In September 2006 I attended a presentation hosted by Marcel Gelineault, National Sales Manager of Alpha Multimedia with regards to the Investment Opportunity they where offering with the purchase of their Communication Kiosk. The investment opportunity was offered as such: when an investor purchased a Communication Kiosk they would have 3 different ways to generate revenue.
First: Alpha Multimedia was going to secure National Advertising; meaning that Alpha had a team of sales representatives that were already going out and trying to get contracts with big corporations to advertise on the investors Kiosks. And we the investors would receive a percentage of the advertising on a monthly basis while Alpha Multimedia kept a portion for their efforts.
At the time of the presentation we were told that there where a few Corporations that where ready to come on board with the "National Advertising" campaign Alpha Multimedia was simply waiting to and I quote: cross the ts and dot the Is.
The National Advertising is the reason why investors would want to purchase the Communication Kiosk / Investment Opportunity! The other revenue possibilities were merely the icing on the cake; people would pay to use the Kiosk to get access to the Internet, to e-mail, play games etc. Third, an investor could go out and secure their own local advertising with small businesses in and around the location of the Kiosk.
However, this was totally optional, as some investors had made it clear that neither did they have the time nor the desire to start selling advertising. They simple wanted a Passive Income from the machines.
One of the things that gave Alpha Multimedia credibility at the time was that they stated in their presentation and in their literature that they had partnered up with Bell Canada. If a huge corporation such as Bell Canada was allowing them to use their name/logo then they must be legitimate.
The cost of one Kiosk was $18, 000 including $1, 000 location fees plus taxes. We were told and read in our literature that we would get our Investment Back in 12-14 months. We bought 2 Kiosks - total investment was $41, 040.
Even before our Kiosks where placed in locations I was continually in contact with Alpha MultiMedia with regards to the National Advertising campaign As well as after our machines were placed - constantly asking when can we expect to see some National Advertising on our Kiosks. I was ALWAYS told that there were some BIG companies ready to sign up for the National Advertising OR that once they sold more Kiosks - corporations would be more interested OR that the larger corporations make all there advertising decisions in this or that month, etc., After a while it started to become obvious that these where merely lies and excuses!
When we bought our Kiosks we purchased them with a $500 per machine, per month guaranteed revenue for 12 months. The machines were placed in Petro Canada Gas station on November 21, 2006 in Toronto within close radius of our home. We were told by Mandy Hui that we need to accept these locations, so that we could have easier access to the machines and that we would get guaranteed advertisement revene from the vendors that sells their products through Petro Canada. There were Bell Canada and Visa advertisment running on the machines, however, we received no revenue to date from these advertisement and we did not sign a contract for these advertisement.
In May of 2007 we were advised that they would have to move the machines from Petro Canada in order to generate revenue. Alpha Multimedia moved the machines in May 2007 without telling us of the whereabouts of the machines
On July 15 2007 we wrote to Alpha Multimedia requesting the whereabout of the machines and requesting the full refund of our investments. Two days later we received an email from Brian D'Eall of Alpha Multimedia stating that the process takes 4-8 weeks and that we would be receiving a new list of location shortly that would generate more revenue.
Since then we received no further correspondence regarding the locations. We left severals messages & emails For Brian D'Eall and Marcel Gelineault to contact us regarding the new location. I left Several messages again on October 26, 2007 for Mr. D'Eall to return my call. He finally responded didn't even knew who I was and advised that he has some new locations. I advised him to send it to us by emails. These locations were outside of Toronto which made it difficult for us to maintain the machines. On November 5, 2007 we requested locations in Toronto. Despite several phone calls & emails we have not received any response from Alpha Multimedia since their last email of October 26, 2007.
We took out a small business loan in the amount of $31, 040.00 and deposited $10, 000.00 of our own savings to puchase these two kiosks. We are currently making monthly payments on the loan in the amount of $725.00 (principal and interest). We continue to pay out this monthly amount without any revenue being generated from the machines as they are in storage.
Recap
We purchased 2 kiosks since September 2006. No revenue received since, even though we were promised to get our investment back in 12 - 14 months.
We are paying a loan of $725.00 per month while the machines are sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
At this time I need to get my investment returned along with incurring interest.
I have filed a report with the BBB and will be taking this matter further.
Windev
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
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