March of we used our life savings to purchase 10 Royal Vending Machines from Creative Concepts of America, authorized representative of Red Bull Vending North America. We were sold a 'protected territory' which we have since found out was NOT protected. We received our machines in May. After hearing about other people getting scammed by location companies referred by Creative Concepts, we decided to locate a company on our own. We hired a company and they found locations for our machines. The locations were CRAP. We were assured that we would be able to place the machines at college and universities, warehouses, corporations, etc. Those prime locations laughed as they are all under contract with Pepsi or Coca Cola. Not only were we promised such wonderful locations, but we were also assured that we would vend at least 27-28 can per day per machine. We were also given references of people to call who assured us we would make money and be successful. I'm sure they were paid employees of Creative Concepts. After losing more money, we had to start trying to place the machines ourselves. I quit my day job to attempt to make this work. Dumb. We called Red Bull North America for help but they stated after Creative Concepts (CCA) bankruptcy that their agreement was over. All Red Bull did was offer a select few people a fraction of their money back if machines were returned and at less than half the cost but only if they were in brand new condition. Red Bull North America needs to step up to the plate and right this terrible wrong.
On June 29 we received an email from CCA stating that they were in the first stage of bankruptcy!!! There were hundreds of people all across the USA who had purchased these machines and a lot who 'sold' them back to CCA and now they were going to file bankruptcy six weeks after they received the machines back? We along with hundreds of others filed police reports with the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department (where CCA was located). The police report states this was 'theft by deception'. The FBI, the Secret Service and numerous other government agencies have been involved in this case.
Red Bull is denying all responsibility for this situation. They told the BBB that they had a 'hands off relationship' with CCA however it appeared that Red Bull had a tight reign on CCA. Some received an email from Ilene Eskenazi, Esq who states she is general counsel for Red Bull still denying any responsibility for the deception that Red Bull gave in telling prospective vendors that CCA was reputable and that to get Red Bull vendors, one had to go through CCA as they had sole rights to sell the machines.in this email, she refers to the vendors as
'Creative Concepts Vending Machines'. The machines have the name of Red Bull on them, not Creative Concepts.
Hundreds of people have lost their life savings due to being mislead by Red Bull North America. One lady was a young widow who's husband had died suddenly leaving her with 4-5 children. She used life insurance money to purchase machines thinking she would be able to support her family. She did not even receive all the machines that she paid for.
I would think any reputable company would want to do whatever to keep their good name in the business world. Red Bull refuses to reach any type of amicable
conclusion to this matter.
In the meantime, we refuse to sit idle and not let everyone know about this awful injustice. Contact me if you would like a personal interview!
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