Pocket Pro Advertising

We, like many of the other areas, get hit up often for sports advertising in our communities. As a proud supporter of our youth athletics, it's somewhat impulsive for us to advertise in their annual sports posters. We recently worked with a company called Pocket Pros, claiming to be collecting advertising for several schools in our service territory. We agreed to advertising in 4 of our schools and submitted payment for the invoice. Later, I received a call from another company collecting on behalf of Watford City High School, stating that they work exclusively with the school for their sports posters. Since we had already paid that invoice recently, this threw up a red flag for me. I started researching the information that I had from an email
signature, from a "contact" with the Pocket Pro company. So, I called the Watford City School Athletic Director and he also said that he had never worked with Pocket Pros, or ever heard of them.
I also called other schools that this company was soliciting for and they also had never worked with this company or heard of them.
After speaking with the athletic director at Watford City High School, he chose to move forward in contacting the authorities to investigate the possible scam. After an investigation, led by McKenzie County Sheriff's Department, Law Enforcement were contacted within the Pocket Pros city of business to investigate on our behalf. It appears that this is a legitament publishing business, which uses the Pocket Pro Advertising as an affiliated company.
It took me several attempts to reach a person at the phone number provided to me. I was finally able to reach the general manager of the main publishing company. He proceeded to tell me that it should have been implied that the Pocket
Pro Company was not affiliated with, nor did they work on behalf of the schools they were advertising for. I proceeded to ask him where the advertising was being promoted at, if not the schools. He had no reply. I also asked him about the solicitation of the schools with no athletic program or that were part of a co-op, and he had no answer as to what information was being printed on those schedules. When asked where he received the "schedule of events" that we were advertising on for these schools, since he is not affiliated with schools, he claimed that information had been provided by the schools. I stated that I had contacted all of the athletic directors in the area, and not one of them had worked with or spoken to his company before. He then rebutted that they also collect the schedule of events online. This practice gave me a particularly bad taste in my mouth, because if the ads were in fact reaching our area, the information that we were "promoting" as a sponsor, had been gathered not from the school, but an online source. For all they could know, that information could be entirely false, and they would be promoting it with our company associated with it. The general manager conveyed several times that it should have been stated to me prior to purchase that they are in no way working for, or representing the school in question. However, in the email contact that I had the sale representative specially stated that the calendars were for the "spring/winter/fall sport calendar for the specific schools."
If you research the main publishing company with BBB, you will find that this is not the first complaint that they have had.
There is also a report, extremely similar to our situation, that affected a company in the Idaho area listed on the BBB website. Though, it will not show up under the Pocket Pro name, but rather the main publishing company Commercial Newspaper Service.
While it should be noted that this is technically a "legitamate" company, they do seem to have very questionable business practices in taking advantage of the local businesses that want to show their support of local youth athletics and the school district.
This particular situation could have been entirely prevented with a simple google search, and I recommend that businesses speak with schools that they are doing advertising for; if it is a 3rd party solicitation. These athletic directors are happy to assure you that your sponsorship is in support of their district and that the business is a legitimate operation acting on their behalf.
Also, if anyone in the community feels that they are part of a scam, please do report it to the authorities. The McKenzie County Sheriff's Department was extremely quick in investigating the company in question and working with the other police departments to check the legitimacy of the Pocket Pro
Company.