TONER-PHONER CO. WARNED BY MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL

[Anonymous]

TONER-PHONER GIVIN 2nd WARNING
BY MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL
Complaints continue to mount against SVT.
In an alleged scam that appears to be picking up steam,
Columbia office-supply wholesaler SVT Inc. is piling up complaints from
unhappy consumers from coast to coast.
The large number of complaints
last month prompted the Better Business Bureau to issue a rare second
warning about the company encouraging office managers to hang up the
phone when called by the retailer.The Missouri attorney general’s office
also said yesterday that it is “looking into” SVT’s business practices.

First
identified in March as possible scammers, the company that operates
from a warehouse off Route E in northwest Columbia does not appear to
have deviated from sales tactics the BBB has called “seriously
misleading and completely unethical.”

According to multiple
accounts, SVT begins its sales with a “cold call” to a purchasing agent
at a business it has previously scouted through online research. In the
phone call, the SVT marketer typically acts familiar with the agent,
claiming to have spoken to the company’s CFO or even to be a personal
friend of the CFO.

Claiming that the company CFO has
green-lighted the sale of supplies and further claiming that SVT is
going out of business or moving out of state, the telemarketer quotes
bargain-basement prices for items such as pens, notepads or
highlighters.Sometimes the purchasing agent agrees to a small purchase,
and sometimes he or she refuses. But either way, according to
complaints, SVT sends large quantities of supplies at inflated prices.
Faced with large boxes of goods and invoices for thousands of dollars,
the purchasing agent typically attempts to contact SVT and finds only a
voice-mail message.

Most businesses have refused to pay for the
unwanted, overpriced goods, but the BBB fears that SVT cashes in when,
at a large business, the office-supply order simply gets lost in the
bureaucratic shuffle and is paid for by an unknowing worker in the
accounting office.“We don’t know how many people it runs through and
they just accept it,” said Bill Smith, a trade practice investigator for
the BBB. “Part of the problem is, in these small companies, someone can
just walk across the hall and say, ‘I’ve got all this stuff, I
understand that you ordered it,’ and someone else can say, ‘Nope.’ For
bigger companies, it’s probably people just take their word for it.”

Smith
said the BBB received 17 complaints from businesses last month about
SVT — the highest number to date — and has received a total of 99
complaints about the company this year. The attorney general’s office
has recorded 19 complaints about SVT.“It almost seems like it’s becoming
more and more blatant,” Smith said.

SVT is linked to other
mail-order office-supply companies that previously operated in
Dardanelle, Ark., and Fort Mohave, Ariz. Both have generated similar
consumer complaints, according to the BBB. SVT owner Michael O’Keefe of
Jefferson City received a Columbia business license in August 2008.

Hannah
Costello, a human resources administrator for Michigan-based
Plast-O-Foam LLC, received a call from an SVT representative in November
claiming to have already spoken with one of her co-workers. Costello
purchased small amounts of goods such as pens from SVT after hearing it
was closing its offices in Michigan and moving to Missouri. She was
quoted attractive prices, including 39 cents for a dozen pens.The order,
which came in three boxes weighing about 50 pounds each, ended up being
39 cents per pen, and the total invoice was a whopping $1,509.

Costello
is seeking to return the unwanted items.
“The most I’ve ever spent
on office supplies was $600, and that was when I ordered a whole bunch
of ink cartridges,” said Costello, who estimated the price of the
supplies from SVT was roughly four times what she pays elsewhere. “This
is way, way out of line.”
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/dec/09/second-warning-names-supplier/

[Author]

December 21, 2009 at 10:40 AM