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.
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