Franchise Pick

13 opinions for Franchise /Business Opportunity Complaint: Red Bull

• michael webster
  Jul 4, 2008 at 6:28 pm

  Sean; this is the face of the new biz op fraud. Flog a vending through a franchise portal, do just enough to locate the machines, than then die.

  Creative Concepts of America, notably a Florida company, was dissolved in 2006.

• sean
  Jul 5, 2008 at 10:45 am

  Creative Concepts of America, notably a Florida company, was dissolved in 2006.

  How is it that they’re still advertising as CCA? I just pulled that solicitation copy from a portal yesterday (!).

  FYI Opportunity Seekers: Attorney Michael Webster’s site THE BIZOP NEWS should be on your list of search sites when investigating a franchise or business opportunity.

  Visit: http://www.bizop.ca

• Michael Webster
  Jul 6, 2008 at 12:02 pm

  The franchise portals don’t check the corporate status of the company; they get paid, they run the ad.

  Could be a violation of the FTC Advertising Guidelines.

• Alex
  Jul 7, 2008 at 10:56 pm

  Excellent content - as you always provide and inspires me to come again and again.

• sean
  Jul 8, 2008 at 10:41 am

  FYI: I received an email from someone who said he had several friends who bought in to this and when they complained, Red Bull bought back their machines.

  Frank or anyone else who feels they been burned by this should contact Red Bull. Maybe they’ll help out. I’m sure this is a PR mess they don’t need.

• michael webster
  Jul 8, 2008 at 12:45 pm

  Refunds? From a dead company? Interesting idea. PR Mess? This was the plan of this biz op from the beginning.

• sean
  Jul 8, 2008 at 1:43 pm

  Red Bull is dead?

• Larry
  Jul 15, 2008 at 3:41 pm

  Sean,

  Based on evidence we have gathered from all over the country, it is our belief that when we the machines owners, began receiving the machines we purchased, Red Bull’s distribution network, which is made up entirely of independent distributors, revolted.

  Red Bull distributors had signed agreements for exclusive territories with Red Bull, long before we were sold our machines. They considered that when Red Bull sold those same territories to us for the placement of machines, it was a violation of those exclusive territory agreements they already had in place with Red Bull. I would suspect that their claims may have had merit.

  Red Bull was clearly aware that they were far more dependent on their distributors then they would ever be on us, because they didn’t have a network of their own, and that they also had a potential legal problem if they were seen to have breached a portion of their agreement with the distributors that spelled out the exclusive territories.

  Red Bull then made the corporate decision to pull the plug on CCA, to stop the sales of the machines, and to try the shift the blame of the duplicate territories onto CCA. Red Bull then adopted the most devious and downright criminal portion of their plan to extricate themselves from this matter, by actively siding with the distributors to keep us out of the market, or drive us out if we were already there. Red Bull and the distributors at this time were pretending that they were trying to help us place the machines, when in actuality, they were treacherously working to get rid of us.

  Red Bull during that time told us, in writing, that they were working with the distributors to help us place the machines. But let me ask does it make sense that this Multi-Billion Dollar Company, with all the assets at their disposal, they didn’t succeed in helping anyone place any of our machines.

  After CCA folded, we weren’t aware that our local distributor resented the idea that we might place a machine in “their” territory, and that they worked with Red Bull to make sure that didn’t happen.

  As far as we know, Red Bull did not succeed in helping any of us place even one machine. But instead of Red Bull just taking the financial hit and buying the machines back from us when they realized the problem created with their distributors, this greedy foreign company chose to allow us to be financially destroyed, rather than just pay us back for this mistake.

  They waited until the financial strain of not generating any profit from our investment grew so oppressive, that they then “offered” to buy back the machines at 25-40% of the value we paid. Many of us had no other option but to sell them back at a loss.

  But funnily enough, right after the machines were sold back to Red Bull, those machines that Red Bull said they couldn’t help us place, were placed almost immediately by the distributors. We have plenty of documented evidence to this effect.

  So ask yourself, should we feel as if Red Bull did us a favor when they bought back those machines back from us at 25% of what we paid for them? Or do you believe, as we believe, that Red Bull sold us a franchise, and then worked to make sure we couldn’t establish our franchise?

  You may not know what law this violates, but your gut tells you they broke some sort of law, doesn’t it? Well that is why you should strongly consider staying in this fight. Do it for yourselves, your family, and for society’s need to punish huge corporations who willfully violate the law.

  And one last thought to keep in mind. The 49% owner of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, since the time the sale of the machines began in 2005, has increased his net worth from 2.4 Billion to 4.0 Billion according to Forbes Magazine!

  That is a gain of $1.6 BILLION dollars to his net worth since his company scammed your family out of your savings.

  According to Forbes, in 2006 Mr. Mateschitz was the 317th richest person in the world, this year he is listed as the 260th richest person in the world.

  When asked for his help in this matter, Mr. Mateschitz, after some hesitation, finally told us he was not interested in our problems. I think he probably needed to spend his time counting his ever growing pile of Euros, all the while laughing at how easy it was to scam hundreds of hard working Americans out of their money, and in their own country, right under the noses of their own government.

  Join us in this. We need to pressure our government to act, and for the media to get the message out. You deserve to recover your money. It was stolen from you!

• tony
  Jul 21, 2008 at 8:17 am

  Like many others I was looking for a business to start to supplement my income. On October 2005 I came across CCA who claimed was the only company offering exclusive rights to sell Red Bull through their exclusive vending machines.

  Jeff Youngbauer,CCA’s representative, quickly sent me out a distributorship package explaining all the details, who also stated that this was such a ground floor opportunity. Because of the $23,000 investment that was needed to start this ground floor opportunity I gave it some thought.

  I contacted Red Bull and inquired about CCA. Red Bull told me that CCA was the only authorized distributor of Red Bull vending machines. I grew with excitement because I trusted a multi million dollar company that endorsed their sole distributor of vending machines.

  On April 2006, I refinanced my home to finance this disaster that Red Bull and CCA created. On April 17,2006, I placed my order for 5 machines and 1800 cans of Red Bull and quickly wire transfered to CCA $23,000.

  On April 24,2006 I received an email from CCA stating that, as of April 14,2006, CCA would no longer be distributing Red Bull vending machines. On April 17,2006, when I purchased my machines, CCA never told me this information. I contacted Jeff Youngbauer to get an explanation. He proceeded to tell me that, according to Red Bull, CCA had sold enough vending machines, but that my order was ok.

  Feeling uneasy about this situation, on May 22, 2006, I sent a letter to CCA wishing to cancel my order with a full refund. Suni Perez(Customer Support) with CCA contacted me stating that CCA would honor my cancellation with a full refund made in three equal payments.

  I NEVER RECEIVED MY REFUND FROM CCA!!!!!!!

  Red Bull North America should be held responsible for the deceitful business practices that CCA was participating in. After all, Red Bull did endorse CCA as the only authorized distributor of Red Bull vending.

  tony

• Boomers considering part-time “bizopps” should beware… of RedBull
  Jul 24, 2008 at 4:31 pm

  […] Like other such “opportunities,” though, this one has a huge problem.  Apparently, RedBull is sold exclusively to distributors.  So a company called CCA sold RedBull vending machines to people who didn’t know they weren’t going to get any of the popular drink to put in them, because the distributors had exclusive rights to sell RedBull.  Read more about the whole horrible dilemma at Franchise Pick. […]

• British Qualifications2 » Blog Archive » Boomers considering part-time “bizopps” should beware… of RedBull
  Jul 24, 2008 at 10:03 pm

  […] Like other such “opportunities,” though, this one has a huge problem.  Apparently, RedBull is sold exclusively to distributors.  So a company called CCA sold RedBull vending machines to people who didn’t know they weren’t going to get any of the popular drink to put in them, because the distributors had exclusive rights to sell RedBull.  Read more about the whole horrible dilemma at Franchise Pick. […]

• Boomers considering part-time “bizopps” should beware… of RedBull | money news blog
  Jul 25, 2008 at 1:24 am

  […] Like other such “opportunities,” though, this one has a huge problem.  Apparently, RedBull is sold exclusively to distributors.  So a company called CCA sold RedBull vending machines to people who didn’t know they weren’t going to get any of the popular drink to put in them, because the distributors had exclusive rights to sell RedBull.  Read more about the whole horrible dilemma at Franchise Pick. […]

• Jan
  Sep 3, 2008 at 6:48 am

  I, too, was misled by this “Business opportunity” offered by Creative Concepts and Red Bull.

  In October of 2005 I ran across a web site describing various business opportunities. One that caught my eye was a RED BULL VENDING PACKAGE. I was familiar with the energy drink and thought that Red Bull was a reputable company as they had been in business several years and were considered to be the #1 selling energy drink on the market. I contacted Creative concepts of North America who was handling these distributorships for Red Bull. After receiving their information package and reviewing it carefully I was contacted by a Creative Concepts Representative. He stated that “business was booming” and over the course of many phone calls I was convinced that it sounded like a good opportunity.

  The information package touted, among other things: 1. Complete 3 year warranty for machines against defects, materials, parts, service and labor and a 3 year theft and vandalism policy. 2. Protected distribution rights for my territory. 3. Customer Support Program. It also described the “lucrative world” of energy drink vending, describing it as a high growth proven industry and a recession proof business with very tangible tax benefits. Also, the materials described Red Bull as the “biggest threat to coke and Pepsi in the last 40 years” This statement is absolutely erroneous and I doubt that Pepsi or Coke feels very threatened by Red Bull as about 95% of the places I contacted had contracts with either one or the other of these companies!

  According to Creative Concepts, machines were selling so fast that that most “distributorships were taken up.” My area was still available but probably “wouldn’t be for long.” Much of the projected earnings that they bragged of sounded a little outrageous to me but I was looking to make a little extra money and did not intend for this to be my sole means of income. I asked them why Red Bull did not place the machines themselves and they said that Red Bull did not want to hire extra people to place machines and service them. That sounded sensible and reasonable to me.

  In January of 2006, I used what savings I had in addition to some credit cards to transfer funds in the amount of $12,570.00 to Creative Concepts. After I received the machines, I spent days leading to weeks, then months trying to place the machines…all to no avail. I was dumfounded to learn that just about every location I visited had contracts with either Pepsi or Coke. I went to hotels, motels, colleges, malls, factories, gyms, office buildings, rental centers, car dealers, bowling alleys, roller skating rinks and just about every kind of business you can imagine. Curiously, many of them told me that they had already been contacted by Red Bull in the past about placing a machine and had turned them down.

  I finally found one apartment complex willing to let me put a machine out by their picnic area. Exasperated, I finally contacted a Red Bull representative to hear of any ideas he would have in helping to locate my machines. I was quite taken when he jokingly said to me: “Yeah, they (meaning Creative Concepts) sell you the machines but they don’t tell you that you won’t find anywhere to put them.” At that time I was very confused as to why Red Bull would allow a company to sell their machines when they KNEW that people had very little, if any, chance of securing locations for them! I think I realized at that time that this whole scenario was corrupt and that Red Bull had been involved in some kind of scheme with this Creative Concepts Company. I also found out shortly after I received my machines that the affiliation between Red Bull and Creative Concepts was dissolved.

  I was contacted by both for buy back programs and eventually sold the machines back to Red Bull for $1700.00 for the 2 new machines and $1500.00 for the used machine for a total loss of $7,750.00. It was very unfortunate for me to lose this money but I have been able to maintain and pay off my credit cards by working a few extra hours at the job I was told I may be able to retire from! I know that others have invested much more and that it has affected their lives in profound ways and will continue to do so for many years to come, possibly their whole life.

  Red Bull acted in a very fraudulent manner and should be held accountable for involving themselves in business practices that leave so many people bankrupt, destitute and broken hearted. They agreed to be in a partnership with a company that was selling machines (with the Red Bull name emblazoned all over it) full well knowing that you CANNOT FIND PROFITABLE LOCATIONS FOR THESE MACHINES!!!!!!! Red Bull is a multimillion dollar company and should make restitution.

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