SPECIAL UPDATE: October 27 2012 Incredible Discoveries remains committed to increased customer satisfaction and has improved their business practices over the years to better serve their customers. Incredible Discoveries is truly dedicated to making sure their customers are satisfied and that any complaints which do arise are addressed promptly and fairly.
To date, Incredible Discoveries has made good faith efforts to resolve all complaints reported on Ripoff Report. Based on our experience, the member business has proven to be among the top members of the Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program as a Verified Safe Business.
Over time and since becoming a member, Incredible Discoveries has remained actively engaged and improving the way they address customer service complaints. As an active and current member of the Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program we are happy to report that now more than ever Incredible Discoveries remains committed to improving customer satisfaction.
Remember, no company or individual can ever satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. There are no products or services that will always be perfect for everyone and even the best companies will receive complaints from time to time. However, by participating in the Corporate Advocacy Program, the member business has made a commitment to working with its customers to resolve complaints quickly and fairly whenever possible.
Please keep in mind that as a consumer you have some responsibilities as well. Success has many definitions that based on your past experiences, current situation and your perceived expectations. Success with any product or service is always based on the proper application and understanding. The fastest car will not run if you never turn the engine on. Look at how you used the product or service that was provided in relation with the instructions that you received. The Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program will help you get your voice heard but please be prepared with documentation and fair representation of your concern, also have an idea of how the company can fix your concern. Can they offer additional services, extend warranties, offer a fair refund or just get you talking with someone that can help. ..let them know and let us know!
*Any consumer not receiving satisfaction from a member of the Corporate Advocacy Program should email us at editor@ripoffreport.com
Ripoff Report REVIEW on Incredible Discoveries
All companies will get complaints, but how those companies and individuals handle those complaints, separates good business from bad business.Incredible Discoveries responded immediately to the postings filed on Rip-off Report.com and was so cooperative in sharing honest candid information about their business and history that Rip-off Report invited them to participate in our
Corporate Advocacy & Remediation Program, a program that investigates companies with postings on Rip-off Report and allows Rip-off Report the resources to launch an in-depth independent investigation regarding the companies involved and also supports the continual operation of Rip-off Report.
By taking part in this program Incredible Discoveries had absolutely no guarantees as to what our investigation would uncover and all information was independent of any involvement of Incredible Discoveries.
When a company is candid and cooperative and willing to participate in an open unbiased evaluation by Rip-off Report and furthermore when they willingly provide the resources to do so we usually find they have nothing to hide, are focused on creating positive customer experiences, and best of all are a company that Rip-off Report can feel good about recommending to our readers.
In most other situations (not in this specific case) when a company joins our
Corporate Advocacy & Remediation Program, customers have assurances that the company involved will address all complaints and will make sure they give a guarantee to satisfy all past, present and future customers. In the case of Incredible Discoveries however this was not even an issue because the claims filed were not from a customer but from a disgruntled employee posing as a customer and therefore the claims were bogus in nature. Rip-off Report has absolute evidence of this.
What follows is a report filed by our staff for Rip-off Report after investigating Incredible Discoveries. Your comments and questions about this program are welcome.
ED Magedson - Founder, Rip-off Report
EDitor@RipoffReport.com
badbusinessbureau.com
www.ripoffreport.com
Rip-off Report REVIEW:
Bogus Postings to Rip-Off Report ..
all filed by the same disgruntled employeeOur first question was why the passionate complaints? Well Tricom Pictures, Incredible Discoveries, and their affiliates have been producing television shows for over 10 years (no fly-by-nights were found in our investigations) and have produced thousands of materials for thousands of clients. To date this was the first filing on our website. Upon further investigation we found that these postings coincided with the firing of a long time employee at Incredible Discoveries and we have concluded that these postings are directly related to what we account for as a disgruntled employee attempting to get back at a former employer. Rip-off Report encourages whistle bowers but we frown upon false claims. Its one thing to participate as a whistle blower; it's an entirely different thing to pose as a dissatisfied customer as this individual is doing.
In actuality we were hard-pressed to find any clients that we interviewed who said they did not get a great looking infomercial and top rated production materials. The company even provides to clients affidavits to validate the airings they secured after the airing schedules are complete. The reality is most claimed they were just disappointed they had not sold more products and some even went as far as saying that they understood that's just the way the infomercial business is. A few clients even admitted that they were not successful in selling their items on TV but that by simply having an infomercial and TV campaign to show to prospective retailers they were able to land lucrative deals to get their products on the shelves of national retail chains thus feeling the relatively small amount of money they spent was well worth it regardless of the results.
ALL COMPANIES LISTED ARE NOT THE SAME COMPANY .. A THOROUGH REVIEW Nonetheless Rip-off Report wanted to do a thorough REVIEW so we looked into the claims even though we knew they were from bogus sources. The next question Rip-off Report had was why so many companies were affiliated with the same entity. After all there were and are in fact several companies that appear to be doing the exact same thing; producing television programming and/or commercials for their clients. Well the fact of the matter is that Incredible Discoveries, Tricom Pictures and their affiliates are separate companies that each uniquely produce specialized television programming that is different for each company based on similar but specialized marketing missions.
After more in depth investigating and interviews with those who own all those companies we were able to find out a very logical and credible rationale behind this. Much like KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell are all fast foods restaurants that are all owned by the same corporate entity (PepsiCo International) each company serves a specialized marketing area for the entity that owns all of them. Incredible Discoveries and the others are no different in this approach and it is the fundamental reason several companies were created over the years to produce television programming. It is also the reason that each separate company has a very unique marketing approach and is actually independently managed and operated by separate managers and officers independent of the primary ownership. They are not carbon copies of each other. Each company offers different services, different pricing options, and different distribution forums and channels to their clients. To say Tricom Pictures and Incredible Discoveries are the exact same thing is like saying Taco Bell and Pizza Hut is the exact same fast food restaurant.
WHY SO MANY DIFFERENT COMPANIES?
WHAT THESE DIFFERENT COMPANIES DO
Of course the biggest concern to Rip-off Report were the claims that these companies were scamming their customers. To get to the bottom of these claims we went right to the source and investigated the companies involved, customers' experiences, and through one employee insider and another undercover visitor attempted to get the real deal when it came to these companies. What Rip-off Report found was something entirely different than the postings we were seeing on our website. Nonetheless, like every believable claim, there is always a little truth within the lie so one can understand the perspective from which these claims may have been made. Still, when Rip-off Report dug deeper we found the real reason why some customers were ultimately not happy with these companies.
To best understand the complaints filed against these companies you must first understand what these different companies do. With the exception of one of these entities, Tricom Pictures, which produces educational half-hour television shows on various topics rather than products, the other companies all produce direct response television materials of some kind with the goal of selling their clients' products on TV. Direct Response is a fancy name for infomercials. Some of these companies produce half-hour infomercials, some produce :30 and/or :60 short form TV spots, and some produce half-hour specialty shows featuring several products on the same show. The bottom line is that clients pay these companies to produce materials about their products and then partner with them to test or sell them on TV. From what we found, all the companies do what they say. They produce great looking TV commercials and projects. We learned they have one of the largest production soundstages and facilities in the South Florida production market. We even sent one of our reporters undercover to take a look at their offices located in Pompano Beach Florida and we did not find a P.O. Box. What we found was an impressive display of cameras, edit suites, and production staff all working hard on various productions. We did not find a boiler room.
THE NATURE OF THE INFOMERCIAL BUSINESS SOMETIMES LEADS TO DISAPPOINTMENT
..LIKE ALL FORMS OF ADVERTISING, NOTHING IS GUARANTEED
So if these companies do in fact produce the materials for their clients at their large scale professional production facilities why would people feel scammed? The answer is not in what and how they produce the infomercials, TV shows and TV Spots (we even got a hold of some samples of their stuff which looked very professional to us). The reason some people were not happy with them is because of the very nature of the infomercial business. As one expert in the infomercial business told us: There are no guarantees in direct response. Just producing a TV spot and airing it does not guarantee success. So to be fair to Incredible Discoveries the simple fact that they produce materials for their clients and air them does not guarantee their clients that they will sell. When we approached the owners of Incredible Discoveries to discuss this we were informed that in fact they even go as far as to indicate this in every one of their contracts; stating that they do not implicitly or explicitly guarantee the sale of any item produced by their companies. It's very clear and easy to read as we found out ourselves after obtaining one of their contracts.
One thing Rip-off Report was surprised to find out though upon investigating was what their clients did get from these companies and the value of these services. Incredible Discoveries for example will produce a half-hour infomercial for around $40,000-$50,000 and for that fee they also include print advertising, press releases, in some cases web-promotions, not to mention they will help fund an initial test media campaign to expose and test the product with consumers. We checked with our independent Infomercial Expert who said that most infomercial production companies he knew charged 3 to 4 times that at a rate of about $150,000-$200,000 for each half-hour infomercial and that's just for the production. It does not include any airings. The reason Incredible Discoveries are providing a substantially lower fee than others is simply because they are negotiating a percentage of the back end of all future sales. So in reality they are banking on the successful selling of their clients merchandise on the back end and in return are reducing the initial cost to produce the materials for that product. The client's dissatisfaction or more accurately disappointment apparently comes when after spending around $40,000 (which again gets clients a half-hour infomercial, some print advertising, and airings) they don't sell as much product as they hoped. Two owners Rip-off Report spoke with admitted this obviously is very disappointing and some times the clients try to blame the production company when in fact a variety of things can contribute to a failure to sell on TV. Reasons could be the price of the product (which Incredible Discoveries said they do not always have control over), the product not lending itself well to TV, or just the nature of consumers. Again we were reminded there are no guarantees in the infomercial business.
RIP-OFF REPORT CONCLUDES INCREDIBLE DISCOVERIES NOT A SCAM ..victims of a disgruntled employee
Rip-off Report cannot ever guarantee any product or service, and we can only report to you what we find, to help give you a better understanding of the company or individual we are investigating. That being said, the conclusion Rip-off Report came to after our investigation, to the best of our knowledge, was that this company was not scamming its customers but they, themselves were the victims of a disgruntled employee (companies this size and this long in the business will get them from time to time). Our information lead us to conclude this after we found that all the postings regarding Incredible Discoveries were very suspicious; all coming from the same computer despite claiming otherwise, and because the person filing the claims was not identifying themselves as an ex-employee but rather a customer and they were claiming they were from different parts of the country; giving all bogus contact info. Their phone numbers, and e-mail addresses were not legit and no one ever responded to our requests for verification.
Incredible Discoveries management and employees were more than willing to answer any and all questions related to their business and even went so far as to allow Rip-off reports access to all their materials, websites, and client and employee lists for this investigation. If they had something to hide it would have been easier not to even get involved with us. All this leads Rip-off Report to conclude that the person complaining about Incredible Discoveries has more credibility issues than the company we investigated.
RIP-OFF REPORT SPECIAL NOTE:
We rely on our loyal readers like you! By consumers, for consumers. NO editors to change your words and to misquote you
With thousands of postings a week to Rip-off Report it would be impossible to investigate the details of the situation behind every posting. We rely on our loyal readers to bring anything and everything to our attention regarding the postings here and that is what has made this site so successful. The fact of the matter is that while Rip-off Report gets a lot of postings and traffic, our operation and resources are limited and we are really a consumer watchdog forum and not an investigation entity. We simply do not have the resources and funding to investigate the background on every report posted here, and under the laws of the United Sates of America, we have no obligation to do such.
Fortunately when companies like Incredible Discoveries get involved in our
Corporate Advocacy & Remediation Program, it allows us the resources to investigate further and in greater depth than we normally can. This investigation was launched with the explicit understanding by Incredible Discoveries that there were absolutely no guarantees as to the outcome of our completely independent investigation. Nonetheless their participation allowed Rip-off Report the resources and ability to get to the bottom of the claims being made against them.
Rip-off Report Investigative Staff..
Tempe, Arizona
U.S.A.
Read below ..in their own words, Incredible Discoveries, always have had a Commitment to Customer Satisfaction ..will be posting shortly, CLICK HERE to check out their website