Subj:	Re: sewing machine scams
Date:	99-11-27 18:15:01 EST
From:	jleslie@owlcreekdesign.com (John Leslie)


Hello,
   I read with interest your posted letters of rip-offs and wanted you to 
know we were involved in stopping part of a similar operation which
was taking in money from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.  
  In 1992 I had attempted to discourage my mother from buying from a 
similar one day sale at a local sewing shop, but she wanted a Necchi,  
so I made sure she got a SIGNED receipt and kept the newspaper 
advertizement as well as a business card. Needless to say, she never
got a machine and whenever she called the company number she was 
put off by a company member who claimed the sales rep was selling
the machines faster than the company could ship them. 
     The salesman had claimed to sell 30 or more a day, and didn't 
have room in his little pickup for all of them.
    The name of this slick shyster family was Lamb, and they 
were from Van Buren, Arkansas. Some of the company names they
used between 1989 and 1993 were Consolidated Distributing, Consolidated 
Sales Inc., Sew Mart, Atlas, and Mid-South Sales.
The name they used on us was National Distributing Company.
   They let us know that they had filed bankruptcy and we couldn't
collect against them.
   Well, we were fed up and called the Oklahoma Attorney General's
office, the better business bureau and the police.
   Eventually the state of Arkansas filed a lawsuit against them and
settled for a restitution sum of $44,000. By the way, we never recovered
all our money, only a portion of the $252.42 they took. The Arkansas
settlement barred this family from ever engaging in activities of sewing 
machine sales or service WITHIN ARKANSAS or AGAINST ARKANSAS
CONSUMERS.
   After looking over your site, I would suggest that people wanting a
sewing machine should be very cautious and buy from reputable dealers.
We have kept, by the way, all the documentation of this, besides providing 
copies of it all to the FBI.
   (My mother still doesn't have a working sewing machine.)


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