Complaint Review: Vendstar And Specialty Marketing

My first interaction with the vending business was with Scott Dumas of Vendstar. In speaking with Scott about the vending business, he told me of a locator service and also offered me a guaranteed future income and suggested I contact Jennifer Buffington with Specialty Marketing. I then contacted Jennifer who, after I told her of my zip code, informed me she could guarantee a $2.50 future income per day per machine.

Because of this guarantee, I decided to purchase 30 machines from the Vendstar and Specialty Marketing partnership. After calling Scott to place this order, he informed me that it was my lucky day and I was in the right place at the right time because somebody had mis-shipped an order and he could sell me an additional 30 machines at a discount. This would also lock me in for all future vending machine purchases at a discounted rate. He stated this would be a good deal because 95% of his business is repeat customers.

I decided to purchase the 60 vending machines based on the fact that I was guaranteed a $4,500 per month future income (60 machines at $2.50 per day per machine). Had it not been for this guarantee, I never would have purchased these machines, nor would I have used the locator service.

After purchasing the 60 vending machines for $14,495, I then contacted Jennifer to set-up the locator service and guarantee. She required me to wire her $750 immediately and pay the locators, in cash, the remaining $2,090 when services were rendered. According to Jennifer and the contract, this cost guaranteed me the future income of $2.50 per day per machine. When the locators arrived, I followed them over a two-day period where they placed the machines in local businesses. Within ten days of placement, 7 of the local businesses where they had placed my machines called to request removal of the machine. Within 90 days, another 20 locations had requested removal of the machines. As it stands today, over 50% of my machines have been thrown out of their locations. To this date, I have not had one machine that has performed the minimum guarantee of $75 per month. My average machine that is active performs less than $10 per month, or 13% of Jennifer's and Scott's guarantees.

After going through this ordeal and speaking with other Vending Machine owners who used Vendstar and Specialty Marketing, I learned that this tactic is extremely common in these two companies' selling and business procedures. Other people were told the exact same thing, "it's your lucky day, we had a mis-shipped order that you can get at an extremely discounted price." BEWARE OF VENDSTAR AND SPECIALTY MARKETING SELLING TACTICS!!!! This should not be the way business is practiced in the United States. I hope no other citizen goes through what we have had to because of these two UNETHICAL companies.

Broke Austin, Texas
U.S.A.