This may become a long essay on Signtronix business practices, but I'm a clever writer, please read on
Yesterday, Tuesday, 11/8, I was visited in my business by a salesman with an attractive LED display. Dan Eubanks is a young, respectable-looking gentlemen with a slight southern accent. I do need a new sign for my business soon, and I might be interested in an outside LED display at a later time. After all, I'm a new business with limited funds and would like to see the business increase. And did I mention that I had sucker written all over my forehead?
The sales pitch started before 4pm and started out interesting and reasonable. About a half-hour later, Dan Eubanks, evidently a local salesman, was joined by Bill Childers, evidently a regional sales manager. Wild Bill Childers turned up the excitement, speed, and enthusiasm.By then it was getting after my usual closing time. I told them that I was exhausted since I had been up since 4:30am.By now my employees had left, and I was alone with these two. And did I mention that I had easy prey written all over my forehead?
When you run a small business, you try to be friendly to everyone. Even though I lived in New York for 15 years, the short time I'd been back in rural Illinois put me back into a trusting disposition. How foolish I was. Dan Eubanks and Bill Childers took advantage of my fatigue, pleasant disposition, and trusting nature to reel me in. They introduced me to Main Street America Showcase Agreement it was touted as a wonderful Community Partnership.
They said that I was a wonderful business that they saw as having a great future and they were sharing with me a super-great opportunity but, I had to sign up that day in order to take advantage of this great bargain, lease-to-own agreement. As it was drawing close to 7pm and they had me cornered (or more accurately emotionally cornered) and I would be late for a meeting I had arranged at 7:30, I was ready to sign anything to make them go away. I signed a contract.
Frankly, by that point I would have strangled my dear grandmother to make these two shut up and leave my store. Could I have said no? Yes, I could have tried harder to turn them away. Would they have taken no' for an answer? Well, when you have slick salesmen like that, they are trained in interrogation sales tactics. They don't take no' for an answer.
Obviously, I had buyers remorse as soon as they left the store. My Internet search brought me to complaint and a few threads here. What to do? These guys really are slick. They left no business cards, phone numbers, or any other way to contact them. Since Signtronix is located in California time zone, Illinois would already be open for business for a couple of hours before I could contact the company. From the other reports, it was clear that the check would be cashed ASAP. So, I headed to the bank to be there when it opened at 8:30am in order to stop payment.
Interestingly, I got a cell phone call from Bill Childers at 8:25 who said that he was now in Louisville, Ky, about four hours away. He told me that he realized that I would now have buyers remorse and would want out of the deal. The pitch started over about what a great product they had, were a reputable company, that they would be glad to make any changes to the size of the sign and that Dan would be glad to rewrite the contract for what I now wanted.
Bill Childers is a talker, and talker, and talker. That is his job, talking, not listening. When I finally got him right down to what I really wanted to know, he made it clear that this was a binding contract and I couldn't get my deposit back. Literally.By this time, now an hour had passed, Dan Eubanks had already gone into the now open bank, cashed the check, and left.
At this point, I really felt stupid. When they found out, all the tellers were mortified by what had just happened. After all, it's a small town, I'm one of their daily bank customers, and several of them come to my coffee shop everyday. But, after I felt stupid, I felt mad. When I get mad, I get smart. When I get smart, I get strong David and Goliath strong.
To be continued
Additional search engine keywords: Don Eubanks Daniel Eubanks William Childers Signtronics Signtroniks scam fraud pressure high-pressure outdoor sign indoor sign marquee LED deposit contract non refundable non-refundable
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