Two young men came by today stating they were neighbors (claimed to live on nearby street and attend local high school) and that they were fundraising for their soccer club. Although I asked which club, they volunteered a vague team name instead of the actual club. They said they were trying to raise money to go to a national tournament and had I seen the article about them a few weeks back (coincidentally, there HAD been an article in last Sunday's paper about local soccer clubs!).
However, they had no paperwork from their group explaining the fundraiser and no ID, only a laminated brochure listing the books they had for sale. They said if I didn't want the actual books, I could donate them to the "Boys & Girls Club", which is an idea his "mom" had.in retrospect, I realize that most of this was not making logical sense, that all his responses were vague and general, but wanting to believe I was helping the local soccer club, I bought the cheapest book on the list and donated it to the so-called "boys & girls club".
After they left, I immediately got online and tried to match up the team name they gave me with all area soccer clubs. None had a team for their age group with that name. Then I decided to search on "Ultimate Power" (the name itself was what initially gave me misgivings when I closed the door — it just seemed like a bogus name and not the name of a group any soccer club in our area would associate themselves with).
That search led to this website and I saw that others had been given an almost identical pitch. I immediately sent in a cancellation, however, since this company obviously condones their sales reps misleading consumers, I'm doubtful as to whether this cancellation will be honored or not. So I did a stop-payment on my check. As another consumer stated, I'd rather pay the fee to a legitimate bank, then to these rip-off artists.
Also, while this company may very well fulfill their obligations and actually send the products to the consumer or the "boys & girls club" (but I'm certainly not going to wait to find out!), they encourage their reps to mislead and take advantage of people's compassion or sense of community. Would I have donated to the local teams or schools? Obviously, yes. Would I have bought overpriced books from some guy on the street? No. I suppose they know that and so they use dishonesty to sell their product. Even if the product was actually delivered, misrepresentation is a form of deception, and to deceive someone in order to take their money is the definition of scam.
Daphne
Orinda, California
U.S.A.
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