Booth angers organizers
News
ITALIAN FESTIVAL
Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 1 month ago
The manager of the Caruso Club, Johnny Cimino, is red-faced about a promotion offered during the Italian Festival at the club last weekend.
Organizers added a marketplace of exhibitors to the popular summer event for the first time. Based on the experience, they're vowing to more carefully review who rents a table at the festival in coming years.
Cimino contacted The Sudbury Star to inform festivalgoers that the "contest" offered at the booth run by We Tour America was not affiliated with the Caruso Club in any way.
Cimino wanted that message delivered after people who attended the festival began complaining about receiving phone calls from We Tour America this week.
The company invited people who stopped at their table to fill out their name, phone number and address on a "ballot" to register "for a fantastic vacation or cruise."
Cimino said people believed they were entering a draw to win a free trip, but the ballot festival goers signed stated they would be contacted and "given the opportunity to purchase vacation packages in Florida and the Bahamas."
When they were contacted by the company this week, festival goers were told about a "discount vacation" they could purchase that cost $598 for four people and were asked to put about half of that on their credit card.
Mansour Fadel, the man in charge of the promotion, insisted his company does not tell people when it phones them that they have won a vacation, but offers them the chance to buy the discount vacation.
He told The Star that the ballots people signed at the festival explained all the details of the promotion -- if people read all of the fine print.
"We don't say you won. All our phone calls are taped. And I can prove that any time," said Fadel in a telephone interview from his office located at the intersection of Dufferin Street and Finch Avenue in Toronto.
He also said: "I was doing a draw for somebody to win a vacation and there is somebody who won a vacation, that's right."
When people were contacted by his company, they were offered the opportunity to buy the discount vacation for four that includes the following: three days, two nights' accommodation in Fort Lauderdale; two days' tickets at Universal theme park; car rental for seven days; two nights' round-trip and cruise, food included; four days, three nights in Orlando; four days, three nights in Cancun, Mexico; and three days, two nights in Las Vegas.
"All this for $598 for four people," said Fadel. Of course, people who purchase the vacation have to find their own way there, pay for their meals and be subject to the availability of hotel rooms.
They must also sit-through a 90-minute "tour" of a timeshare project in Florida.
"Sometimes you make good things ... and people are just insulting you," Fadel told The Star. "I don't know why."
Fadel said the promotion company he runs is "a very boring company" and operates above board and he grew annoyed when questioned about the trips he promotes.
"Canadians don't like good things. My mom is like this. I cannot stop her," said Fadel, who said he is European.
He also said he does not understand why people would get upset about being asked for their credit card numbers because that is one of the most secure ways to pay for anything.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Paul Proulx, manager of the Canadian Anti- Fraud Centre known as Phone- Busters, said giving an unknown company your credit card number over the phone is always risky.
His organization has received five complaints about We Tour America since December.
"If there are complaints, that's not a good sign," said Proulx.
Filling out ballots such as the ones people signed at the Caruso Club last weekend is "the worst thing that you can do," said Proulx, because it gives companies personal information about you.
As police always do, the RCMP sergeant advised if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
"You have to guard your personal details. You have to do your research. People are real happy to hear they've won something and not very careful to (protect) their personal information such as credit card numbers."
While it has only received five complaints about We Tour America, Proulx said that could represent about five per cent of people unhappy with their experience with the company.
Many people don't bother reporting experiences such as these, thinking instead that they will live and learn from it.
Fadel insists that he is offering a great vacation deal -- if people would not be so suspicious about it.
He said he sold 221 vacation packages to families based on the almost 1,000 ballots filled out at the Caruso Club last week.
Proulx said he doubts that many trips were purchased.
Cimino, in the meantime, said at least one person who was not happy with receiving a sales call after filling out a ballot at the Caruso Club, has vowed not to hold any business meetings there in future.
Said Cimino: "We would never do anything like that. We wouldn't try to manipulate anybody ... we've never been dishonest to anybody. We pride ourselves on our honesty.
"Most people will understand."
cmulligan@thesudburystar.com
