Channel 7 Reprise: nothing seems to have changed

Do you remember the Channel 7 incident from a year ago? Obviously I do, since I still get email from people who got contacted by Channel 7. Where a “Tony” wants to visit the next day and make a contract.

Remember, that I was contacted by Channel 7’s Linda James, General Manager, and later John Spencer, Global Business Department after my original post. They assured me that the proceedings I described are not the norm, will not be tolerated and that Tony McGuinness would be terminated. That was that I thought, feeling kind of iffy about the fact that my complaint led to a person losing his job.

Fast forward through emails, phone calls regarding my story to last week when Slovak dentist Tomas Panek contacted me via Facebook, explaining the same story, same dodgy guy, now called Tony Wright, same gold ring, bad teeth, excuse why he was late to the meeting etc.

So it seems, nothing much has changed on Channel 7’s side regarding procedure.

The same goes for a German company who contacted my when Tony visited. They were not utterly convinced by the presentation but went along, although Channel 7 did not provide references on a bogus excuse. The “respected company with 25 years experience” could not handle credit cards for payment although they pressed so hard on quick sale. Anyway, said German company did get a profile produced, but has not heard a peep since. Not business requests, not even a single email on their designated email-address.

I  deleted the comments on the original post after the email exchange with Channel 7 but the current development makes me think this is a two person company. One salesman and a secretary…

Here are the original comments, more stories:

1. Had today a call from Amy too. In this case it was Security Service in Warsaw which was demanded. In contrast to you I was not sceptical and was very impressed by the story she presented and especially the way she did it. I wish I had her sales skills, building so quick a relation via a cold call. So I was ready to meet them but she made the “mistake” to inform me about the 3000 GBP membership deal. I blocked then because we generally don’t pay to be listed in Business directory. Looking at the website later on I came to me that the whole thing is a stunt.

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2. They also call web design companies from Berlin. Same story. I can’t recommend that kind of service. Why should someone pay that much money without any REAL “secure” information on which things you’ll get out of that contract. I told them that we’d be willing to work with a commission based system (e.g. 15% for a real assignment). Of course they didn’t like that.

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3. I was approached today by a guy called Alan, he said he was from C7 (Channel7) and that they where looking for a company to repair cars. I was so sold on the idea i was ready to give them a blank cheque. Then I though I’ll inquire about a few things before I hand over any money. I thought the company might look amazing but this Alan guy might be a con artist. Anyway I was amazed with what I found out, and I caution anyone to do extensive research on any company they are about to do business with.

1) First I called their head office to find out if Alan works for them and indeed he does.

2) I looked on the internet and found nothing of C7, not much on Google, they didn’t even rank in the top 5 pages when i searched for “Channel7″. You might argue that they have to compete with many real channels that broadcast in many countries under then name “Channel7″ but a company of their calibur should at least have been 5 or 6th in the google ranks.

3) They wouldn’t do easy payment options even though they said that they look for the best partners in the business and we should trust them. This surprised me greatly, they said they deal with wealthy people and businesses and only the best will do for them but even though we are the best repair shop in the country they weren’t even willing to give us a free trial of 3-6 months, they wanted the money there and then.

4) He showed me some news papers with full page ads in them that they could have easily edited themselves, i noticed the newspapers where stapled so you couldn’t check the connecting page and make sure it was authentic.

5) He kept insisting that he couldn’t tell me other companies they work for as that would constitute some type of advertising. I kept asking for the name of a single company they done business with and he told me the lamest thing. That telling me would break the data protection act. OMG, i actually believed him then I thought about how anyone can get this information in a “referral” for free just by contacting them. But it seams that they couldn’t give me a single name of a company they work for for legal reasons. But they are a directory that gives out these business names on a daily basis to anyone! Just not me, a guy who is about to pay them £2000 GBP.

The whole thing sounds dodgy to me. Alan said that he couldn’t tell me the name of a single company they’ve done business with. I then told him that even windows sales-men in the UK take you to houses installed windows in. He then got defensive and said that they don’t sell windows and I should shut up and respect him or something. VERY RUDE! He kept trying to shut me up so i would loose my train of though and acted like he missed the point of what I was trying to tell him.

DO NOT TRUST Channel7. They are a bullshit scam company and you could so easily fall for their crap. Why ask someone to pay £2000 for something like a referral system.