Complaint Review: Fanfare Media Works - Valencia California

I worked in all areas of this little company, from designing ads, to coordinating them, to selling them, and I have to tell you, I can see both sides of this issue. First of all, when I went to sales, they never trained me...they explained how it worked, and I spent a week with a sales rep learning how to lie my way through a sales pitch to try and convince someone to turn over their hard earned money to me. The lies we told were surrounding register tape ads, they would be shown to the customers, 90% renewals, etc. I never had a renewal in my area. The interesting thing about this is when I was in the graphic arts end of it, we had PLENTY of renewals all the time. And this company supported a lot of people, a nice building in a very expensive part of california, and a few guys who had thier own offices that never seemed to do any work. All ads are hit and miss, pennysaver, ebay, local mags..they are all hit and miss, and sales reps will say a lot to get you to sign up. I will say this though - they do tell us to promise the customer they would be the only type business on the roll, but this is not true. If you read the contract, you have to pay EXTRA for that, a lot extra, enough extra to cover the cost of what another guy in the same business would pay. This might be a good ad campaign in a large metro area, but if you have less than a million people living in your area, this is probably the wrong approach at advertising. They do, however, deliver what they promise FOR THE MOST PART. They take your money, create your ad, and distribute it to the stores, magazines, whatever the case may be. The stores have issies with handing them out, and that is on the sales rep not keeping up with the store managers. It's a shoe string company, I'm shocked they made it this far. I never even recieved busienss cards or any ID to verify that I worked there. I often had trouble even talking to store managers because I was, basically, some guy off the street. They pay thier people lousy wages, treat them worse, and demand degrees, work clothes (expensive on a $7.00 wage) as well as inter office wars that end up pitting the favorites against the less favorites. If you have an opportunity, choose another means of advertising, like I said, unless there are more than a few million people in your general area.

The FFM contract clearly states that a business only gets an exclusive if it is written into the contract. This is not in small print, it is highlighted on the contract.

Glad to see I'm not the only one that got taken in by this company. Our salesperson promised us that the flyers would be in a rack right by the cash register in the King Kullen Supermarket across from our studio. Well guess what, after they showed up a week late, they were thrown like garbage at the end of the conveyor belt at each check out station. I'm sure no one ever saw them since the cashiers in that store are instructed to keep their areas neat and clean. With all the problems we are having with this company, it took weeks to get the salesperson to call us back, but they have been real quick to ask for money. Needless to say I am not giving them another dime and I have issued charge backs on my previous payments. I'm glad I put this on my credit card, I almost gave them a check!