Coupon Connection of America - The Anatomy of a Business Opportunity Scam
When the Attorney General of West Virginia shut down Coupon Connection of American last July, 2005, it marked the end of a very pathetic business opportunity fraud that operated for at least six years. CCOA promised to sell to distributors books of coupons that they could in turn resell to consumers and make a profit. Here is the archive of the CCOA website.
The first complaint about CCOA was handled in a tragic-comic fashion by David Horwitz, of the Horwitz fights back fame. Due to his interventions, the distributor only lost 80 cents on the dollar. Nice work.
The full story of Donald Farmer's, the principal behind CCOA, fraud is told by the West Virginia's AG here.
How could consumers have protected themselves against this fraud? Buying coupons to resell sounds perfectly reasonable, a middle man we are all used to. But what is wrong with the picture?
Technorati Tags: business opportunity fraud, ccoa, west virginia, middle man, vending machines, coupons, consumers, coupon connection, comic fashion, atms, kiosks, pathetic, interventions, fights
When becoming a distributor for anything, vending machines, atms, kiosks, etc, you want to first locate the trade association for this distributorship and there may be several trade associations. In this case, the appropriate trade association is The Coupon Information Centre. When we read what they have to say about coupon reselling, a promising arbitrage opportunity disappears.
Technorati Tags: business opportunity fraud, ccoa, west virginia, middle man, vending machines, coupons, consumers, coupon connection, comic fashion, atms, kiosks, pathetic, interventions, fights
