In March I purchased a "customized" DVD of the Los Angeles Marathon for over $100 from DVD Marathon, a.K.A. DVD Productions, LLC. They had a couple of booths set up at the LA Marathon Quality of Life Expo, and appeared to be a legitimate company.
According to the company, it takes 6-8 weeks for the order to ship after the marathon. On March 8, only a few days after the marathon, I received an email from "[email protected]" acknowledging my completion of the marathon, confirming the order, and offering a preview of what the DVD would look like. I thought all was well.
A few weeks later, on May 23, I received an email from the company stating:
"Dear Customer,
We apologize for the further delay.
We are dealing with some technical issues and are doing our best to ship your order as soon as possible.
Your Los Angeles Marathon DVD is now scheduled to be shipped on June 7.
Please allow an additional 8-10 business days for USPS media mail delivery.
We appreciate your patience."
This was the last I ever heard from the company. The DVD never arrived. I began making efforts to contact the company. Three times I have called the toll-free number for the company, (888) 263-2690 — which is nothing more than an answering service — and all three times I have received no return call from anyone.
I have attempted to reach the company via their web contact form at least twice, but I have never received a response. Today, August 23, I attempted several times to submit another inquiry via their web form, but this time I got an error message.
I attempted to respond to the email I received from [email protected], but I received an automated response stating that he has a spam blocker, and that I must be an approved sender in order to send him an email. I filled out the form to obtain permission to be an approved sender, but when I clicked "submit, " this also returned nothing more than an error message.
It is my view that this company is a total fraud, and is violating Section 17200 of the California Business & Professions Code. It is engaging in false, unfair, misleading and deceptive acts, advertising, and business practices, by taking consumers' hard-earned money for goods and services that it does not deliver and has no intention of delivering.
In my view, the LA Attorney's office should investigate and shut this operation down, and take criminal action against the principals. I am personally considering my options, which range from merely disputing the credit card charge (it may be a little late in the day for that), filing a small claims court action, or locating some others like me to potentially bring a class action lawsuit against the company (to obtain force them to give restitution).
In addition, I believe that the organizers of the LA Marathon should take some action against the company, including: (1) prohibiting them from obtaining business from future marathon participants; and (2) issuing a warning to all future marathon participants that they may get ripped off by DVD Marathon.
In my frustration, I did some research on the Internet, and found that the company had done a similar thing to consumers with respect to the Las Vegas Marathon in December.
The bottom line is that this company is a total fraud. $100 may not seem like a lot of money to lose, but that is not the point. Do not do business with this company under any circumstances.
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