An Ad Scam ... Or Not?

[Adamski]

Guys,

I was recently offered an opportunity to buy an ad from a company that is putting out a laminated, full color phamphlet in some local restaurants. They have contracts with about 8 restaurants and the durable pamphlets will be placed in one of those chrome wire salt n pepper shaker holders on each table. I was impressed with the guy's presentation and product until he said that there were none currently in any restaurants that I could check out. It turns out, he's new to Michigan but supposedly did this in other states before.

Now he wanted 50% with the ad order and the other 50% upon "approval of the ad copy". Maybe it's my suspicious nature but it occurred to me that I'd be paying 100% of the cost before any product was produced and I didn't know this guy or his company so I became real leary about the whole proposal.

Well, Mr Ad Saleman called me back today to see if I wanted to buy the ad. I told him how I felt about the payment schedule and he quickly offered to delay the first payment. I told him that I'd take the ad if I could pay 100% when I saw the pamphlets in a restaurant. He said he had to call his office and he'd call me right back. I'm still waiting for his call.

[CanCanCase]

Larry-

That's a big(ish) business here on the West Coast... especially in small towns, I've seen the pamphlets in many restaurants in WA, OR and AK lately. I actually just wrote down the contact number for the company that had their ads in the restaurant I ate lunch in today.

I can't speak for your specific salesman, or his desired payment schedule, but the ad format is legit. In my market, I can potentially pull customers from neighboring towns, so I'm exploring the idea of these restaurant flyers in 2 counties.

Funny story about the flyers in Alaska... When I ran my charter business, I outmarketed all the competition in town, and they kind of resented me for it (probably because I also pitched the charter association on the idea of ME building THEIR websites for a fee during the off season!) Anyway, one competitor bought a business card sized ad in the restaurant flyer, and obviously didn't proof his copy very well... The production guy used OCR software and a scanner to simply scan the advertiser's business card and place it in the flyer, so Rum Runner Charter's offers for "photo safari" got Optical Character Recognized into "photo satan". Then again, being a graphic arts and design geek, I may well have been the only one in town to have noticed it!

-Case

[mjwalsh]

I didn't know this guy or his company so I became real leary about the whole proposal.

I told him that I'd take the ad if I could pay 100% when I saw the pamphlets in a restaurant. He said he had to call his office and he'd call me right back. I'm still waiting for his call.

Larry,

There are some real real red flags on what he is expecting. Your post gave me a flashback to the time that we got burned by a printing outfit that filed bankruptcy before they produced the advertising. It was not a pleasant experience listening to the salesman tell me he was a victim too --- as his name in the community was also tarnished & he had lost all his commissions. It was not pleasant when I tracked down the boss of the operation & he said they only thing he could tell me is that all his papers were at his lawyers office which was located 100 miles away in another small city.

MJ