KickStart got my business due to a recommendation from my salesperson — and also, it was mentioned in a popular book about how to start a vending business... I assumed that it must be reputable.
Rob was very quick to return my phone calls — and to take my credit card number, which he charged to his own personal account rather than to KickStart Locators or KickStart Locating Service, etc). He said he had an "in-house team" of vending locators — professionals.
Starting with the very first location "Rob's team" emailed me — a hotel — the hotel manager was completely unaware that a vending machine was coming... This became a pattern. Rob promised that each location would be " contacted at least twice, " and "ready for the machine..." Absolutely false.
I wrote to Rob about this experience, and he followed up in his typical fashion, calling me "partner." After this, he emailed me three very unsuitable locations.
1. An owner (of a small ethnic market) actually yelled "No!" while frantically gesturing for me to get out of his bodega. The machine was NOT what he was expecting at all.
2. Another small ethnic grocery store had absolutely no floor space available, and although the owners were nice... They didn't know what they were getting.
3. The third location was a one-man hair salon — he worked very limited hours, and already gave away free Halloween-sized candy to his customers — in a glass canister on his countertop with a sign saying "please take some, " which he told us, had been there for 27 years... He begrudgingly accepted the machine, but then asked me to remove it at the first service call. I made $2.25 total on this 3 location, day-long ordeal.
My question is: what are Rob and "his team" telling these potential locations?
A week after expressing my displeasure to Rob, and being assured that KickStart would "describe the machine, " I was given one more location: an extremely small, very expensive Tapas Wine Bar — with 4pm-9pm hours. This location was, again, not expecting a vending machine. The owner said he felt badly because he'd agreed to support our charity partner; however, he thought he was agreeing to "something small that could sit on the bar, unobtrusively." He had, literally, NO floor-space or employee break-room.
I received a refund from KickStart just today; however, I feel like KickStart wasted two months of my earning potential. More importantly, I felt a lot of stress, discouragement, and embarrassment from the experience.
After I read that others had experienced similar situations with KickStart, I realized that writing a report at consumer complaints might prove valuable to others.
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