Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-06-25
PIANO FAKIRS
 AROUSE KANSAS
All questionable Merchandise Schemes
 to Be Put Under Ban,

Topeka, Kan, June a4.-Kansas is plannlng to outlaw fake schemes for selling merchandise. It is the piano 1aklr at whom the people of Kansas are after most Indignantly now. This state seems to have been made the particular stamping ground of the piano salesman with a scheme, and the prairies are alive with them.
 John 5. Dawson, attorney-general. has been asked to help the merchants of the state in the fight they are mak- Ing, not only on the piano salesmet but on the fake foods and other goods.
 There are eight or ten schemes for selling pianos that are being worked with apparent success throughout Kansas. At least the salespen would not keep them up so regularly if they did not have some success.
 One scheme which was partially broken up by the postal authorities and the newspapers is still being worked to some extent. It was to print in newspaper a puzzle and of fer prize of part payment on a piano for it's solution. The postal authorities held this to be lottery and stopped the circulation of the newspapers printing the puzzle. Now the puzzle is printed. but everyone gets a prize, the amount varying on the first or one-hundredth answer. The prize is a check for from $5 to $12o, but the check can be used only i,,n ,,i
 Sixteen Shipping Mistakes.
 favorite scheme is to insert not ices in country papers of piano ship ped to your town by mistake. Will sell at a sacrifice rather than return" Two weeks ago the same man had the same advertisement ill 16 papers at the same time, all the ads exactly alike and the answers to be sent to the same address.
 Sometimes bona fide purchasers of pianos fail to make the payments and this is used by the fakirs who adver- tise to sell piano for the "balance of the payments due,' the payments being practically he original worth or price for new piano. Another scheme is to allow certain discount on the price of piano Gin order to get the benefit of your influence in your community" The circular tell ing of his discount has been known to have been sent to eleven persons in the same mail and by the same salesman.
 Selling for Storage Charge.
 Another along the same line is to put piano in storage and then ad- vertise to sell the piano at the stor- age fee and the balance due from some customer who is supposed to have purchased the piano and then been forced to give it up. One piano salesman living in a central Kansas town does all his business by adver- Using in the papers in surrounding towns and sending out circulars that he has been transferred to another town and wants to sell his piano rather than move it.
 This man often has half a dozen pianos stored at the same time in his barn and he sells all of them in the same way. He has been living in the same home for 12 years.
 Trading piano for part cash and part something else, the cash being the real price of the piano, selling a representatives, sample and the dis tribution of piano vouchers by mes senser are some other favorite ways of selling pianos in Kansas just now.
 The regular piano houses do not use these methods ill making sales. It is the travelling piano salesmen who do it and not the stores. There are people who make regular busi- ness of selling pianos in this manner, They buy cheap pianos, some times buying pianos without any nameplate and putting on a plate of their own.