Complaint Review: Prime Time Gourmet Foods - Arden North Carolina

Employee / Indepent contractor came to my Grandmothers house and gave her the sales pitch. Standard stuff here. Grandmother thought sounded good, however was concerned about the payment method. Her daughter Jenny was there as well and also was concerned about the payment method considering Grandmother is on a fixed income. Employee / Indepent contractor ensured her and Jenny that the (payments) would be taken out in installments. 15.00 a month recurring on the 3rd of each month beginning on 6/3/2005, until the balance was payed off.

So Grandmother assured this was going to be taken out in installments gave them her Bank Card to withdraw the funds from. Well of course Prime Time Gourmet Foods took this out in one payment, $461.00 on 5/17/05. Notice not even on the promised 3rd of the month. So of course Grandmother doesn't have the 461 in the bank, so her account gets charged overdraft fees of 30.00. So Jenny calls the company and disputes this requesting that the money - 15.00 (original agreed payment even though on incorrect date) is refunded back to Grandmothers account, or they can come pick up their meat, and keep whatever balance was due them, and refund the rest.

I personally feel since the agreement was broken that they need to pay Grandmothers bank fees as well, or at least send a statment to the bank that they charged her account inappropriately. Kelly (employee) assures Jenny at this point that we will contact corporate and get this matter adjusted.

States will give a call back on Wednesday June 1 2005 (next day). Never receive call back. Jenny calls local office again on Friday June 3 2005. Steve answers phone and informs Jenny that corporate states it is not our problem it is Steves problem / employee who misrepresented the company. At this point Jenny insists on getting corporates phone number for contact. Jenny calls corporate and gets an answering machine. Left message if no contact from corporate we will take legal matters.

Jenny contacted local office again, and informs them that she is going to report them to local news media, and put a report (this one online). Steve at this point says please give me until Monday to remedy this, and would be at Jenny's doorstep on Monday with cash in hand to remedy the situation. This is acceptable if it happens will keep report posted if this does happen. But the misrepresentation to begin with caused the problem. Employee has admitted the mistake, but corporate is unwilling to fix the issue. Corporate should rely on the local companies admission to get this remedied and a refund should be given. Grandmother is willing to make continued payments on this as agreed. As long as they are just that. Payments.

So we are posting this to ensure that anyone else that is going to be dealing with this company will know that there will not be payments made. It will be one lump sum. Do not rely on what the agent tells you, and do not give them any credit or debit card information. If they are willing to take payments, then they should be willing to send you a bill. The only acceptable solution to this issue is to give Grandmother back her money 476.00 including bank fees incurred due to this error, or give her back $446.00 which is minus the first payment, and give her 30.00 off of the balance due.

Robert

Etowah, North Carolina
U.S.A.