Complaint Review: Universal Advertising - Owner Paul Porter

A total rip off. The business it basically set up to take money from you and not make you any money. There are VERY few stores out there interested in advertising for other companies. It take sup space in their stores, whether it is hanging on the wall or sitting on a table. The cards and brochures make a mess, and the program is very cheaply made anyway.

I spent all my savings, $7950 and borrowed form someone in my family for some extra things needed. I owe him now, since I am out of the business and broke. I am working 2 jobs now to catch up on the 5 months I devoted to this business.

Again, it's a scam. Paul is a scammer and can go F himself! Thanks' for making me broke!

I also invested my $11,495 back in February. I thought this was going to be the business of a lifetime. I was told by Derrick Peavy that this was a very simple business. You take this cardholder system to a store, a car wash, a pizza place, anywhere. Well, I bought in. I received the boxes from UPS, and opened it up. Interesting. Looked ok. So I took it to 10 stores the first day. I was very excited. I went to my favorite car wash place, and offered to hag this on their wall. I was turned away. They did not want to clutter u their walls with this cr*p.

Ok, another car wash, they said they use to have a system like this there, and it became a big problem, a huge mess on the floor with cards and brochures. Another no. the pizza place, no, the laundromat, no. I hit a lot of rejection, but chalked it up to being my first day. Well, the rest of that week, and month was more of the same. 1 guy said he would think about it and get back to me. He never did. After 7 weeks of hearing no all the time I decided to contact Derrick Peavy again. I emailed him at dpeavy@universaladvertising.com . See what he thinks. He told me not to contact him anymore, that I needed to contact support, told me to email support@universaladvertising.com. NO one's name in particular, just email them. So I did, I emailed and asked advise, why am I not making any $. Why am I not doing anything? Well, about 72 hours later I was answered.

I was given some pointers, and went out to try some more places.

I received more no's, finally 1 guy said yes. I got the system in his car wash the next day, and from there informed Universal Advertising. I gave them the info as instructed. Well, 1 weeks later I checked in on the car wash that accepted the system. I was told that the cards & brochures became a total mess, all over the floor. And get this, Universal Advertising contacted them to see if they were interested in finding out if the guy had more stores/car washes.. If they wanted some assistance from the corporate offices, and if they were interested in putting his cards in other peoples systems.
The tried to screw me over!

Once I heard about that, I called in yelling. Got a call back from Paul, the owner, and he told me more or less that they were allowed to do it, and that was that. I called my lawyer and got on it ASAP. Now we are still fighting it out in court. The beauty of it all is they hide behind their voicemails, and emails, and lies on the internet.

I just wanted everyone to know that they are a scam of a company, and will RIP YOU OFF.
RUN FROM UNIVERSAL ADVERTISING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I wish i would have)

I spoke with Paul 9 months ago; his company had a different name then, Universal Ads INC. for some reason, now I know, the name change occurred. Paul sent me the sales brochures and propaganda needed to make an "informed" decision about sending him $4000 dollars or more. I opted to hold and do more research. Now all this information on this site and others has convinced me to make an "informed" decision, to not send him money. He will not be using my family's money to go on vacation. I am real glad I went slow, even though he tried to pressure me into sending the money earlier. I figured it took me a long time to save that money; I should take a reasonable amount of time investing it. When I was deliberating, he became quite confrontational with me, again another point to consider. Thanks everyone for the information.

Universal Advertising is a scam. I am right there with you all. It's a shame that we had to give up all of our money to find that out. But that is the way it is. Nothing I can do about it now. They took me good, lost my house, and my wife lest me in the process. I ruined her and my life. My kids think I am a loser. It's a sad story, one I do not care to post here. But trust me, they are scammers and will ruin you like they did me.

Universal Advertising
I had been looking for a business of my own a while, and Universal Advertising had a full page ad that looked smoking! Real good. Really got to me and make me think that I could make some good money working this. I called in and spoke to Paul (1-800-731-1311 or email at paule@UniversalAdsInc.com)and he got me set up. Gave me people to talk to, other people making money in this business, I called them and they were making good $. 6 figures, just like Paul promised. It looked easy enough to me, so I bought in. Well, once I was on board I was tossed aside. I did not get any assistance with advertising, or any store leads as Paul promised me. I had to go out and get some on my own, and by the way, the stuff took about 13 weeks to get to me, and about 15 phone calls on my end to make sure they sent it out. I was not serviced as promised, and not I am asking for my $7,500 back. Paul tried to get me back into working the business, but no thanks. No more wasting my valuable time of money. This company sucks

Universal advertising is nothing but a pathetic scam created to bilk your money out of you. You have to lay out all this money for the start-up and that is when the truth of the whole business is revelaed. That it isn't enough for you to just place these displays you have to seek out places to put them and keep checking in on them. Most of the displays end up getting trashed and the advertising is littered all over the place. Most business owners want them removed shortly after I placed them because of the mess.

Wow, I just got off the Phone with Paul. He sounds so sincere. He emailed me some company information and sales stuff. Well guess that goes in the trash bin, and block any future emails from his company. I was ready to write a check, I wasn't even going to call his references he gave me. He explained to me how easy it is to make some pretty serious money on this, but after seeing all this rip off information I guess it is better to see it now than later. Hey, thanks to everyone that has given their experiences, and this site for offering a place to warn others. You just saved me $7,000.00 dollars, I was planning to get the full package.

The references they give you are so bogus. After I started having trouble with this business, which wasn't too long after I invested, I tried contacting them again. Guess what they never returned my calls. I called Paul and told him they hadn't gotten back to me, he said he can't make them call me back and that I should leave them alone. If I had questions I should ask him, well I did and he kept giving me the same answers no matter what I told him he stuck to his same old story. This business is such a waste of money it's sad.