Ever heard of Wright Thurston? If not, GOOD FOR YOU! He's known in circles where people are looking for ways to get rich. He sells several real estate investing courses (which happen to be very expensive and contain terribly outdated information with nothing original to say). He also organizes "Millionaire Retreat" 3-day "seminar" sell-a-thons to assist his friends in fooling the masses into giving up their hard-earned dollars.
In June of I attended one of these "Millionare Retreats" in Denver. Some of the information presented was good. One in particular was very bad, unscrupulous, etc. Sid Sperry is his name. He's a salesman. That's for sure. Just call me and my family Gullible. Boy did we ever learn some hard (and expensive) lessons.
Sid Sperry promotes a cookie-cutter website aimed at marketing real estate needing to be sold by real estate investors. His personal example can be seen at sidsperry.com. He also promotes a bulk vending machine supplier called HB Products, owned by a guy named Gary. Sid's company is called HB Seminars. Sid contracted with a Denver vending machine locating company called Covenant Locator Services (or something to that effect), run by a guy named Joseph. All of these fellas appeared at first to be great people. As it turns out, they're smooth talking crooks.
On a side note, from what I've seen so far, this group of companies all appear to be owned by Latter Day Saints folks. Now, I don't have anything against LDS folks.in fact, I'm friends with lots of them. I generally consider them to be good people. That's what makes my experience with Sid Sperry so disappointing.
Lesson #1. BEWARE of any company selling anything with a no return or no refund policy.
Lesson #2. Don't believe anything a salesman tells you until you've verified it with your own, independent, unbiased source. (Seems pretty obvious.)
Lesson #3. Don't trust anyone you've only met a short time ago. People always appear to be OK at first. No one tells you bad things about themselves. They only tell you the good stuff. If you're entering into a business relationship (or any other type of relationship) with them, it's your job to dig up the dirt. You shouldn't trust them until you've found the dirt.
Lesson #4. Don't trust someone based simply on their eloquent speach and charming personality.
The industry Sid Sperry is promoting is not as profitable as he says.
The bulk vending business is not nearly as profitable or wide open as they would like us to believe. There is a lot of competition. Business owners are so used to people coming in to their businesses asking to place machines that they've become very abrupt and rude in their antics as they tell you to, "Get out of here with that stupid machine!"
The machines Sid Sperry is promoting (the coin shooters) are crap.
1. A basic bulk vending machine on a stand would be better. 100% of the coin shooters will jam 100% of the time when customers place too many quarters or other coins in the machine at once. It's due to a design flaw which doesn't force the money into single-file as it enters the coin accepting mechanism. The end result is machines jamming up within 24 hours of placing them. Then, store owners are really anxious for you to "get your stupid machine out of" their store. Think about it. When a customer puts money into a vending machine that's jammed, they become agitated and look to the business owner to reconcile their loss. So the business owner ends up coughing up money for the stupid machine and dealing with angry customers.
2. The machine's skirt area is made of plastic. The weight of the candy and the pressure of the locking mechanism on the top of the machine cause this plastic part to break.
3. They ship the machines to you with salt & pepper shakers wrapped in bubble plastic inside the candy hopper. Probably 80% of the salt & pepper shakers were broken when they arrived. Glass was everywhere inside the mechanism of the machine. These machines are sold on the pretense that you'll place them on tables at restaurants. However, they're way too big for that kind of location. Restaurants don't like them because they take up so much space. Food servers don't like them because they tend to eat their tips.
The manufacturer Sid Sperry is promoting is crap.
1. When the machines arrived broken, we immediately inventoried the broken parts and notified HB Products what needed to be replaced. They cheerfully responded that every thing would be taken care of. Almost a month later, there is no sign of the replacement parts.
2. They overcharged us on UPS shipping by 300%. We paid 4 times what it cost them to ship them to us. We confirmed this with UPS, being sure to get a quote including insurance for the RETAIL "value" of the machine. I'm sure HB Products didn't insure them for anything more than their cost, which is probably about 10 cents on the dollar. UPS insures every package for a minimum of $100, so that means HB Products didn't get ANY extra insurance. They charged us $20 per machine. We can send them back for $5 per machine. To add insult to injury, HB Products wants to charge us a 20% restocking fee to send them back. This is IF we can ever get them to agree to refunding us ANY of our money.
The locating company Sid Sperry is promoting is the ultimiate crap.
1. We were asked to sign a contract requiring 1/2 payment up front and allowing for no refund. Considering the "quality" of the machines and the "quality" of the locating service, this ended up being a very bad thing.
2. The guy who owns the locating service, Joseph, sent in the sorriest excuse for a locator I've ever seen. That guy couldn't sell his way out of a wet paper bag. He would make business owners so mad at us they'd practically be screaming at us to go away. Then he would walk out and say, "Yep, they'll let you put one there, " and he'd expect to paid for having located a machine for us.
3. So when Joseph sent this guy in, he was in breach of his agreement with Sid Sperry, and in turn, Sid Sperry's agreement with us. (The agreement was that Joseph would place the machines himself... But instead, he sent in someone else... Who happened to be horrible.) And now, Joseph won't refund us our money, his only argument being "the contract clearly states there's a no refund policy." But Joseph didn't actually do any work or perform any service for us. What he did do, calling in a sorry excuse for a locator guy, was actually a detractor.
Sid Sperry, Joseph & Gary have all shown themselves to be individuals of incredibly low integrity. We were incredibly gullible & trusting before, but I hope we're learning. I hope you're learning too. I'd stay clear of these guys no matter what they're promoting. I'd not get involved in anything until I've done my homework. (There is a little info out there about vending scams.) However, the best lesson of all was learned when we actually tried to place the machines. The biggest mistake we made was getting tangled up with companies which have no return & no refund policies. Just so I'm fair, HB Products does have a 72 hour return policy. As if you can actually discover what you need to know in 72 hours. At this point, we've lost over $10,000 to this scam. Who's the idiot? I know, we are. More importantly for you, who's the snake with the smooth talkin' tongue? That would be Sid Sperry and his band of con men/thieves.
They say there's a sucker born every minute. Don't be like us.
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