my doorstep and gone in a flash.
I have heard of these van loads of young people being driven around, staying in cheap motels and having to pay for their meals etc.
I actually feel sorry for them as they are sold a bill of goods just like we are.
What would be nice would be to actually stop the people who recruit these young kids and coach them to be deceptive.
They are the real crooks.

I had an almost identical experience to Kathe W.'s here in NE Ptld the other day. The young woman gave her rap about getting out of the inner city, becoming a nurse and going back to help her community, and she carried on about wanting feedback on her presentation, but when she flipped to the magazine subscriptions and I made it clear I wasn't buying one, her whole smiley persona dropped and she took off, quite dejected. I realized it must be one of those magazine exploitation mills, as two well-dressed young men had come by a week earlier, just as it was getting dark. I cut them off before they revealed the sales pitch (and they were polite) but their rap was almost identical to hers,right down to the phrases used. It's a bit more disturbing than the usual Jehovah's Witnesses we tend to get.

I'm not sure what Shakespeare's foresight is. "Methinks he doth protest too much?"

works for me.

Stanton needs to look at the civil provisions of ORICO.

David Glmore makes the ommon and unsupportable error regarding the dialog between Dick the Butcher and Jack Cade in Henry VI, part 2.

See, generally,

http://www.okbar.org/public/judges/spspeech.pdf

Great point!