A couple of years ago, my wife temporarily quit work to go back to school so I was looking for a way to make some additional income. I came across an ad for Red Bull vending frachises from Creative Concepts of America. I contacted the company and they sent me some info.
Within the information they stated that they would find me guaranteed high traffic locations and that the average machines already in service were vending 20-30 cans a day. I was also told that I would have a protected territory.
A rep at Creative Concepts gave me references of people that were already making a lot of money with the Red Bull machines. They told us that everything was safe and that we would even get a theft and vandalism warranty on our machines. Everything they were telling me sounded really good so I decided I would give it a try.
Before I sent my money to Creative Concepts, I called Red Bull North America. They told me that Creative Concepts was legitimate and that they were the only company authorized to sell Red Bull vending machines. I was told not to hesitate to do business with them because they were a very reputable company.
After Red Bull told me this, I decided to buy 5 machines for close to $25,000. I took out a second mortgage on my home to do so. I sent my money to Creative Concepts and received my machines a couple of months later.
When I received my machines, Creative Concepts connected me with a locating service as promised. The service though ended up not being able to find me ANY high traffic locations. I was then told that all high traffic locations already had exclusive contracts with Coke or Pepsi and would therefore be impossible to get in to. The locating service finally secured one location for me. This location averaged sales of 1 can per week.
I called Creative Concepts to complain about the location and request that new locations be found for me. The number was disconnected.in talking to other Red Bull vendors online, I found out that Creative Concepts had just disappeared overnight. I was left alone without the help I was promised.
I ended up having to find locations for my machines myself. After a while I was able to secure a couple of low traffic locations. While my machines were there, they were robbed several times. Sometimes the locks were broken, sometimes they weren't. This is when I found out that EVERY SINGLE Red Bull vending machine in the US was sent out with the exact same lock and key. Therefore, every Red Bull vendor had access to every Red Bull machine. I quickly changed the locks and then both machines were completely stolen without a trace.
I was unable to recover any money using my theft and vandalism warranty because Creative Concepts was gone. Red Bull said there was nothing they could do because Creative Concepts was their own company and was not affiliated with Red Bull in any way.
Red Bull finally offered to buy back my remaining three machines for pennies on the dollar. I have lost a lot of money in not only the machines, but repair costs, transportation costs and general business costs.
This was in no way the business opportunity that Creative Concepts and Red Bull promised. Similar situations happened across America and Red Bull did nothing to help them except to offer them pennies on the dollar for their machines so they could give them to their local Red Bull distributors. Shame on Red Bull for hiring a crook company like Creative Concepts to swindle a lot of hard working people out of their money.
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