- Report: #598932
Complaint Review: Videomaticcanada - Cochrane Alberta
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Author Not Confirmed
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Videomaticcanada
225 Railway St. E Cochrane, T4C2C3 Alberta, Canada
Phone:
403-932-1808
Web:
www.videomaticcanada.com
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Videomaticcanada Mediamatic Ventures Inc., Jeremy Ostrowski, President/CEO Lots of money required for this UNPROVEN and SNEAKY cash-flow opportunity Cochrane, Alberta Canada
I was looking to make some extra money, so I was introduced to Jeremy Ostrowski and his automatic DVD rental company. For about $80,000 CAD you got a pop-machine type box full of 3000 different DVDs that people could rent for $3.25 CAD from the MAC's stores where he had permission to place them. He produced spreadsheets showing all this monthly income that the machine had brought in....$700 to $2800+ mo.....and we could take it over for 10 yrs. Then he would buy it back if we didn't want it any longer. We decided to rent one of the DVDs and see how customers would like ours, if we bought one. !. It was hard to get the machine to accept our credit card...picture on the machine didn't match the hole provided. 2. The machine wouldn't take it back when we returned it on time. 3. My credit card had a charge on it for the cost of a DVD, something the machine does if you never bring back your rental. No problem, said Mr. Ostrowski, this happens when the battery on the returner dies, and he would get his New Jersey accounting dept to reverse the $19. charge. No wonder some of the locations showed $800+mo. in "late fees" on his spreadsheets. 4. Well 3 months and several reminders later, he sent me yet another email assuring me that the refund was coming, but this time he had forgot to erase his emails to/from this accountant and they were attached to the current one. The guy said he had refunded the money to me, and Mr. Ostrowski said, "Well, this lady just won't leave me alone!" 5. This is not how you conduct business when you want someone to shell out $80,000 CAD to his company. 6. Our lawyer said parts of his contract were misleading (exclusivity). 7. Videomatic Canada is now operating as Mediamatic Ventures, Inc. He says he's started over 20 businesses. Hope they're run better than this one. 8. I finally called my credit card company and they instantly refunded my money and went after him.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Mark
Red Deer,Alberta,
THE UNTOLD STORY.
#2Consumer Comment
Mon, July 22, 2013
Jeremy has been as much of a victim in this business as any of we investors. As an investor in Mediamatic Ventures, I was privy to information regarding the company. Jeremy purchased the video rental machines which were very expensive, payable in full at the time of purchase,from a company in the eastern US.
In his contract, this company was to supply servicing and customer support.The quality and support were poor to non-existant. The machines he was sold were obsolete and many of them were defective and the NJ company told him that eventually the "glitches" would be ironed out. After many calls and e-mails requesting help, this company became less and less co-operative, refusing to take the defective machines back and not taking his calls requesting support.
With cash flow drying up, unable to afford a trained and competent serviceman, Jeremy was left to his own devices to travel to machine locations to load videos into the machines and servicing them himself, often travelling 500 + kilometers one way, sometimes several times a week,to deal with a problem.
Some machine owners were unreasonable in their complaints. A video machine owner whose machine location was in a university location, felt that his rentals should be as high in volume even when school was out for holidays. Legal fees dealing with frivolous suits ate up what little cash flow was left and a hostile takeover by a ruthless and dishonest investor was the final blow that put an end to Mediamatic .
Jeremy tried to the best of his ability to make this venture profitable for everyone, but there were many factors that prevented him from reaching this goal.
Cory
United States of AmericaVideomatic Canada Mediamatic Jeremy Ostrowski
#3Consumer Comment
Fri, May 07, 2010
I am an investor in Videomatic (as it was known at the time) and have since suffered severe financial loss due to Jeremy's misrepresenations. He paid me a portion of the machine profits for a few months, then stopped. I did receive another couple of payments eventually but haven't seen one dime since late 2009.
He has done this to a couple of dozen people apparently and several lawsuits have been initiated. Mac's Canada is among those who are suing Jeremy.
Here's a picture off of his website...
