The Baseball Factory Rip Off Factory Columbia, Maryland
I am sure there are plenty of other victims of Baseball Factory out there. I saw that someone else had posted a complaint, and felt that I had to post my story.
I commited to their "Exclusive" program after being selected from a showcase in 2001. In their pitch, the essentially guaranteed that they would find me a college to play baseball at. They sold my parents on it. They said the $3,500 would pay for itself in scholarship money I got. Additionally, my high school coach specifically said he wouldn't do anything to help us out with getting to college, it was all on our own.
I had hear from a few college coaches up to this point, but nothing about any offers. Then came my opportunity. I played for Baseball Factory's team at the Arizona Senior Fall Showcase tournament. I was told by Baseball Factory staff that there would be college coaches and scouts all over the place. I hustled, played hard, oh yeah, and I hit over .700.
The Baseball Factory staff was impressed with what I had done. I was thrilled with what I had done. I figured some coaches might have seen me, or at least the BF staff could use this as a great argument when talking to coaches for why I would be a great fit at their school.
I heard nothing. BF did nothing. They did not help me at all. I ended up playing college baseball, but the coach who recruited me heard nothing from BF. They claim to have placed over 250,000 college baseball players. I am sure that they counted me as one. That is a lie.
If I wasn't good enough in the first place, they should have just told me. That would have been fine. This company makes promises they can't keep just to make money
Parents and players, please beware. Their success stories of players getting scholarships and going on to have great success would have had the same success whether or not BF existed. My advice to you is work hard and have fun! If you are looking for a college scholarship, baseball is not the sport for you. If you really want to play college ball, just work on your skills and walk on somewhere if you aren't recruited.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Rob
Columbia,Maryland,
USA
Baseball Factory Response
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Wed, May 19, 2010
As the President of Baseball Factory, I wish you would have voiced some of your concerns back when you were still in high school. Let me try to answer a few of the points raised in your post:
Our Exclusive Program staff never makes any promises, other than to work hard to help each and every family find the correct fit for college baseball. We cannot make any promises about scholarship money because the coaches provide the scholarship offers, not our company. However, we most likely provided your family with statistics on scholarship money for our previous program participants, which can only be an indicator for future success of other players of similar ability.
In addition, I am sure that the Exclusive staff worked very hard on your behalf. The director of the program in 2001 was Kelly Kulina, who unfortunately passed away in 2009. One hundred eighty (180) people commented on Kellys memorial blog post about how much he cared for his players, the integrity he had, and how hard he worked. He took his job very seriously and was very dedicated to each and every family.
In addition, only our strongest players are invited to participate on our Senior Fall Classic team and the fact that you hit .700 in the tournament means you had ability. If we thought you werent a college baseball prospect, you would not have had the opportunity to play on our team.
In the future, I would encourage you communicate any problems you are having with our staff before you are out of college baseball. We take our customer satisfaction very seriously and our staff works very hard for our families. We understand that this is a complicated process and it can be emotional at times. If you would like to discuss this matter further, please contact me directly at 800-641-4487. Without knowing more details about your situation (i.e.: your name, the year you graduated, your academic record, etc) it is hard for me to speculate on what may or may not have transpired.