Allan56 Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 I'm really glad to find this site. I sure wish I'd found it sooner.... My name is Allan, from Eugene, Oregon. My partner Amy and I used to deliver motorhomes all over the US but the manufacturer moved and Amy and I needed to generate some extra income. I've been self employed all my life, semi retired now, vending machines seemed like a possibility. So far so good. We asked local vendors (bulk, beverage, snack, novelties) about their routes, scouted a bit for likely locations. We stumbled across some third party soda machines, set up an account with Coke and started looking for locations. We found a few through friends and craigslist (4 now, all small auto-related businesses, grossing about $15 average per week/machine) and got a really good tour of our own town. So far so good again..... Then we saw an ad for Metro Vending or Metro Marketing of Springfield Mo. Jen and Charles. Yup, I know. If a thing sounds too good to be true it probably is too good to be true. We checked references, the BBB, went to visit a 160-machine vendor in a neighboring state who'd dealt with them and was happy enough. We decided to roll the dice. Now it looks like we're going to have a fight on our hands. It looks like they already have a war going on; some one is flagging their cl ads as soon as they're up anywhere in the nation. Anyone else been down this road? We'd love to hear anything about Metro or about settling disputes with locators in general. We definitly need some considerable education, but this "re-inventing the wheel" thing is getting old. Thanks in advance to anyone who has anything to say. Allan 541-579-3000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 AVOID Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PerformaVending Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 Metro Vending is, for all intents and purposes a swindle on every level, and a stain upon the vending industry. They have hurt more people getting into this business than the Biz-Ops. I'm glad you found us, welcome aboard and please ask any questions you may have! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I'm really glad to find this site. I sure wish I'd found it sooner.... My name is Allan, from Eugene, Oregon. My partner Amy and I used to deliver motorhomes all over the US but the manufacturer moved and Amy and I needed to generate some extra income. I've been self employed all my life, semi retired now, vending machines seemed like a possibility. So far so good. We asked local vendors (bulk, beverage, snack, novelties) about their routes, scouted a bit for likely locations. We stumbled across some third party soda machines, set up an account with Coke and started looking for locations. We found a few through friends and craigslist (4 now, all small auto-related businesses, grossing about $15 average per week/machine) and got a really good tour of our own town. So far so good again..... Then we saw an ad for Metro Vending or Metro Marketing of Springfield Mo. Jen and Charles. Yup, I know. If a thing sounds too good to be true it probably is too good to be true. We checked references, the BBB, went to visit a 160-machine vendor in a neighboring state who'd dealt with them and was happy enough. We decided to roll the dice. Now it looks like we're going to have a fight on our hands. It looks like they already have a war going on; some one is flagging their cl ads as soon as they're up anywhere in the nation. Anyone else been down this road? We'd love to hear anything about Metro or about settling disputes with locators in general. We definitly need some considerable education, but this "re-inventing the wheel" thing is getting old. Thanks in advance to anyone who has anything to say. Allan 541-579-3000 This ought to help http://vendiscuss.ne...-metro-vending/ and here http://vendiscuss.ne...-metro-vending/ Hope that about covers it for you. Check out some of the threads in the locator section, it will be eye opening for you about the "locating industry" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 If they have really lied to you or made misstatements you can contact your attorney general in your state. Sometime even the threat of doing that will result in some type of effort on their part. Could you give us a little more detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan56 Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 Thank you all! I guess that the sooner I start thinking of any money I lose with metro as "tuition", the better. But, I think I may not beaten yet. I've got BBB and Missouri Attorney General's complaints ready to go. Metro's local BBB (Springfield, MO) asked me to send documentation right away and asked if I would give my name in case the press is interested..... Poplady, Bev, you mentioned the AG's office in connection with any lies metro may have told. They may have gone one better than that by completely failing to screen their location agreements. Out of 16 location agreements they sent us to get our 8 initial locations, 11 had had machines recently removed for poor sales, vandalism or both. Out of that same 16, 5 parties didn't even want machines. One even said so on the metro confirmation recording! 2 locations had machines in place with horrible sales records. 1 of those 2 had been abandoned, the other had a 55 cent machine selling <20 sodas per month. We had one machine removed because of zero sales, almost three weeks running. We let Metro Jen know and she promised to screen better. No change. We asked them to quit when we had 6 of their machines averaging about $13 gross/week/machine. We don't believe they can find locations that come anywhere close to meeting their promises, no matter how much time they are given. They said we could have $2500 of our initial $5500 back but that they'd spent $3000 (!) so far and couldn't return that amount. That's where it's at now. This record may all make such an incredible and well-documented story that it might be easy pickings for the Missouri AG. I hope so anyway. Today was the first day anything encouraging has happened in a while regarding metro. Let's see how Charles responds..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 if they are offering you any money back i would take it but do not sign any kind of settlement thing. really if you want to get ur money back perhaps contact an attorney a good biz atty should cost no more than a hundred bucks for a consult, and most likely they can throw in a threatening letter and explain your options, frankly i am sure these people have been threatened by lawyers before tho, couldnt hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan56 Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 Good idea, thank you. I'm saving the attorney idea for the next step. I've decided I'd rather risk losing the whole amount than let metro keep $3000 for the pile of crap I've got. I think their lack of screening is misrepresentation; similar to my selling you a car that doesn't actually move under it's own power, as anyone might assume a full-priced new car would. I assumed the "location agreements" metro sells were viable; a reasonable expectation. The Missouri AG for consumer affairs, who actually answers the phone and returns calls, seemed to agree. At the very least,since neither the BBB or the AG complaints will ever leave Metro's records, people will get to read quite a story about metro if they check either source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Thank you all! I guess that the sooner I start thinking of any money I lose with metro as "tuition", the better. But, I think I may not beaten yet. I've got BBB and Missouri Attorney General's complaints ready to go. Metro's local BBB (Springfield, MO) asked me to send documentation right away and asked if I would give my name in case the press is interested..... Poplady, Bev, you mentioned the AG's office in connection with any lies metro may have told. They may have gone one better than that by completely failing to screen their location agreements. Out of 16 location agreements they sent us to get our 8 initial locations, 11 had had machines recently removed for poor sales, vandalism or both. Out of that same 16, 5 parties didn't even want machines. One even said so on the metro confirmation recording! 2 locations had machines in place with horrible sales records. 1 of those 2 had been abandoned, the other had a 55 cent machine selling <20 sodas per month. We had one machine removed because of zero sales, almost three weeks running. We let Metro Jen know and she promised to screen better. No change. We asked them to quit when we had 6 of their machines averaging about $13 gross/week/machine. We don't believe they can find locations that come anywhere close to meeting their promises, no matter how much time they are given. They said we could have $2500 of our initial $5500 back but that they'd spent $3000 (!) so far and couldn't return that amount. That's where it's at now. This record may all make such an incredible and well-documented story that it might be easy pickings for the Missouri AG. I hope so anyway. Today was the first day anything encouraging has happened in a while regarding metro. Let's see how Charles responds..... Tuition is a good word LOL. It may not help you much but posting some followup with how/if this is resolved as a record for those that are searching about Metro Vending in the future would be appreciated. Unfortunately many people listen to the sales pitch and send money without checking out the company. Remember in the future that this is a mostly cash business and attracts all kinds of people. Be very careful with doing business with anyone that is not independently checked out and verified, don't just check the references they give you. Sorry that you are having such a rough initiation into the vending business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan56 Posted August 1, 2012 Author Share Posted August 1, 2012 Thanks for the response. Metro has not gotten back to me yet..... I'll be glad to let you know what they do. If they do decide to do the right thing, there would be nothing better for their reputation on this website. It would be such cheap advertising! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan56 Posted August 2, 2012 Author Share Posted August 2, 2012 Hello all. No word back from Metro yet. Complaints with BBB and the Missouri AG's office go out Monday morning. I was looking around on Craiggers to see how many ads Metro has up. A lot, new ones everyday all over the nation. If you click this link, https://www.craiggers.com/#!/search/all/all/%20soda%20locations%20route/nav=search-link&subnav=workspace-link&postKey=DFVTGCQ you would find all of Metro's ads coast to coast. I know if I were to post the same ad in more than one city, I'd probably get flagged for overposting, which is a violation of craigslist rules. Someone is flagging their ads but I think it takes more than one flag to drop an ad. Thank you all again for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 i would take the 2500 back,why let these con men keep ur money, if u think ur getting the whole 5k back u r dreaming. contacting the AG is a waste of time, i worked for a place that had many AG complaints, eventually after 15yrs in business racking up s***loads of complaints they finally did something, in the end the co settled for a slap on the wrist fine and went right back to using the same deceptive ads and so on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.