TAVG aggressive marketing not welcome in our community.
Over the last year, small business in our resort community in CO have been receiving renewal invoices (sometimes spelled as Renewel Invoice) from TAVG priced between $112 -$150+ per year. After meeting with business owners repeatedly over the last quarter, and countless attempts to contact this company, we decided to initiate the process to a submit a claim with the BBB and USPS.
There is no language on these invoices, or bills, that say this is "not a bill" as outlined below. These seem to be blindly mailed to any address, in fact we have seen multiple invoices sent to the same business with different company names that our local postman became uncomfortable and disgusted with the erroneous mailing addresses that many can't be delivered costing him time = $ = federal dollars = your pocket. Some renewal invoices come with a TAVG sticker sloppily cut, and others with barely legible w-9's. Like I said calls have gone unanswered.
None of our businesses were on this site prior to getting these invoices for service. One of the local owners here paid but has yet to see anything on the website for his business (as of today the website is not online). His calls and complaints have also gone unanswered, but the check was cashed immediately. His energy his helped us get this process going and his bank has initiated the process of retrieving money.
After searching the web for an answer we found this message board through a recent TAVG PR. After watching and reading this stock board, we are all but assured we are not the only ones targeted in this scam (sadly is seems like investors got the raw deal here, but we want to let you know you aren't the only ones getting scammed)
This is not the only business that tries to get our business like this, but this is the only one that doesn't include any language stating that it is a solicitation and not in fact a bill. We can throw those away, but invoices get our attention and unfortunately some of us have lost money, time, and energy.
The recent article left a bad taste in our mouth:
Irving went on to comment, “Our focus on capitalizing on the operating leverage inherent in our business model, as well overall improvements in our marketing efficiencies (in terms of yielding greater sales revenues for each dollar of marketing expenditures) and a focus on building bigger, better, and higher priced apps clearly yielded significant benefits for us during Q1 2014.
Yes, blindly mailing tens of thousands of renewal invoices in hopes of a check 5% of the time is profitable, but illegal.
This is our statement and is in our honest opinion. We are not lawyers just want the truth to be heard.
More info:
Title 39, United States Code, Section 3001, makes it illegal to mail a solicitation in the form of an invoice, bill, or statement of account due unless it conspicuously bears a notice on its face that it is, in fact, merely a solicitation. This disclaimer must be in very large (at least 30-point) type and must be in boldface capital letters in a color that contrasts prominently with the background against which it appears.
The disclaimer must not be modified, qualified, or explained, such as with the phrase "Legal notice required by law." It must be the one prescribed in the statute, or alternatively, the following notice prescribed by the U.S. Postal Service: THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER.
Also, the website isn't even online as of the time of this post :
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