Statistics |
| » Total Articles |
565
|
| » Total Authors |
1335
|
| » Total Views |
97797
|
| » Total categories |
59
|
|
|
|
Published : May 22, 2008 |
Author : decalgal
Category : Other - Not Listed |
Business Name : Trivia Pages by Northwest Publishing
Location : Portland, Oregon
Total Views
: 86 | Rating :  
|
|
|
|
Last summer I was sold on the idea of advertising in Northwest Publishing's Trivia Pages - Portland, OR. A fast talking sales rep assured me that thousands of people would be seeing my ad every day. They publish a laminated booklet with pages and pages of trivia questions and answers. Alongside all that are the ads displayed. Plus each Trivia Page booklet will have a "featured" article about one of the companies advertising in that booklet. I was given a list of seven restaurants in each of three cities which I was told were using the Trivia Pages, plus the sales rep showed me a stack of papers, saying he had several dozen additional restaurants that had signed up in my area. He said the restaurants loved the Trivia Pages, which they place on each table, because the customers are so busy reading the questions and challenging each other that they are not disturbed by the wait for their food. He indicated that they would ship out new sets of Trivia Pages with new trivia every three months, so that the restaurants were constantly getting new ones. Sounded great. The Trivia Pages with my ads were finally published and sent out 4 months after I had signed up. 6 months after that, I started getting curious as to why I had not received one single inquiry based on those Trivia Pages. So I started going to the restaurants on the lists. Was unable to find a single restaurant that actually had the Trivia Pages anywhere in the restaurant. I checked with the BBB, and found that numerous similar complaints had been lodged against that company. I filed a complaint. They responded that they would (a) send me the lists of the shipments they had made to the restaurants, with UPS tracking info and (b) do a phone survey to find out which restaurants are actually using the Trivia Pages. After several weeks and several phone calls, I got a list showing that each of the 21 restaurants in the 3 cities had received ONE shipment of 50 booklets, last October. They said they were doing a phone survey, then they said they were NOT doing a phone survey. They indicated that my "contract" only specified that they would PRINT the ads (which they did) and there was NOTHING in the "contract" that says that anyone would ever RECEIVE the ads or that any customer would ever SEE the ads. Yep, that is true. The "contract" is the order form for the ad. Linda, the manager of the Trivia Pages, told me quite specifically that they are under NO OBLIGATION to send out any certain number of Trivia Pages to any certain number of restaurants, and that they did send out one box each to 21 restaurants, even tho it is not in the contract. Apparently the fact that you are paying for an ad does not mean that the ad actually has to be seen by a customer, ever. BEWARE of this scam!!! |
|
|
 Visitor's Comments ! |
|
|
|
|
Business Reporter.net
| Forum
