Cartvertising Cart Advertising company, Internet
I own a small business and had this person call from cartvertising but they made it sound like they were employed by King Soopers and not by Cartvertising which is misleading. In fact, if they had said they were an advertising company they would have never came to my home in the first place. Since King Soopers is so well known I was excited to possibly team up with them so I let them come to my home and do a presentation. They got here and it wasn't King Soopers, it was Cartvertising. They started to go into their sales pitch and I told them I was not interested. They kept on pushing/pressuring for me to sign up and I told them again that I wasn't interested. Finally they discounted the fee by about 50% off and it was an agreeable amount so I said yes. I told them that I was going to speak with my business partner to make sure that it was okay because on their contract it says no where on the front of it that there is a "no cancellation" policy. They, of course, didn't mention this either. So I signed up for it.
The next day, first thing too, I called them to say that I decided against it and that I might in the future sign up but not now. Since they haven't set anything up yet I thought it would be easy to do this. I couldn't get ahold of anyone. When I did a hold of the sales rep that signed me up he basically said too bad so sad and didn't offer any solution, nothing. I called corporate and they were just rude, not willing to give me a live person to talk to, giving me the run around. This is a shady company is what it boils down to. They have horrible customer service, they pressure you into signing a contract without telling you that you cannot cancel (this is what they did to me) because they knew if they had told me that I would have never signed it. They knew I was going to think about and now I am stuck with them. Is there anything that I can do?
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Cartvertising CO
Houston,Texas,
United States of America
Regional Sales Manager
#2UPDATE Employee
Sat, July 21, 2012
When I called the business to set up an appointment I disclosed that I was calling with the authorization of King Soopers.That the reason for my call was that we are going to be installing a brand new aisle directory at this store.That, right alongside the directory, King Soopers has allowed us to recommend a local business like theirs.At that time an appointment was set to meet with the business owner that afternoon to do a presentation.
When I went to her home I brought a trainee to observe.I gave her my business card and explained that we sell advertising on the carts in the Kroger King Soopers stores.At that time I asked her If there was anyone else that needed to be involved in the decision making process.She said that she has a business advisor-coach, but that she was the business owner and could make the decision.At no time did she ever say she was not interested.In fact she explained that she had previously been a store manager at a large supermarket chain for many years and unerstood the value of the huge exposure available in a grocery store.After giving her our 5 minute presentation explaining the benefits of cart advertising she asked how much? After showing her the different options and prices for available ad space, we negotiated a sales price that was agreeable to her.She read ,signed and initialed the contract including the section that says "I have read all terms and conditions and agree to the same".
When she called me the next day I reviewed with her the value of advertising in the grocery store.She said that she understood that, but that her coach had now advised her not to do the ad.I explained to her that the contract was non cancellable and she became irate.She said she would think about it and call me back.Two hours latter she emailed me with some ad copy changes and said she had decided to go ahead with the ad.