Complaint Review: Residential Direct Marketing

In May 2013 I was contacted by Rosa from Residential Direct Marketing or RDM (tel 210-248-9228). She offered the opportunity to sponsor a calendar for Cypress Bay School to be sent to the parents of the students and faculty. The calendar was to be supported by ads. We accepted and paid 299.50 plus 8.95 for an ad in the magnet. The magnet was to be given out at orientation. We paid and received an email acknowledgement that mentions the calendar would be given away to the families, but a small portion of the calendars was to be sold for fund raising for school organizations.

Orientation passed in August, and in September we called RDM again and were told that the calendars would be sent during fall of 2013 to the school. Today October 22, 2013 we called to find out the status because they still have not shipped and we are informed that they only intent to send 450 calendars (there are 4500 students), all of the calendars are to be sold by the JROTC of the school. Danielle from RDM explained that Rosa had sold things that were not correct, RDM could not produce 4500 calendars for the school and make a profit. I asked my husband to give a call to RDM and ask for our money back. This was not what they sold us, the amount of calendars is greatly reduced, the year is closing and the calendars have not shipped. Danielle answered and when my husband tried to explain that the ROSA issue was internal to RDM, that we expected RDM to deliver what they had acknowledged in the acknowledgement email or return the money, she hung up on him.

I forwarded the acknowledgement email back to Danielle (reception@rdm-sa.com) just in case she did not have a copy and will gladly forward it to you. The text of the acknowledgement email is copied here (please see the first paragraph): "RDM would like to thank you on behalf of Cypress Bay High School for advertising on their magnetic school directories for Fall 2013. You will be the EXCLUSIVE business of your type on the directory. The directories will be given out to parents and faculty. The school will also have the opportunity to use a portion of them as a fundraiser where they keep 100% of the profit because of the advertisers. You will be charged for a ¼ Column ad for $299.50. The only additional charge you will see is $8.95 to cover shipping and handling on the samples we send you and help cover the bulk shipment to the school. We will be charging your card within 1-3 business days of securing your spot on the Cypress Bay High School magnets. Once your card has been charged you will receive a receipt for your records. Then, your ad will be sent to the art department for ad creation. You will receive an ad proof within 30 business days from the date payment is secured. If you are sending artwork or logos to the art department please send them to artdept@rdm-sa.com. You can also mail them to the address below. The dimensions of your ad are 2.18” x 3”. For images and/or logos, 300 ppi resolution is preferred, but not required. We request that any files be sent in one or more of these formats: .pdf, .jpg, .bmp, .tiff, .doc, .ai, .psd, or .eps. RDM requires artwork to be sent in within 1-2 weeks of your card being charged. Included in the cost of your ad, RDM’s graphics department will create your proof and send it to you to approve before the printing of your advertisement. Once the proof has been created and sent to you via email, you will get a courtesy phone call from RDM. We will confirm that you have received your artwork proof that has been sent to you for your approval or changes. RDM’s contact information can be found on our website. The website is www.rdm-sa.com. There are samples on the website and there is also one below for your to check out."