Starting Forever CEO Ashley Stratton Scam, Fake, Con Artist, Theft Exton Pennsylvania
On August 14, 2008 Ashley Stratton, CEO of Starting Forever, and associate Amanda Irvin-Hannum sat down with my fiance and I to discuss the dream wedding that she would be planning for us. This event was planned to take place at the Zook House, the historic building on the Exton mall property. Due to our financial situation, we do not have much money to put toward our wedding. Ashley ensured that she would be able to give us the wedding we dreamed of within our budget.
ON this day, we put down a 50% deposit on the wedding(this is a large portion, which we found to be unusual). While it had been several days with no contact, we felt concerned and decided to visit the store in the mall.
Upon arrival, we noticed a sign at the door stating "Store Closing - All furniture must be sold." We go in, and the gentleman running the store recognized us right away and showed some fake concern. He claimed Ashley would call us immediately about the issue, and he said he had her phone number at home. It has been 3 days, and I have receieved no response. We have also tried to get into contact with Amanda, who seemed to be helpful at the time we originally met with her. In the past, she responded to emails immediately, now it has been weeks since I have heard from her. I have tried calling her personal number, with no response. We have been avoided for quite some time now.
I would like to somehow expose this story to a greater form of media, just to warn others not to fall into the same trap. Please feel free to file a report as well, hopefully we can bring this issue to the attention of the media. Everybody working in the Starting Forever store is part of the scam; according to the attorney of the Exton Mall, the people that work in the store are nasty people, with bad intentions.
Please do not ever employ any person that has come from this store, you will be disappointed/taken advantage of.
Andrew
Downingtown, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
6 Updates & Rebuttals
Brunt182
Downingtown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Ashley Stratton
#7Author of original report
Tue, September 23, 2008
CEO, Ashley Stratton has gotten in contact with us, with no prior knowledge of this report, and she is wanting to help us resolve our issue. She has been very sympathetic during this whole situation and she has been more than helpful. Please pay no regard to the original report. It was simply a matter of a lack of good communication; which was a fault on both of our parts. Please also disregard Amanda from the report as she has also made great attempts to resolve the issue as well. I will update the report with any future developments.
Brunt182
Downingtown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Ashley Stratton
#7Author of original report
Tue, September 23, 2008
CEO, Ashley Stratton has gotten in contact with us, with no prior knowledge of this report, and she is wanting to help us resolve our issue. She has been very sympathetic during this whole situation and she has been more than helpful. Please pay no regard to the original report. It was simply a matter of a lack of good communication; which was a fault on both of our parts. Please also disregard Amanda from the report as she has also made great attempts to resolve the issue as well. I will update the report with any future developments.
Brunt182
Downingtown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Ashley Stratton
#7Author of original report
Tue, September 23, 2008
CEO, Ashley Stratton has gotten in contact with us, with no prior knowledge of this report, and she is wanting to help us resolve our issue. She has been very sympathetic during this whole situation and she has been more than helpful. Please pay no regard to the original report. It was simply a matter of a lack of good communication; which was a fault on both of our parts. Please also disregard Amanda from the report as she has also made great attempts to resolve the issue as well. I will update the report with any future developments.
Brunt182
Downingtown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Ashley Stratton
#7Author of original report
Tue, September 23, 2008
CEO, Ashley Stratton has gotten in contact with us, with no prior knowledge of this report, and she is wanting to help us resolve our issue. She has been very sympathetic during this whole situation and she has been more than helpful. Please pay no regard to the original report. It was simply a matter of a lack of good communication; which was a fault on both of our parts. Please also disregard Amanda from the report as she has also made great attempts to resolve the issue as well. I will update the report with any future developments.
Rachel
Pottstown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Not every employee is to blame PLEASE!!
#7UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, September 22, 2008
My friend was one of those employees that you stated in your report as being part of it and I just want to tell you that is NOT true at all! She is 17 and just needed a job, they hired her literally over night without a real interview and she thought "great!" Three months later she went to stop by one Friday night to pick up her paycheck and the gate was closed, store locked up and she thought well maybe somebody called out.
The next day she got a call saying that she didn't need to come into work and that they were having trouble with the mall, that's it nothing else. So the next day she was scheduled to work she called before she went in and got the machine. So she thought okay well maybe they will call me when they re-open. That didn't happen. It's been two weeks now, they said that they would mail her paycheck but she has not received it. I am typing this for her because she does not want to be a part of any conspiracies. There were several innocent kids working for the company and she would much appreciate it if you left them out of it.
In fact, she knew nothing of the inner workings of the company, all she did was open and close the register, the rest of the time she simply greeted customers and played on the computer or did her homework like any high school student would do. Please just correct that in your report if you do make it public, don't make these young peoples' lives harder by making them part of something like this. thanks.
Brunt182
Downingtown,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Starting Forever
#7Author of original report
Wed, September 17, 2008
This issue has been resolved. Amanda just got in touch with us and is working on getting our money back to us. Also offered my fiance and I free catering. Hopefully this turns out to be true, and if so, then I feel as if these people just had some bad luck at a really bad time, and are doing their best to compensate with everyone, customers and vendors.
I will completely take back everything I said if this proves to be true, because it would have just been a case of bad miscommunication.
Thanks.