DON’T GET SCREWED: GET YOUR SPONSOR PAY UP FRONT

Posted on | June 16, 2008 | 1 Comment

About 3 months ago I decided to advertise a background special here at Fight News Unlimited for $1,000 for a full year. So, I was pretty stoked when I got the following email message not long after I posted the idea on the front page of unlimitedfightnews.com:

——————–

from Fight Trend
reply-to fighttrend@yahoo.com
to info@unlimitedfightnews.com
date Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:49 PM
subject $1,000 background special
signed-by yahoo.com

Hello,

My name is Scott Ennis, I am the President of a new MMA Clothing & Media company called Fight Trend, LLC. We have a website at www.fighttrend.com right now it is a news and mma community site, until June when we publically release our clothing line. We are in the process of signing fighters and have 4 signed already. We are doing some things with HDnet Fights this friday live with matt lindlands sportfight promotion, and also the IFL in May at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. One of our pr guys happened upoon your site and noticed your buy our background for a year campaign. He immediately notified me and here I am. I am interested in this and any other advertsing opportunities you have available on your website. I am looking to close this deal asap. If you would like to speak via voice to confirm and to hault any speculation that this is bogus, as I am sure you must loads of emails from people who say that can produce and want to do something but dont. I will give you my cell phone number. Please keep this confidential. Again thanks and I look forward to doing business with you soon!

Scott Ennis

Fight Trend, LLC

www.fighttrend.com
—————

To show my gratitude for wanting to get the deal done as soon as possible and also to try out another new idea, I decided to give Scott a free VIP sponsorship as part of the background special deal. Not only would I put his logo in the background of the home page and blog page of our site, but I would also give him the benefits of a service worth just as much as the background special deal. Basically, I decided to give him $2,000 worth of advertising for $1,000.

So, I got the above message in mid-April, and not long after that I hooked Scott up with his logo on our blog page before I even got a cent from him. I guess that was a bad idea in retrospect, but I had talked to Scott over the phone, exchanged multiple emails with him, and expected him to come through. He seemed to have a lot going on and came across as someone who wouldn’t have any trouble getting the payment out. He actually promised to Fedex me a company check:

——-

from Fight Trend
reply-to fighttrend@yahoo.com
to Rich Bergeron
date Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 10:18 PM
subject Re: $1,000 background special
mailed-by yahoo.com
signed-by yahoo.com

hide details Apr 21

Rich, everything looks great…. I will fedex you a signed copy and company check this morning. Also… if it is ok with you I have another background logo that is a little less clutter for you and will make your frontpage look a bit better… I will send it in another email… let me know when you get it…

Scott Ennis
Fight Trend, LLC
www.fighttrend.com

————
The weeks have since gone by, and from that one first email stemmed 36 more between us back and forth. I called him numerous times on the cell phone number he gave me, but he never answered. Most of my emails also went unanswered. He would respond from time to time with either excuses or explaining what the next big thing was that he was working on. I sent four emails between the end of April and May 5th that went unanswered. Finally, he wrote back on May 5:

I am currently in arizona working on an audit for my surety company I will be back in about three days sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner we are extremely busy here. Yes interested give me till I get back to ct and I will get you what you need. Are you going to ifl event at mohegan sun on fri? We are sponsoring event that was taking a lot of my time. If you are going to be there we can meet in person as I have 2 fighters being sponsored as well. Let me know. I assure you you are not being avoided I have been busy with the ifl sponsorship thing and now my surety companies audit. Call me anytime you are one of the few people that have my cell number as I would get calls from people everyday to get their script produced. If u don’t have it here it is ###-###-#####. Please keep it to yourself thanks. Again I’m in arizona and its a three hour diffrence. Again sorry for the delay we will fix this soon

I have been calling Scott, sending him PayPal reminders, and waiting for that check that never comes. All he’s done is try to explain things away, and I’ve given him tons of free advertising to this point. I’ve even offered to take partial payment. Yet, nothing ever happens. He even sent me this message on May 19th:

Hello, sorry its been very long. As you may know or maybe you don’t know we now have struck a deal with two promotions and with that deal comes two investers inparticular that have requested all future contracts go through our company attorney. I have forwarded the contract you sent me to them today they will have an answer on the contract by the end of the week. I am sorry for the delay. We struck a fantastic partnership with these organizations and were forced to move quickly and quietly. You will have answer very shortly. Thanks for your patience. I will personally give you an exclusive on our deal as soon as its finalized. As for phone calls to me. If you call from any sort of restricted number, blocked number or masked number I do not answer the call. As the other business endeavers I am in that would cause problems. Talk to you soon.
Scott

I have given this guy every opportunity to make good on his promises. Each and every time he’s balked. He even promised to send a payment out last on Saturday, May 31st. It’s been over two weeks and nothing has arrived here.

I didn’t want to get to this point with Scott, and I don’t know him outside of this deal. He could be prompt and courteous when it comes to everyone else he deals with for all I know. Yet, it seems to me that for a guy talking so much about all the great big things he has going on it should not be such a hassle to get a mere $1,000 bill paid in a three month window.

He obviously has other interests and advertises one of them (Easy Bail Bonds) on his Web-site. Being in that kind of business you’d think the man would have a greater understanding of making prompt payments. I don’t know what the problem is and why I can’t get paid here, but from here on out I’ve decided to strip the site and every other affiliated social profile of all of his logos. I also decided to put this blog together to help others who might be victimized by this type of scam or by the promise of doing future business with Scott. I can’t say he’ll do the same thing to you, but I will tell you that you better make sure you get paid up front before you do anything for him.

Anyone who is willing and able to make a real payment can get the same deal I offered Scott with a VIP Sponsorship and the background Special for just $1,000. Just email me at info@unlimitedfightnews.com for more information.

Thanks,

Rich Bergeron
Editor/Writer/Webmaster
Unlimitedfightnews.com

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