Complaint Review: Tele King Communications

Was contacted by one of their telemarketers about what a great business and given references who could tell me about them.

I contacted the references, without knowing at the time that they paid them to give good references. Based on the reports I got, I bought in, to the tune of $11,950 which included supposedly $2,500 of inventory.

Soon after, I was contacted by another person who convinced me how great the display units were and sold me 4 more at a "discount" price and there went another $2,600.

They promised "locations, locations, locations". I did hours of leg work, after specifying an area and being promised that no one else would be given that territory. I provided them with a list of over 100 locations, including addresses and phone numbers.

After 4 months of calling and waiting, they still hadn't provided me with the first location. Kept calling and calling and finally got a "supervisor". They finally got me 5 locations in one day, but they were spread out far and wide.

I would call and specify and area, and they would call back with another "location" in another town. If I called for help, some answering service would take the call and then you wouldn't get called back.

Much of the original inventory they sent me wouldn't sell in my area and in order to exchange it for something that would sell, I had to ship it back to them paying for the shipping, wait two weeks for them to "count" it even though it was counted and in numerical order when it was shipped to them & pay them a restocking fee. When they reshipped, I paid for overnight, they sent it regular and then shorted me on cards that they never made up.

When I finally got hold of someone once to discuss selling the business, they first told me I was not "allowed" to sell it...

Then I approached them about buying back the displays, they said that wasn't allowed, that the terms of the "contract" didn't allow it.

Finally, they said they would list it as a "used business" through their sources, even though all of these displays are new and still wrapped, because none of my customers wanted them.

The last straw was when they started sending someone else to my customers.

Anne
Longview, Texas
U.S.A.