Complaint Review: Nationwide Locating

In December 2010, I responded to an ad in my local newspaper about a business opportunity involving vending machines.  I spoke with someone by the name of Dennis Daniel.  He had a heavy New York accent, and claimed that was where he was located.  He explained all about the business and how easy it was.  When I asked about how to go about placing the machines in the different locations, he said that there are 2 locating agencies that they work with that will do that for me.  The first company he named was Nationwide Locating, and specifically said Allan Turner was the guy to speak to.  The name of the other company was Alliance Locators and I was told to speak with Barry James there.  I never called Alliance Locators, because he said they used Nationwide more often, but I could choose whichever I wanted.  It was just that sometimes people preferred one over the other.  I actually just read in my contract with Vend 3, as I'm writing this.  There is a paragraph that states the following:

Pg 4, Section 5, subsection c) states:
Purchaser may either contact a professional locating service or select sites for machines on their own.  Vend Three, LLC does not provide locatins or assist the Purchaser in obtaining accounts, nor does the Seller recommend any site locatin companies, provide the names of any site locatin companies, or reference any publications that offer site locatins.

Clearly they violated their own contract right off the bat.  Too bad I didn't realize it until now.

On January 6, 2011 I signed a contract and billing agreement with Vend Three.  I bought 15 machines for the sum of $4250.00.  They gave me free shipping, some candy lables, and what they said was 4000 servings of candy, valued at $1000.  My machines arrived within the 2-3 business days that they said they would. 

On January 11, 2011 I faxed my signed contract to Allan Turner at Nationwide Locating Co. and I made the first deposit of $375 that day as well.  I hadn't heard from them for about 2 months, but I didn't think much of it, because during that time, I had to have surgery, my son was sick.  It was a crazy time.  When I called them, I spoke to Wally.  He apologized for dropping the ball, but in the next breath was quick to ask when I would be making the deposit of $375 that I still owed.  I reminded him that our contract states clearly that they would get the first half up front and the next half after the machines had been placed.  He tried to tell me that he needed that money because he had to pay the people to locate them.  I told him that that was not my problem, and he needed to full-fill his end of the agreement. 

The next day he called me with locations for 9 of my machines in a town 45 minutes from where I live.  Five of the locations he gave me were at stores inside a mall.  I didn't understand how I could place a machine in one of those stores, I had never seen a vending machine sitting in an Old Navy before.  I then told him that I felt like he had had my job for over 2 months, and now he was just half-assing it so he could get his money.  He acted all offended that I had called him on his crap.  He said the guy that was placing my machines was very experienced and those were great locations; but he was going to have the locator call me himself and explain that those locations were excellent. 

I got a call shortly after that, within the same day, from a woman named Laura; whom, I might add, was not the person who initially set up the locations.  She too sounded like she was from the New Jersey/New York area, and she was very nice.  She apologized profusely, and explained that the machines in the mall would actually be placed in the breakrooms of those stores.  This made much more sense to me, but I was still mad. 

I told her the same thing I told Wally; that I felt like my job was getting thrown together because he wanted to get his money.  She said that she understood that he should have explained things better, and should not have made me feel that way.  But that they value my business and if I had any further issues than I could call her directly; and she gave me her phone number.  She also agreed that she would try to find me some locations that were closer to where I live, because it was crazy to drive that far. 

Wally did get me 5 locations in the next town over, about 15 minutes away.  However, one was at a cleaning business, that had 3 employees and no traffic that came through because everything was done over the phone.  When I went deliver this machine, the lady told me that she didn't think it was smart to leave it there because it wouldn't do well; so I didn't leave it.  I still have not gotten a replacement location for that.  One was at a heating and cooling company, and that had the same problem. I just removed that one last month, because it had made $1.50 in over two months of being in that location.  Another was at a lumber yard, and they called me about a month after it was placed and said they wanted it picked up because they were unsure of where the donation money was going. 

I could go on all day about one problem after another.  Currently, out of the 15 machines that I own, 4 are sitting in my garage.  1 is in my living room, and it does more business from all the nurses and therapists that I have coming through here, than the majority of my other machines.  I have nurses and therapists in my house all day, everyday, because I have a 2 year old son that has a brain injury from birth.  I originally signed up for this business opportunity because I thought it would be a great way to earn some extra cash since I can't work outside of the house, due to my son's condition. 

Of the other 10 machines that are placed, only 2 of them do over $20 a month in sales.  The others range from $3-14 a month. 

I have been calling Wally, and Laura for the past 3 weeks trying to get these machines relocated.  Just this morning I tried to call Vend 3, which has been busy all day.  So I pulled out all the paperwork, contracts, etc in search of any other contact info.  I called Dennis Daniel on his cell about an hour ago.  It went straight to voicemail, and I have not receieved a call back. 

I'm extremely frustrated with this whole situation, and honestly feel like a fool for getting sucked into this whole thing.  I'm out $5000 that I paid to Vend 3 and Nationwide, and that's not including the candy that I've bought to fill these machines that are not making near the money that Dennis portrayed it would.  I understand that nothing is guaranteed.  But he did tell me that on the bare minimum average, I could expect a dollar a day in each machine.  Many of my machines are averaging $5 a month, or around $0.16 a day. 

I hope that these companies get caught and are put to a stop.  I can't afford a lawyer, so I thought maybe this way I could at least get the word out that these ARE NOT reputable companies.  I WOULD NOT recommend that anyone use these companies for anything.