Re: Fwd: A Scam at WALE?

["'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, SteveOrdinetz wrote:

> While WALE certainly sounds like they're using some very slippery
> salesmanship to sell brokered time on the station, it doesn't sound to me
> like they're doing anything illegal, immoral or fattening.  

No?  If this story is true, it sounds like criminal fraud to me.  They
solicited people and made it sound as though they had a job available, not
a brokered time slot.  They made promises about training that they didn't
keep.  They kept saying that they were going to find sponsors.  They
didn't say a word about these people having to find their own sponsors
until after they paid money.  They sucked them in with promises of a job
and training, then asked for money.  They took the money and never gave
them the air time or training that they promised.

And they said they were the most powerful station in Southern New England.
Unless Southern New England is just Rhode Island, this is demonstrably
untrue.  And maybe not even then.

I have NEVER
> heard of a brokered time arrangement where the station was responsible for
> selling advertising...usually it's up to the person leasing the time to try
> & recoup their costs on their own. Usually providing the airtime is the
> station's only obligation. 

I've never heard of a brokered time arrangement where the station comes up
with the program concept and says they're looking for someone to do it.
The brokered time arrangements that I've heard of involve someone with a
program buying station time to do it.  If events were as described, it
sounds like a scam to me.

 If the contract specifically stated the station
> would sell the time, then your friends might want to enlist the services of
> a lawyer (we've got at least 2 here on the list). Realistically, how many
> stations that broker out a substantial portion of their airtime are not
> stations that are at the bottom of the barrel?  
 
The way I hear it, some stations that broker time are doing quite well.
In any event, they are up front about brokering their time.

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 A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                         617.367.0468
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