BBB Alert:
Utah businesses targeted with fake high school sports sponsorships
10/11/2019 Salt Lake City, UT - BBB Serving Northern Nevada and Utah has received reports of suspicious practices from Sports Media Marketing, a Texas-based company that is taking money from businesses under the guise of selling sponsorship deals on behalf of local Utah high school sports teams.
Detective Von Dookhran of the Lone Peak Police Department contacted BBB to get more information on Sports Media Marketing after receiving a report from a business owner who spent thousands for a sponsorship with American Fork High School that didn’t exist.
“They call from a Texas number, really kind, very friendly, and say ‘we work with the high school getting their sponsorships, and wanted to reach out to you to see if you want to sponsor the football team,’” said the business owner to BBB. These sponsorships would supposedly allow businesses to put their own logos and names on t-shirts, banners, and other school spirit-themed items with the promise of selling or displaying them at local high school sporting events.
In this case, the business owner ordered hundreds of t-shirts and a banner, then was left confused when nothing was displayed or sold at the game. American Fork High School had no idea about this business’s supposed sponsorship, or who Sports Media Marketing was.
BBB complaints filed against Sports Media Marketing allege the same: the company never had any permission from schools to solicit sponsorship deals. Additionally, complaints allege an inability to reach the company to request a refund, costing businesses hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Within the past 19 months, BBB has received 41 complaints and negative customer reviews against the company alleging a total loss of nearly $20,000. These complaints and reviews are left unanswered.
“They’ll say they’ve been discussing with vice principal so and so, or that they just got off a conference call with the cheer coach,” the business owner continued. “They sound convincing. They also claim the donation is tax deductible, but none of the money is going to the school. When they charge you, each transaction is charged by a different company so you can’t blanket block them from your credit card company once you find out what they’re doing. It’s very sophisticated, which is why they’re so good at catching people.”
Sports Media Marketing is connected to four separate companies named Boost Sports Integrative Media LLC, Touchdown Sports, All American Advertising, and High School Sport Advertising. Among them, BBB has received more than an additional 40 complaints and negative customer reviews alleging the same practices.
Several other Utah businesses have been impacted by Sports Media Marketing or one of its affiliated companies. Matthew La Chappelle of True Shield Pest Control in Riverton was approached by the company and lost $100. Elva Nava, owner of Bike Lady in Salt Lake City, was similarly contacted by Touchdown Sports.
“They ran my card for a total of somewhere around $700 for a sponsorship I did not get,” said Nava.
Mike May, the Director of Athletics over the Alpine School District is familiar with the company.
“We have had reports of a company soliciting sponsorships from our local businesses on behalf of teams from our schools without any permission or agreement from the school team,” said May. He outlined the operation, saying the company may mention the school colors, or even use the name of coaches and athletic advisors to get businesses to pay over the phone.
Additionally, the Indiana Attorney General’s Office filed an injunction against Boost Sports Integrative Media LLC in January 2019 claiming the company entered into agreements with Indiana businesses for charitable purposes by representing it had gained the approval of certain Indiana public schools. However, the Attorney General’s Office states the company failed to establish sponsorship approval before soliciting businesses, failed to deliver products and remitted no funds to the schools. As of October 2019, the case is still pending.
BBB’s repeated attempts to contact Sports Media Marketing have been unsuccessful.
When deciding to purchase advertising from a business, consider these tips:
Verify the legitimacy of the fundraiser. Contact the beneficiary of the fundraiser to ensure the advertising company is authorized to solicit on their behalf.
Ask additional questions. When will the advertising be placed? When will it be available for the public to see? Will a copy of the advertisement be sent?
Get everything in writing. Request all advertising propositions, charitable appeals, requests for business information and sales pitches of any type be made in writing.
Avoid committing on the spot. Take down the name, phone number, and address of the business or organization offering the ad space. Research the company on org. Avoid falling for high-pressure sales tactics or offers that are only good for a limited time in an attempt to get you to commit on the spot.
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ABOUT BBB: For more than 100 years, the Better Business Bureau has been helping people find businesses, brands, and charities they can trust. In 2018, people turned to BBB more than 173 million times for BBB Business Profiles on nearly 5.4 million businesses and Charity Reports on 11,000 charities, all available for free at BBB.org. Today, BBB serving Northern Nevada and Utah is supported by just over 4,500 Accredited Businesses that have voluntarily committed to adhere to BBB’s Standards of Trust.
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New Research Finds Consumer Confidence in Package Delivery Services Vital for Online Retailers
INFORMS Journal Management Science New Study Key Takeaways:
CATONSVILLE, MD, October 14, 2019 – New research published in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that an online retailer’s delivery strategy is imperative to that retailer’s success and can be a determinant factor as to whether consumers purchase again.
Specifically, the researchers, Ruomeng Cui of Emory University, Meng Li and Qiang Li of Rutgers University, analyzed data from China-based Alibaba.com, the largest international online retail platform. Alibaba carries approximately 800 million product barcodes as compared to the 560 million carried by Amazon.
The researchers focused on a particular shipping issue that occurred in June 2017, when Alibaba customers lost access to SF Express, a prominent Chinese delivery services company, as a delivery option for 42 hours.
During those 42 hours, Alibaba customers had to use other third-party suppliers, and as a result, Alibaba’s sales dropped significantly due to the lack of access to that trusted shipper. Instead of delaying their purchases, customers purchased from competing online retailers who were able to ship with the guaranteed delivery of a highly trusted service.
Cui, Li and Li also analyzed the data to determine which products suffered the most when Alibaba’s customers lost access to SF Express.
“Popular, expensive and less discounted products were negatively impacted the most, because these are products that are easy for consumers to purchase elsewhere,” said Cui, a professor in the Goizueta Business School at Emory.
The researchers noted the importance between not only ensuring a differentiated product strategy, but also the critical nature of their logistics and delivery strategies.
“The retailer has to know how much speed, reliability and quality to build in delivery and they need to decide how much control they want in the delivery service,” said Cui. “In designing the logistics strategy, retailers should evaluate their product portfolios to see whether the high-quality strategy or a cost-effective strategy is a better fit. If retailers do this correctly it can give them a huge advantage in the online e-commerce space.”
About INFORMS and Management Science
Management Science is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly journal focused on research using quantitative approaches to study all aspects of management in companies and organizations. It is published by INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals. More information is available at www.informs.org or @informs.
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Hi Jim
Please feel free to publish the following article as is. If you’d like email comments or an interview with Nahum, please feel free to let me know and I will coordinate.
Best,
Terry
Why Lower Interest Rates
Aren't Good News for Retirees
Interest rates keep dropping, causing rising concern among some retirees, financial experts say.
That’s because, while cutting lower interest rates can stimulate the economy by making it cheaper to borrow, consumers usually earn less interest on their savings. Falling interest rates are part of what economists call “financial repression,” which can pose challenges to retirees and to those who are nearing retirement, says Nahum Daniels (www.integratedretirementadvisors.com), author of Retire Reset!: What You Need to Know and Your Financial Advisor May Not Be Telling You.
“Our banking system does not shoulder a specific mandate to provide financial security to America’s retirees,” says Daniels. “In fact, some of its actions may actually prove harmful.
“Retirees need to know how financial repression will affect them, and what, if anything, they can do to counteract its consequences without creating even bigger problems for themselves.”
Financial repression, a term coined by Stanford economists Edward S. Shaw and Ronald I. McKinnon, means that governments essentially use the private sector to service public debt. The tie-in with interest rates is that governments effectively reduce the burden on public debt by keeping interest-rate levels below inflation. Low rates could lead to more business borrowing and economic growth. But Daniels adds that the downside of falling interest rates is it effectively taxes the country’s savers.
“Shrinking interest rates work to the detriment of retirees,” Daniels says. “Low rates also mean the Social Security trust fund earns even less on money it lends to the government, worsening the growing shortfall as baby boomers retire.
“It’s crucial for retirees and those nearing retirement to protect their portfolios against the whipsaw effects of interest-rate volatility — i.e., falling rates that drive stock and bond prices higher, followed by rising rates that drive those same prices lower.”
Daniels explains three ways retirees can counteract the effects of financial repression:
De-risk the portfolio. ““Losses in or near retirement can be hard to recover from, especially if you’re taking annual withdrawals from your nest egg, so avoid those losses by de-risking your portfolio,” Daniels says. “The traditional way of de-risking is rebalancing your asset allocation, which means scaling back on stocks and investing more in safer vehicles like CDs or annuities.”
Think short-term with bonds. “Returns on bonds are critical to achieving future income objectives,” Daniels says. “If you’re buying bonds, keep to minimal-risk investments that have maturities of two to five years. Individual bonds are one of the best-known types of fixed-income securities, and you can avoid possible capital losses on the fixed-income portion of your portfolio by keeping bond duration low. The trade-off for stability, however, is low yield.”
Consider a fixed-indexed annuity. “You can anchor your nest egg to the fixed-indexed annuity, which is a form of longevity insurance that seeks to deliver returns that are competitive with investment-grade, or minimal-risk bonds, but are built to avoid the ups and downs,” Daniels says.
“Investors in retirement or very close to it need to recognize the potential risks imposed by a banking culture that serves its own purposes,” Daniels says. “Financial repression represents that. This is a banking culture that is not particularly focused on the needs or future well-being of America’s retirees, so it’s critical these people know what their alternatives are to stabilize their hard-earned retirement funds.”
About Nahum Daniels
Nahum Daniels (www.integratedretirementadvisors.com) is the founder and chief investment officer of Integrated Retirement Advisors, LLC. He is the author of Retire Reset!: What You Need to Know and Your Financial Advisor May Not Be Telling You. A Certified Financial Planner and Retirement Income Certified Professional, Daniels has served mature investors for over 30 years.
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Hi Dawn,
Happy National Energy Awareness Month! With the U.S. Department of Energy estimating families could save up to 25% on utilities with energy efficient measures, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Most & Least Energy-Efficient States as well as accompanying videos.
To gauge the financial impact of doing more with less energy — the average American household spends at least $2,000 per year on utilities and another $2,109 on motor fuel and oil — WalletHub compared the auto- and home-energy efficiency in 48 U.S. states. Due to data limitations, Alaska and Hawaii were excluded from our analysis.
Energy Efficiency in Utah (1=Most Energy-Efficient; 24=Avg.)
For the full report, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/most-and-least-energy-efficient-states/7354/
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Dear Editor:
Please consider this call for nonviolent action by Dr. Wim Laven, who gives us a sample litany of the egregious and continuing fraud and scandals emerging from Trump week after week. For PeaceVoice, thank you,
Tom Hastings
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Citizens must remove Trump from office
by Wim Laven
953 words
Familiarize yourself with the hashtag #OutNow, it is refusefacism.org’s message: “In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America!” Their goal is seeing the Trump/Pence regime gone—now. The protests in Los Angeles and New York to be held on October 19th will showcase this necessary cause—there is no higher form of patriotism than protest and dissent against politicians and policies that harm humans and our environment—and no cause more noble than the effort to save humanity from the most corrupt Whitehouse administration in history.
I have written about the need of the people to peaceably assemble in calling for a return to American values a number of times and I feel there is no greater use of my time than there is in calling on my fellow citizens to take to the streets and tell this conman: “Donald Trump, you’re fired!” The people have the power, and we must exercise our power when the system of checks and balances fails (as it is).
There is no more waiting to be saved. The numerous instances of obstruction of justice identified in the Mueller Report on Russian interference in the U.S. Presidential election convinced everyone who read it. The partisan divide is preventing too many from doing their jobs. They care about mob-like loyalty pledges, they do not care about the oaths they’ve sworn to the offices they hold.
With each new exposure the public sees more corruption and more abuse by the White House. The corruption, however, has not buried Trump, it has only buried the other egregious stories of corruption and scandal—Trump profits from misdirecting military flights to random places where military personnel then stay in his resorts. Trump alters a weather map with a Sharpie, lying about it, and then has his cabinet member threaten to fire any NOAA personnel who correct him. Trump pays off porn stars with whom he has had affairs (while married to Melania). Trump coerces foreign leaders to find bogus dirt on his domestic political opponent. Trump blatantly misappropriates funds from his erstwhile “charitable” organization. This list could go on and on. It is numbingly fraudulent and as corrupt as any banana republic ever was, the First American Kleptocracy.
Listing off the series of offenses—crimes against humanity—might make a person of conscience feel hopeless. Where does a person start? Inventing immigrant invasions, which have inspired mass shootings… Putting innocent children—separated from their families—in cages… Dozens of accusations of sex crimes and assaults… Illegal payoffs to cover-up affairs and infidelity… Lies of a scale unheard of, period.
In the name of humanity, it is necessary that people rise up, take to the streets, and resist.
While Trump has been corrupt throughout his tenure, the danger he presents has grown as has the destruction he has caused. In the last week he gave a green light to Turkey, less than a day later the genocide of our ally had started. This is different for the other atrocities he ignores and promotes. From Trump’s children-in-cages at our southern border to Trump’s slaughtered Kurdish children at the Turkish-Syrian border.
Protecting the Kurds in Northern Syria was an absolute no-brainer, the certainty amongst security professionals something like the 99.3 percent scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Turkey has been clear about their interests and motivations, and the role of Kurds for stabilizing the region and containing imprisoned members of ISIS is beyond dispute. Trump is acting in the clear interest of Putin, as Russia continues to woo Turkey away from NATO; now Trump has given Turkey its genocidal opportunity and Turkey thanks Putin for making Trump do his bidding again.
Trump’s horrible lack of ability in problem solving and negotiation pales in comparison with current atrocities; blowing up the excellent diplomacy and statecraft of the Iran deal—does not compare with the mangled bodies of innocent children whose families fought for us. This is why #OutNow has elevated to absolutely necessary status. Trump is so clearly acting for his own profit and the betterment of other states like Russia that neglect of our civic duty to see him removed from office actually represents the death spiral of democracy.
If Russian-funded and supported Trump-gargoyles like Ron DeSantis, Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell have their way, then Russia gets a great bang for their buck. Their partisan plot has jammed up the legislative branch—no doubt about it—they have prevented measures with 90 percent (and more) public support from getting a vote… they have prevented Supreme Court nominees from getting a vote… they obstruct, prevent, stifle, … and they clearly have motivation for defending Trump.
If people do not stand up, then it is clear that foreign money and influence will continue. The implications of such corruption exaggerating the demise of climate protections and democratic institutions are a horror I do not want to imagine.
If people do stand up, then it is also clear what will happen. The damage slows. Some damage is irreparable, but the chance for healing also begins.
The healing will only come when the people take responsibility for solving the problem. The years of divisive rhetoric have taken a toll, and some of the messaging has been absorbed and the world has been watching. The apathy and inaction echo the worst events in history, you cannot continue to call yourself a good person when you’ve been willing to ignore… we’ve ignored and allowed so much… Citizens must remove Trump from office in the name of humanity, both the world’s and our own, otherwise there is no denying the genocide we are complicit in—removing Trump from office is the means for washing the blood from our hands.
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Wim Laven, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, teaches courses in political science and conflict resolution.
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Dear Editor:
Please consider this guest commentary from journalist and professor Steve Klinger, musing on the threats to decency, our democracy, and civil discourse posed by Trump, but more profoundly by those who support him. For PeaceVoice, thank you,
Tom Hastings
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In for a dime, in for a dollar
By Steve Klinger
888 words
Many years ago, when we played what we called ‘penny-ante poker,’ there was always an unhappy participant who, as the evening wore on, slid more and more of his chips (or coins) to the middle of the table and recovered very few of them. This guy didn’t want to give up, but neither did he have very good cards to play. He wasn’t good at bluffing, he didn’t want to rock the boat, he was perhaps a tad masochistic, so he would grudgingly go along when someone raised the stakes. He would ‘see’ the aggressor, but never raise him, and he would repeatedly sigh and mutter, “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”
It seems like today’s Republicans, especially those in the Trump administration or elected members of Congress, have cast themselves in the ill-fated card player’s role. They are not master con artists like their leader (though sycophant-in-chief Lindsey Graham tries desperately to play the part), but they seem drawn into playing every hand the same way. They know it’s a losing hand, but they don’t dare raise and they can’t seem to fold.
Except today’s Republicans are playing with human lives. They are doing so with the currency of a nation’s form of government, its standing in the world, built on 230 years of constitutional stability, which has been threatened by many things but never a chief executive like Trump, who would lead us all to perfidy just to protect his fragile ego, or probably his extra-superhold comb-over.
Republicans knew in 2015 (and before) that this man was disastrously ill-suited to the presidency, but he was meaner, tougher and more cunning than anyone who stood in his way, with an innate sense of how to win the race to the bottom by inspiring the very worst in human nature. With a combination of privilege and malignant narcissism, he learned to indulge his id without restraint, trampling those who challenged him in his moral gutter or tried to take a slightly higher road, such as the curb. (This all started with New York real estate, after all.)
As always, it was Trump who was best at scapegoating, striking the greatest fear into whatever base he had, touching the nerve of what most angered or threatened them, even as he stroked his ego by amusing them with sadistic humor, poking cruel fun at the handicapped, women, minorities, and the foibles he unerringly spotted in those who dared to disagree with him. It was the classic con game, where the biggest charlatan somehow persuaded his victims he was one of the—first amongst fake equals--while he proceeded to bilk them of what little they had left.
And yet the conditions were ripe for Trump’s ascension (runaway capitalism, unresolved culture wars, racist backlash to the election of a black president, etc., etc.). You can blame Trump in small part for the morass in which this country finds itself, but it’s kind of like blaming a turkey vulture for tearing apart roadkill. We all have our survival mechanisms. In any case, neither Trump nor the vulture would attack something that was capable of fighting back.
We’d have been rid of Trump several years ago if Republicans had backbones. But their Machiavellian opportunism has been cultivated for years with hypocrisy for fertilizer; they loved their half of the devil’s bargain they made with Trump, in which he advanced their agenda while they ignored…where should I start? His vulgarity, his immorality, his corruption, his sadistic cruelty (racism, sexism, ableism, white nationalism), his quest for democracy-killing authoritarianism, his pathological mendacity, his petty vindictiveness—in short, his incapacity for any positive, cross-culturally admired human trait, except the brutal will to succeed at any cost. And that is a trait admired mainly by those who, left behind, seem destined to find the most monstrous voice of their generation to follow. But that’s another story, in which Democrats are hardly without blame.
So now Republicans are so heavily bought into the Cult of Trump that each new outrage elicits a distracted shrug followed by a litany of excuses, ranging from ‘witch hunt’ to ‘fake news,’ to accusations of ‘Democratic overreach.’ In the latest case of the Ukraine phone call, the best they can seem to do is whine, “They’d impeach over this after Hillary’s emails?” and now with his appeal to China to interfere with our next election on his behalf, “Oh, it was a joke.” Uh-huh.
As Trump sagely tweeted a couple of years ago, “I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot SomebodyAnd I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters.” Amen.
Because what started out as a great-looking bargain—“We Republicans get a tax cut and a couple of Supreme Court justices, industrial deregulation, higher border fences, and all we have to put up with is some crude language and a little corruption?”—has snowballed into a subversion of all they claimed to value, including a livable future for themselves and their descendants.
But still the Republicans are holding their cards and not finding a way out of the game. And they know if they fold ‘em, he’ll scold ‘em, and they’ll be out of power and in a world of hurt before Sweet Old Donald is through with them. Worse yet, they don’t dare call his bluff.
“In for a dime, in for a dollar.” What about, “In for the collapse of Western society”? Or, “In for the Sixth Great Mass Extinction”? Hard to win with a hand like that.
-end-
Steve Klinger is a veteran community journalist and college English instructor based in southern New Mexico. Frequently skeptical about the capacity of the written word to inspire activism, he also writes songs, hoping to add the power of music to his topical lyrics.
