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Old 05-26-2005, 11:36 AM   #40
Cyprus106
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Sport Compact Pro "Sponsorships"
READ IT

A friend of mine that now lives in Indiana called me up a few years back and says "Dood, I got sponsored by RacerX!" This was the first I'd heard about RacerX. I thought maybe it was some obscure car magazine that had just slipped through the cracks, or maybe it was some parts company that I just somehow failed to hear about, neither were likely, but stranger things have happened. When I asked him what they sold, he told me he didn't know. Now, at the time he had a nearly all stock 240SX with an exhaust, shift knob, and big plans. Of all of the kids I knew that said they were going to do all sorts of cool things with their Civics, Probes, and Integras, he was the only one I believed. In good reason. I thought maybe by some miracle and a big stretch and possibly the right connections, some manager somewhere saw the potential and decided to sponsor him. Eventually he put a RB20DET in his 240 and did masses of upgrade work, and now is well on his way to getting shipped overseas to become a certified Porsche technician. He was never the kind of guy I would expect to fall for a scam, but I was very skeptical. He said he had to pay some sort of fee and place at least 2 decals on his car but then he got all sorts of discounts off of retail on parts. I replied with "Discount off of retail, like MSRP? Because nobody sells at MSRP... It can be hundreds lower, you know that?" He, again, admitted he didn’t know the full details, and I didn't want to rain on his parade, so I tried to stay away from being cynical. I asked him if he had to go to any shows, or if he had some commitment to win, something to get maximum exposure, how his sponsor got all of their money that they were apparently throwing at him en masse back through advertising, and exactly what they were even advertising? About the only thing he could think of were the decals he had to put on and he had to go to a few car shows a year, but they didn’t care to have any proof that he went. For almost a year he drove around with RacerX stickers. He ended up never using the "Sponsorship", even with literally close to ten grand dumped into his car from a host of manufacturers. When half a dozen of my friends started to talk about how they got sponsored by RacerX too and that they could win a Skyline and that in itself justified paying the small “cover costs”, I had a scam, or at least a good hustle, fairly pegged. Sooner or later, all of my friends realized that they threw however big of a wad of cash down for nothing to get essentially nothing and the whole big ordeal of seemingly half of everybody in town getting these huge sponsorships died down fairly rapidly. To be honest, I can’t remember one person actually using this “sponsorship”.

Now I’ve been starting to hear some buzz about ”Sport Compact Pro” being this huge sponsor. I instantly thought of RacerX, after hearing even the smallest details, and when I saw this post in the MR2OC forum, (Sorry, you may have to sign up to see it), I was sure. The “sponsoree” Received a letter stating that they did accept your sponsorship, and that “We just want to remind that we had charged you $88 for the contract fee, however this is tax deducible since 100% of the proceeds go to victims of illegal street racing.”. This new company, Sport Compact Pro, is even more blatantly obvious about their scam than RacerX was, who at least offered a coveted and rare car for your money.
They don’t even offer you free decals, which I personally know to cost less than a dollar each, but charge you $79.95 or $88 to “cover decal costs” and “Legal fees” to write up the contract (which is laughable. They have to have a lawyer write it up once, and once only. And do you have any idea how many people SCP is “Sponsoring?” I doubt it cost a few hundred thousand to write up one little legally binding contract that says they get to keep your money if you want it back), and probably a little bit to cover the cost of this awesome free DVD that they send you. You’d better like it, by the way, since it’s the only tangible thing you’re going to be getting out of this “deal”. The victims of illegal street racing that they pay; that’s not only a slap in the face, but I see that as a personal “fuck you” to everybody who is gullible enough to shove their hard earned money in the pocket of this greedy and exploitive company. No, it’s not tax deductible. No payment is tax deductible unless you are a church or a non-for-profit group paying a business. Unless you’re donating to a non-for-profit group, which this company is not. It is not tax deductible, you don’t get the money back. Even if I’m wrong about the aforementioned statement, you still won’t be able to deduct it, you won’t get that money back, even in the form of taxes. If you don’t believe me, go to the Official IRS List of Tax Exempt Organizations and search away. If it’s not there, the IRS won’t honor it. And after an hour of searching, I didn’t even pick up a scent.
Recently, I happened to grab some random car magazine off a grocery store shelf, attracted by the spider-design style decals on the featured cover car, and as I was leafing through it mindlessly, I nearly laughed out loud when I saw a full page advertisement for Sport Compact Pro’s Sponsorship Search!
Companies, corporations, businesses do not search you out to take a sponsorship. That’s almost worth repeating over and over. And if you still don’t get why, here’s the general idea behind a sponsorship… A company that sponsors you wants one thing out of you: advertisement. They don’t care about anything else. Trust me, they do not want to “hook you up”. At all. They want cheaper advertisement, and if you want them to sponsor you, you have to make them believe they’ll get more exposure out of you, to people that actually want to buy their product, and it will be cheaper for the company to do it this way than some other way or ways. These companies, they pay you to get sponsored, not the other way around. Even then, most companies, especially big companies, won’t even give you the time of day. And if you have much less than jaw dropping, or if you can’t talk very very sweet to them, (bear in mind that this one still requires a very nice, unique car), chances are they’ll laugh at you. They want people to like your car, see their company’s name on your car, and buy the product that they’re selling. Sport Compact Pro just blatantly doesn’t have a product, or a service, or anything else for that matter except a “Sponsorship”. They’re literally selling sponsorships. Ask yourself why in the world they need your car and why they want to use it to advertise nothing at all, since that’s what they’re selling? The biggest kicker is that if they can easily slap down twelve thousand dollars, which appears to be everybody’s magic number, to just throw in gobs at your car, why in the world would they need a seventy to eighty dollar up-front fee? This is a twisted version of a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi Scheme mixed together. Look either or both up and address the similarity. They take your money and give you nothing. If you buy something from them or their list of authorized vendors or they pay part of your cost, chances are they still aren’t losing any money. Especially if they want you to buy the parts from them, I would almost bet my car they’re making profit off of the parts that get sold.
Chances are if you fell prey to this elaborate and lavish scam, and sent them your wad of McDonalds money in the high hopes of getting your early 90s stock Probe a big name sponsorship, and then want the money back, they’ll avoid you for weeks. If you’ve already signed the contract and want the money back, you’re S.O.L, although if they have your money, you probably are anyways. By the way, the sponsorship only lasts one year. So get all of the parts you can as fast as you can. Their discount lists are probably just as bad as their sweet talking and when you call to order you’ll likely get neglected for weeks before being gravely disappointed that you could have already bought the parts you wanted at a local or online shop for less, even with their amazing discount. Please, because I care about the people that post on these forums, and their money, because it’s probably just as valuable to you guys as mine is to me, don’t feed this lying company that’s only looking to exploit your dream of being sponsored. I will guarantee you with every ounce of truth in my body that it is not worth it. I hope this helps SOMEBODY not be a sucker.

Matt “Cyprus” Holmes
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