Complaint Review: DVD Marathon - DVD Productions

Well It would seem that the con game continues for DVD Graduation / DVD Productions LLC / Marathon DVD.

The leader of this con is Steven Mancini, although he has worked with Steve Grudenic of Black Horse Productions in the past.

I was one of hundreds of parents who pre-purchased / ordered a video from this company for my daughters Chico State graduation last year. We did so believing that the college would not allow anyone to establish this contract with them that had not been properly screened by the college.

I was very wrong.  Chico State hired them because of a few references from other colleges and never checked into the company. Of course they too were ripped off.

Well I looked into the company and found the whole thing to be a big scam.  The worst part is that the owner has been doing this for approx. eight years and has never been busted. He rips people off for a year or two, then when the he gets heat, he changes the company name and starts all over again.

Let me lay out the "short" version of my personal investigation:

My wife purchased (with cash) / pre-ordered a video of our daughters graduation on May 23, 2009.  She paid $49.10 with tax. She was told that the video would be sent to our address in a few weeks. Well weeks turned into months.  When I telephoned the company I reached an answering service (not a good sign). I left a message and never received a call back.  I then left numerous messages over the period of several months. I always received the answering service and never received a call back.

In the mean time I contacted Chico State.  I found they to had not received their copy of the video either, and were having difficulty contacting the compay.  Also during this time I went to the internet to see what I could learn. I located the companies web site (nice looking site by the way), but I also found this web site (Ripoff Report) and a 'rip-off report'. Not good.

Based on the information I obtained from the rip-off report, I began to dig deeper. It appears that this guy works events that have a lot of people from all over the state and country. He focuses on 'once in a life time' events knowing people will want this event captured on video.  He also knows that most of the people he rips off can't afford to come looking for him over the loss of fifty bucks.

I also attempted to locate the physical address (or dead drop) he uses.  The best I could determine is that the address appears to be a storage unit in Beverly Hills. I next started to contact consumer protection agencies. I contacted District Attorneys, the U.S. Postal Service, Police Dept. fraud units, the BBB, etc...

The BBB did give his company an "F" rating for failing to deliver on their product (wow an 'F', that will bring back my fifty bucks).

I found all were sympathic to my plight, but no one offered any real help. It would appear that the guy knew this would happen; because again, he has been doing this for at least eight years and he rips off people for just fifty bucks a pop. He also does it over several juristictional boundries, complicating an investigation.

My only recourse now is to warn others and hope that this guy gets shut down some how and soon.

As an update, I recently re-contacted Chico State. They told me that several months ago they were told that "Steve" was out of the country and would contact them upon his return.  A recent follow-up call by Chico State found the company was no longer in business and the phones shut off.  It sounds like Steve Mancini is on the move again.

Consumers beware of the following person of companies doing any type of video business:

Steve Mancini (888) 263-2630 (disconnected)

DVD Productions LLC, DVD Marathon Productions, DVD Graduations, or any name close to this.

Consumers beware!