8-Year-Old Girl Scout Stopped from Selling Cookies Online

Fats Limbaugh complained about this because he was selling on line and did not want stiff competition

Oh, yeah, the Girl Scout cookie Nazi's will be on you like a fat lady on a Thin Mint if you try to eBay or online sell your wares! When we were in Germany (10 years ago with the military), Girl Scouts did cookies differently than they do in the states. They send a cargo plane full of cookies and your goal is to sell or eat them all. My daughter pre-sold the usual 50 or so boxes; we were saddled with about 150 boxes. This doesn't seem like much, afterall, everybody loves Girl Scout cookies, right? Well, there were about 500+ girls in our housing area and they were all selling cookies. German citizens were not interested in paying $3.50 a box for cookies that would sell for about 60 cents in the German stores. So...were were stuck with a bunch of cookies- about 40 or so boxes. We did the "booth sales" thing and had about 20 boxes left (the stuff nobody wanted). I went ahead and paid for them myself and decided to unload the rest on eBay. Man! I got more hate mail and threats than Bernie Madoff. I was warned that my daughter's troop would be shut down and all sorts of other punishment. I was quoted edicts and regulations and orders from Girl Scouts U.S.A. I'm surprised the Dept. of Homeland Security wasn't brought into the picture. Yeah, so forget the idea of selling G.S. cookies online; you'd be better received if you set up a porn site or sold illegal drugs!

Hmm, its ok for girls to go door to door but its not ok for girls to sell cookies online because "it exposes them to online predators". Does anyone else see any type of logic in this statement? I sure dont

Wow, so no online orders for girl scout cookies ....

I thought the scouts were to teach girls how to be business women,

they need to get hi tech. The door to door thing is more easily a way for a girl to get grabed by some pedifile. That's how a child was targeted and was died years ago it was in the media.

With the online thing a parent would have each person's name and address. Ofcourse if I had a daughter I would go with her to deliver the cookies. Even boys I don't let my kids canvas the neigborhood selling stuff for fundraisers it's too dangerous.

How many parents still send children door to door to sell things...
It isn't safe.... We always order from the catalogs when our kids do fundraisers and don't allow door to door selling. Never know who might spot your kid and then target them when your not around.

It is sad that the world is becoming so unsafe for kids. When I was a kid it was safe for us kids to play on the streets/parks and move around the neighbourhood without adult escort, etc.

I don't know why everyone is getting uptight about this, they specifically tell you that you can't see on line, so if kids/mainly parents are doing it, they should be excluded from winning any of the prizes!

Are the girl scouts like the boy scouts and into discrimination against gays? I'd want to know before I even thought about buying their cookies anywhere.

Anyone check out all of the eBay listings for Girl Scout cookies?

I do agree though, that online sales is in no way more dangerous to preditors than going door to door. The leaders are to teach the girls to be independant business women and times they are a changin folks! We no longer have door to door salespeople, electrolux even has a website..lol

I don't think that the entire Girl Scout organization should have a website to buy cookies from, but each individual troop should be able to promote their cookies in any way they can to pick up more sales.

If that means a commercial on u-tube with a link to an eBay auction or store then so be it. As long as they came up with the idea on their own and the grown ups are thinking they are going to profit from any of it.

Have to reiterate a little on the above comment...
CHANGES::
2nd Paragraph: Not 'dangerous to preditors', but 'susceptible to preditors'...


Last sentence : "As long as they came up with the idea on their own and the grown ups are not thinking they are going to profit from any of it.

The cookies are awfully expensive and not really good for you. Why can't they find something healthy to sell? The days of bake sales are so over. Get the girl scouts ready for life in the world of today. No more 19th century models for their future.

My 9-year old daughter and I were also caught by this silly rule from the Girl Scouts. I setup a web page that accepts pre-order quantities using Google Sites and Google Docs. It was all free and very easy to do and I worked on it with my daughter so she'd learn some of this stuff (which is part of the goal for the girls in selling cookies... to become entrepreneurial). I also offered it to the parents of other girls in her troop and 3 of them thought it was a great idea. The only "personal" information we had on the page was my daughter's first name, a picture of her, and a line that stated the neighborhood we live in... those are all things that would be revealed by her going door-to-door in our neighborhood anyways. Our "advertising" for the website was done via flyers that we dropped off only at the houses we'd otherwise be knocking on the door of. We still did some door-knocking, but its so cold where we live that I really didn't want my daughter catching a cold while selling cookies door-to-door for hours on end, so going online just made so much sense. I really hope the Girl Scout Council gets with the times and sets down some simple rules that the girls can follow and be able to go online.