RB Sports of Santa Ana California claims to be a small retail sports business, specializing in a "golf club testing" system that solicits participants through spam faxes sent to office fax machines.
The fax promises a free set of golf clubs if you agree to enter a drawing. Once you respond to that initial form, it becomes something completely different. Then, you find out that RB Sports would like to send you a set of no-name clubs (supposedly name-brand clubs with the logos removed) and you have a 45-day money-back guarantee to try out the clubs, fill in evaluation surveys on how they work, provide 13 friends' names as referrals, and then return the clubs at no cost.
However, in the meantime RB Sports has asked you to provide your credit card so that they can "secure" the relationship.instead, they charge it up for $980, the supposed "value" of the golf clubs. If you object, they put an incredible hard sell on you and at first tell you you can't send them back, and then if you insist they tell you for the first time they don't credit your credit card, they only issue checks. And also, they make you an "offer" to accept a $500 check and keep the clubs.
If you still insist you want the money-back guarantee that is in the original agreement, RB Sports really gets rough. They tell you that you need to talk to a certain customer service rep, but they are not available in many attempts. Finally, you get a rep who tells you that you can't send the clubs back without what is known as an "RA" registration number, to be faxed back to RB Sports before the equipment is returned.
The RA registration number fax is central to the fraud: By signing it, RB Sports claims you forfeit the right to the money-back guarantee and instead will receive only a "store credit" for $960, or the original $980 minus $20 in shipping for the return of the clubs.
If you object to this obviously illegal, no prior notice tactic, you are then told one of several things: 1) that you don't qualify for the money back guarantee because you passed the deadline for returning the clubs, 2) that you can again accept the "compromise offer" of a $500 check and keep the clubs (which you have already returned, so it would cost you another $20 in shipping to get them back, even if you wanted them), or 3) that the store credit is all you will get and what you signed for when you faxed back the RA form prior to shipping the clubs back.
In other words, there is no way you could ever get the money back guarantee. If you sign the RA number registration form at all, which you must do to send back the clubs, RB Sports claims it changes the nature of the agreement to a store credit. Of course, that is wrong according to a number of federal laws governing telemarketing and retail sales. The number one reason is because they would have had to FULLY DISCLOSE that type of basic change in the agreement well before sending you the RA registration form, which they do not.
An important footnote at this point is that RB Sports never talks about what is in their "store, " their web site is not connected to a server (for at least the past several months), and they have no return e-mail.
What happens next is that RB Sports gets more and more abusive in trying to make you stop calling them to ask about any aspect of the arrangement. They know that you know there really is no store credit, and that they have taken your money, and at the same time received the clubs back in good condition and also 13 referrals for the next poor dupes they are goind to rip off.
After 12 attempts to have the money back guarantee honored, I am now filing complaints with the U.S. Postal Inspector, the FTC, the state of California's business regulation department, and the local chamber of commerce in Santa Ana. I do not intend to stop until two things happen: 1) the $960 is refunded, and 2) there are fraud investigations completed on RB Sports, and everyone is aware of the fraud they are pulling on unsuspecting golfers.
Brian
Maitland, Florida
U.S.A.
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