Complaint Review: Pronio’s Food Service Sam Pronio

I've been a customer of Pronio's for a few years and every order has been perfect.  Prior to our first order, Sam came to our home and explained everything to us, showed us where the organic meats would come from, and was completely up front as to how costs are calculated.  There was no mystery or lies to uncover.  We placed the first order which would up lasting us 18 months instead of one year and have been customers ever since.

I understand that Phil and his girlfriend feel they've been ripped off but I don't see anywhere in the complaint that either of them asked Sam if he was purchasing some of the food from a local service.  He was very up front with us as to where the food came from and I am thrilled that I don't have to cut and clean dangly stuff off of my chicken.  

Sam Pronio wouldn't successfully be in business all these years if everyone agreed that he's a rip off, and so far I've only seen one unhappy customer.  Next time you order food to be delivered, you may want to ask questions up front rather than in retrospect.  Sam will be honest with you.  There's nothing to hide.  It just sounds to me like you're trying to get free food.

I don't even know why I am wasting more of my time on this so I will make it short and sweet because this is probably someone that work's at Pronio...

1. That guy came in and pitched some TOTALLY different then what he sold. Maybe now he is doing ethical business because this shows up #1 on google when you search his company name. You should be thanking me...

2. He TOTALLY lied about EVERYTHING. All he did was order meat from THE SAME places I was ordering my organic meat from. All he is is a middle man that up charges for stuff you can get cheaper from the SAME places online (and GFS which are all over Pittsburgh)

3. After I ordered and got my order I left half a dozen messages and never got a response until I started posting this as a scam online. I had to cancel my credit card and this whole thing took WAY too much of my time.

4. Yes my girlfriend used my account to post. What's the issue there? She couldn't believe the BS SAM was writing and I was auto logged in.

I am not sure if you are real or one of Sam's Cronies but what I was sold was a 100% SCAM. It's been years so maybe he has changed how he does things now but back when I filed this it was 100% accurate on what happened to me....

It amazes me to see that someone actually thought that Pronio's Food Service was a rip-off.  We have our order shipped to us by Pronio's.  The quality is unsurpassed.  I have tried to find excellent quality meat in the Charleston area, but to no avail.  The meat products here are passable, but far from a high quality, USDA Choice organic product.  Even with the cost of delivery, Pronio's Food Service still provides a high quality product at a fair price.  Mr. Pronio had never tried to deceive me in any way.  He did not talk "bait and switch", which is what the original complaint was supposed to be.  I remember the fly by night eat markets that began to spring up every where.  They were around for about a6 months to a year and then they disappeared.  The BBB shows that Pronio's Food Service has been dealing with the BBB since 1994 and that they have an A+ rating.  Mr. Pronio always stated that the product would be the highest quality avaiable at the best price and that by contracting for a year, I could save some additional money.  That part has been completely true.  Meat prices continue to increase, and yet, my price remains unchanged.  Mr. Pronio, I don't know why the person who wrote this report thought that he was ripped off, but he obviously he seems to have misunderstood.  My only issue with the person is that when "his girlfriend" issued a report, she had the same name as the original person reporting the so called rip-off.  Keep up the good work Pronio's.

WE HAVE DONE BUSINESS WITH SAM AND PRONIO'S FOR OVER A YEAR AND ARE MORE THAN THRILLED WITH THE SERVICE. WHEN SAM CAME TO SELL US HIS SERVICE, WE SPENT TIME COMPARING HIS YEARLY FEE WITH WHAT WE WERE SENDING ON ORGANIC MEATS AND WILD FISH. HIS YEARLY PRICE WAS LESS OVERALL. WE HAD A VERY CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR COST FOR THIS HIGH QUALITY OF MEATS/FISH, AND DID NOT ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT IGNORANTLY.

WE HAVE RECEIVED PRODUCTS FROM SAM THAT WE HAVE LOVED, AND SOME FOR WHICH WE DID NOT PARTICULARLY CARE. THE LATER ITEMS WERE PROMPTLY REMOVED FROM OUR LIST OF ITEMS AND REPLACED WITH COMPARABLE ITEMS WHICH WE LIKED.

WITH EACH DELIVERY WE RECIEVE A RUNNING TOTAL OF ALL OF OUR ORDERED FOOD ITEMS AND ARE ABLE TO TRACK WHAT WE ORDERED AND WHAT WE HAVE RECEIVED.

SAM HAS BEEN NOTHING SHORT OF AMAZING TO DEAL WITH. HIS CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE CALABER OF A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS WHICH IS A DYING ENTITY IN THIS DAY AND AGE.

WE WOULD RECOMMEND PRONIO'S, IN FACT WE HAVE ON MANY OCCASIONS, TO ANYONE.

KEEP IN MIND, THAT ALL THINGS IN LIFE ARE PERSPECTIVE. THESE UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS MAY HAVE HAD AN UNFORTUNATE EXPERIENCE, HOWEVER THERE ARE MANY MORE WHO HAVE GREAT ONES. I WOULD RECOMMEND TO CUSTOMERS TO BE SURE THAT THEY KNOW (AND REALLY KNOW) WHAT THEY ARE CURRENTLY SPENDING FOR HIGH QUALITY FOODS BEFORE THEY ENTER INTO A CONTRACT. IF YOU DO, YOU WILL SEE THAT PRONIO'S, WITH THEIR CONVENIENCE, QUALITY GUARANTEE, AND EXEMPLARY CUSTOMER SERVICE IS A BARGAIN TO SAY THE LEAST!!

LOVE YOUR COMPANY SAM; KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!

This is Phil's girlfriend who was there when Same came to our house and sold us on his "discount meat". I've read the replies and I agree if Sam presented himself as a reseller or consultant or retailer that we should expect higher prices but this WAS NOT how it was presented. Sam told us he was a WHOLESALER and that if we paid for a year of food upfront he could save us money. We have no problem paying for goods and services and understand that family businesses need to make a little more to compete but what he did was just wrong.

He completely misrepresented himself and what his company was... You should have heard him, he said his company cuts the meat and they have warehouses and we're saving because he's the butcher - this is not true. He just orders it off other organic meat's websites. Why we were so mad is we told him the site's we were looking at ordering from and he told us his is better and never mentioned we'd be getting meat from the same exact companies (just more expensive). I see now he is admitting it on this site but when he was at our house trust us these well known organic meat websites were never mentioned and the word "consultant" never came out of his mouth.

As far as GFS, we have one located about 2 minutes from our house and it's a non membership foodland / giant eagle style store on rt 51. We've bought all our fruits and veggies there for years and Pronio's prices were 20-30% higher then what we were charged. I know because I wasted my time comparing the prices I paid Pronio Food service and what GFS charges. Sam told us that they may have been having a special on the items but now I guess he is saying his prices aren't that much higher.

Sam didn't give us our money back until we made a stink and it took several days of messages before we received a reply. Someone mentioned that they would like to see a "wholesale" outlet do that... We were scammed and sold something totally different then what we were told - that is fraud. If any company did this and didn't refund the BBB would be on them so quick there head would spin.

Also, Sam is blatantly lying about his website being up when we posted. Infact, if you go to archive.org you can search search his URL and see when we posted this the site was not live - he put it up shortly later... ALSO, it's not even a website but just a 1 page place holder for the domain from Godaddy - I would hardly call this a website -or professional...

To all Pronio customers, Do your research and just use plain common sense. This is a company that doesn't give individual prices on it's meat and does them as part of large "packages" that you must pre pay a year up front (several thousand dollars). Who in the world would pay several thousand dollars for a year of food when they are not getting a discount (or paying more!!!)? Why would anyone possibly do that? I can tell you we wouldn't UNLESS someone told us we were saving money and put the used cars man sales pitch that we had to act fast or lose our "special" pricing. Looking back it was a stupid move on our part but thanks to Rip Off Report we got our money back without having to go through the legal process.

If you don't want to be labeled as a scamster then be 100% upfront and honest in your sales pitch. If you were half as truthful in your sales pitch as you are in these rebuttals about charging more and reselling higher then local stores then you wouldn't have to worry about disgruntled customers... I hope this has taught you to be more ethical in your sales and what information you put out there.

The initial report has so much misinformation that I felt compelled to send this rebuttal.

I have just re-contracted with Pronio's for another year of service. We use organic products for our family. I priced local and online vendors and no one is close to Pronio's in cost. Each package we receive is marked from "Organic Prarie." We highly recommend the products and the service.

There is no scam. The lack of a website is indicative of a small family owned business that has been around for 20 years. We grow our own vegetables and use the East End Food Coop for most of our fruits and vegetables. Pronio's offers fruits and produce but more as a service to compliment home delivery.

I do receive a list with each delivery of my usage. We decide what cuts we want, not what Pronio's decides. We ate for 15 months on the annual plan we purchased, and we had deliveries about every 10 weeks.

I am happy to recommend Pronio's to anyone.

I would respectfuly request that Phil completely withdraw this report.

Bob Dopico

The initial report has so much misinformation that I felt compelled to send this rebuttal.

I have just re-contracted with Pronio's for another year of service. We use organic products for our family. I priced local and online vendors and no one is close to Pronio's in cost. Each package we receive is marked from "Organic Prarie." We highly recommend the products and the service.

There is no scam. The lack of a website is indicative of a small family owned business that has been around for 20 years. We grow our own vegetables and use the East End Food Coop for most of our fruits and vegetables. Pronio's offers fruits and produce but more as a service to compliment home delivery.

I do receive a list with each delivery of my usage. We decide what cuts we want, not what Pronio's decides. We ate for 15 months on the annual plan we purchased, and we had deliveries about every 10 weeks.

I am happy to recommend Pronio's to anyone.

I would respectfuly request that Phil completely withdraw this report.

Bob Dopico

The initial report has so much misinformation that I felt compelled to send this rebuttal.

I have just re-contracted with Pronio's for another year of service. We use organic products for our family. I priced local and online vendors and no one is close to Pronio's in cost. Each package we receive is marked from "Organic Prarie." We highly recommend the products and the service.

There is no scam. The lack of a website is indicative of a small family owned business that has been around for 20 years. We grow our own vegetables and use the East End Food Coop for most of our fruits and vegetables. Pronio's offers fruits and produce but more as a service to compliment home delivery.

I do receive a list with each delivery of my usage. We decide what cuts we want, not what Pronio's decides. We ate for 15 months on the annual plan we purchased, and we had deliveries about every 10 weeks.

I am happy to recommend Pronio's to anyone.

I would respectfuly request that Phil completely withdraw this report.

Bob Dopico

I'm sorry but much of these new rebuttals are totally in accurate.

Instead of Bashing Sam and Pronio food service I will give constructive criticism on how to prevent this in the future as well as some thoughts on the rebuttals:

1. From my understanding you tell people by using your services people save money. As the GFS vendor says you are a middle man and people are paying you more money than if they went to the local grocery store. You should state upfront that you are consulting services and they will be paying more.

2. You never mention the fact in your rebuttals that you make people purchase a whole year of food in advance to "save them more money"... I can see charging the 20-30% if it was a weekly or even monthly upfront payment but to take several thousand dollars upfront and charge steep increases in just wrong. Why would anyone purchase from you when they can just go to the corner store and save up to 30% and not have to shell out thousands of dollars upfront?

2. You say the price differences are slight but that is inaccurate and the items stated were not sale items. You don't give out the pricing of anything except vegetables and fruits so it's impossible to price anything but those because you do not divulge any pricing for your food which in itself is very scary... Anywho, your prices on the items you give prices for are 20-30% more the local GFS store.

For people not familiar with GFS it's like a small giant eagle or shop and save. You go in and buy food. It is not a huge store and you don't need a membership to buy anything.

3. Sam never refunded the money, Phil decided to purchase the meat already delivered at a much higher rate then he could have gotten anywhere else. I noticed someone said "try that somewhere else". Any company that sold something under false or misleading terms would be happy to refund said product AT THE PURCHASE PRICE. There was no discount given and Phil figured it would be better to just lose a few hundred instead of a few thousand.

4. The website at the time was down and even now is very low quality is covered in free hosting banners. It's very obvious the site was just thrown together in an hour after reading this complaint.

5. "Phil needs to learn." Phil needs to learn nothing. Sam came in telling one story and selling another. The whole point here is that Pronio food service said they can save you thousands of dollars from buying through them if you paid a year upfront (a popular meat selling scam). Now they are saying they are a consulting service and you are going to pay more. In fact Sam said they do all the cutting and freezing and acted like they are the source not a reseller.

In the future to prevent things like this from happening just tell the people upfront that you are a consult and if the person asking are they saving money by buying from you tell them the truth which is no they are spending more for your consulting services and the whole buying upfront for a year thing is just so you can make your money quick.

I think anyone reading this can see right through these rebuttals but I'm not going to accuse anything. Just remember this, what does someone have to gain reporting a fraud? They lose a huge amount of time and energy with no possible gains but the satisfactory of helping others not fall victim to the same scam. Now what does a company lose when someone reports them as a fraud?

I am the GFS salesperson that sells the products that Sam buys to resell to his customers. We have been doing business with Sam for many years without ant problems. I too, am sorry that Phil felt that he was ripped off. I also understand that Sam did correct the situation. The reason that I am posting a rebuttal is because Sam had mentioned to me that Phil also was unhappy about the fact that he was able to buy some frozen vegetables for less directly from the GFS retail outlet. That should not be surprising.

Phil needs to keep in mind that there are associated costs with the delivery of products to Pronio's and then to the final purchaser, in this case Phil. As in any case, if you can buy directly from the source you will cut out the middle costs that have to be paid by the end user. Pronio's provides convenience along with a variety of food products that try to satisfy the dietary requests of his customers. For that convenience there is a cost. The alternative is to go and purchase it directly form the source and to reduce the cost of the middle man.

I do believe that Pronio's does provide the most reasonable service and pricing that he can for his customers. I do not believe he would still be in business after 20 years if he didn't. I hope that this clears up any misunderstanding that has possibly been created here and I hope that Phil is able to find a supplier that will meet his needs to his satisfaction.

I am the GFS salesperson that sells the products that Sam buys to resell to his customers. We have been doing business with Sam for many years without ant problems. I too, am sorry that Phil felt that he was ripped off. I also understand that Sam did correct the situation. The reason that I am posting a rebuttal is because Sam had mentioned to me that Phil also was unhappy about the fact that he was able to buy some frozen vegetables for less directly from the GFS retail outlet. That should not be surprising.

Phil needs to keep in mind that there are associated costs with the delivery of products to Pronio's and then to the final purchaser, in this case Phil. As in any case, if you can buy directly from the source you will cut out the middle costs that have to be paid by the end user. Pronio's provides convenience along with a variety of food products that try to satisfy the dietary requests of his customers. For that convenience there is a cost. The alternative is to go and purchase it directly form the source and to reduce the cost of the middle man.

I do believe that Pronio's does provide the most reasonable service and pricing that he can for his customers. I do not believe he would still be in business after 20 years if he didn't. I hope that this clears up any misunderstanding that has possibly been created here and I hope that Phil is able to find a supplier that will meet his needs to his satisfaction.

I am the GFS salesperson that sells the products that Sam buys to resell to his customers. We have been doing business with Sam for many years without ant problems. I too, am sorry that Phil felt that he was ripped off. I also understand that Sam did correct the situation. The reason that I am posting a rebuttal is because Sam had mentioned to me that Phil also was unhappy about the fact that he was able to buy some frozen vegetables for less directly from the GFS retail outlet. That should not be surprising.

Phil needs to keep in mind that there are associated costs with the delivery of products to Pronio's and then to the final purchaser, in this case Phil. As in any case, if you can buy directly from the source you will cut out the middle costs that have to be paid by the end user. Pronio's provides convenience along with a variety of food products that try to satisfy the dietary requests of his customers. For that convenience there is a cost. The alternative is to go and purchase it directly form the source and to reduce the cost of the middle man.

I do believe that Pronio's does provide the most reasonable service and pricing that he can for his customers. I do not believe he would still be in business after 20 years if he didn't. I hope that this clears up any misunderstanding that has possibly been created here and I hope that Phil is able to find a supplier that will meet his needs to his satisfaction.

I am the GFS salesperson that sells the products that Sam buys to resell to his customers. We have been doing business with Sam for many years without ant problems. I too, am sorry that Phil felt that he was ripped off. I also understand that Sam did correct the situation. The reason that I am posting a rebuttal is because Sam had mentioned to me that Phil also was unhappy about the fact that he was able to buy some frozen vegetables for less directly from the GFS retail outlet. That should not be surprising.

Phil needs to keep in mind that there are associated costs with the delivery of products to Pronio's and then to the final purchaser, in this case Phil. As in any case, if you can buy directly from the source you will cut out the middle costs that have to be paid by the end user. Pronio's provides convenience along with a variety of food products that try to satisfy the dietary requests of his customers. For that convenience there is a cost. The alternative is to go and purchase it directly form the source and to reduce the cost of the middle man.

I do believe that Pronio's does provide the most reasonable service and pricing that he can for his customers. I do not believe he would still be in business after 20 years if he didn't. I hope that this clears up any misunderstanding that has possibly been created here and I hope that Phil is able to find a supplier that will meet his needs to his satisfaction.

I am a sales contractor and customer of Pronio's Food Service and would like to express the facts of just a few of the comments made by Phil.

First, I have been a sales contractor of Pronio's Food Service for only 2 years and have seen mistakes made in cutomer orders, people are human. Sam has always attempted to rectify any problems that have occured in orders including delivering the corrected order himself. This is something that is seldom seen in today's marketing strategies. In fact, I believe that he gave Phil his money back, try that at any wholesale outfit.

Second, I have been a CUSTOMER of Pronio's Food Service for over twenty years. Sam is alway proud to introduce me as one of his oldest customers in the home delivery service that he offers. In the twenty years that I have been a customer, the quality of the products that my family and I have purchased has been excellent! Yes, occasionally there was an error in our order. The mistake was always corrected.

Third, Phil stated that there are many companies in the Pittsburgh area that go out and purchase wholesale products and resell them at a higher price than they paid. He is right!! I can think of a few, Giant Eagle, Shop and Save, Foodland. They are called retailers. Pronio's Food Service is a retailer. If a person would go and check the REGULAR, not sale, pricing of the natural products at any retailer in the area, they would find that Pronio's is not only competitive, but also many times less expensive on most of the products carried.

Last, Pronio's does use wholesalers to provide its products. It is in the customers best interest for Pronio's to obtain the highest quality products at the best possible pricing. GFS is just one of these wholesalers. If you go to Pronio's Food's website at www.proniosfoodserviceonline.com, you will see links to Pronio's Food Service's latest meat suppliers.

It is unfortunate that Phil had a bad experience with the company. I hope that he and his family find a food supplier that they can be pleased with.

Sincerely,

In response to our customer Phil's comments. We would first like to apologize for any inconvience the confusion of our ordering process may have caused. It is our highest priority to make sure that all of our customers are one hundred percent satisfied with our order. We always strive to give customers a good variety of products and still maintain our high quality. It saddens us that this customer was not satisfied with the service. Pronio's Food Service is an established company with over twenty years of service providing quality foods for customers in the tri-state area.

Any questions or comments can be sent to our e-mail at Proniosfood@comcast.net

Feel free also to check out our website which does exist at www.proniosfoodserviceonline.com

At this site you can find many tools to aid yourself in selecting, contacting, and purchasing quality foods from popular vendors such as Organic Praire and Dakota Beef. All products received from Pronios Food Service are guaranteed.

Pronios Food Service is a food consulting firm. Prices are that in which customers are only being charged for the cost of the food and only a very small fee (not 20 to 30 percent) in which the service of bringing the food right to your door incorporates. Pronios food allows customers to purchase high quality items from a variety of vendors with little work involved for you, our valued customer.

We will be happy to answer any questions or comments you may have via email or our toll free number 1-800-544-2075.

I've spoken with Sam over at Pronio's and we have come to an understanding. We agreed to disagree about what was told to us and we have agreed to not take legal action and our money has been refunded.