Scams hurt newspaper's mission

Ever since homeless and poor people started hawking the Spare Change News, impostors have tried to interlope on the action.

But in the alternative newspaper's 14th year, the scams have reached such a level, cutting profits and tainting the paper's image, that its staff is trying new ways to distinguish the real vendors from the fake.

``It amazes me when people try to rip off an organization like us," said Lee Mandell , vice president of the newspaper's board. ``All we're trying to do is help people who are homeless and have economic difficulties. A scam off of us is just really mean."

Published every other Thursday by the Homeless Empowerment Project, a Cambridge nonprofit, the Spare Change News aims to help underprivileged people by covering urban issues, and also by providing employment and income for its 70 to 100 authorized vendors, many of whom are homeless. They purchase the paper for 25 cents and sell it for $1. Between 9,000 and 11,000 papers are sold every two weeks.

The project earns about $45,000 a year, about 18 percent of its $250,000 annual budget. Vendors can make between $50 and $60 during an eight-hour day in a busy area.

Legitimate hawkers are supposed to wear an official identification tag. But some unauthorized dealers have fashioned bogus badges, then gathered used copies of the paper and resold them.

Now, Spare Change is buying aprons for its vendors, reminding them to wear photo identification, and urging them not to solicit for anything other than the newspaper.

``I've been walking through Boston Common and had people approach me with a fake badge and a clipboard, asking me to pledge money for a marathon for homeless children," said Paul Rice , the newspaper's managing editor.

Some scam artists around South Station dress in three-piece suits trying to pass themselves off as members of the paper's legal staff, Mandell said.

In one of the common scams, the ``vendor" offers to sell the paper for $1, but then tells the customer it is his last copy. The fake vendor then asks to keep the paper so he can sell it later. The buyer ends up making a donation, rather than buying a paper, and the false hawker repeats the ploy with the next buyer.

Rice said his staff suspects about 10 individuals of posing as vendors. Most have been operating around South Station, the Back Bay, Davis Square, and Boston Common, Rice said.

The staff believes the impostors include homeless people as well as disgruntled former vendors.

``When you're homeless, when you're on that level, you're going to do anything you can to survive," Rice said.

The newspaper has not decided whether to take legal action against the impostors.

``We're in an awkward position when it happens because we're an organization that tries to help people, and to help people even who are willing to do scams like this," Rice said.

Outside Au Bon Pain bakery in Harvard Square, Gregory Daugherty , who has been a vendor of Spare Change News since 1992 and sells papers about 36 hours a week, said scams have tarnished the paper's image and made potential buyers suspicious.

``We put our sweat in this business, and for them to do this is just not right," said Daugherty.

April Simpson can be reached at asimpson@globe.com