WSVN — If you want your business to grow, advertising is the key. One face-painting artist tried using a small paper, but all she saw was money taken from her pocket. What can you do if you pay someone for something they don’t provide or do? Call Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.
Ory Fernandez is a talented artist, which she says usually means one thing.
Ory Fernandez: “I am a starving artist.
Patrick Fraser: “Is there any other kind?”
Ory Fernandez: “No, unless you die and when you dead, you are good.”
Ory has no desire to die to make her art valuable, so she went to plan B to pay the bills
Ory Fernandez: “And I can paint anything and I just decided why not paint on kids, on people and make some money?”
Her small company is called Gypsy Dreams Face Painting, a fun way for a single mom to make money. But she wanted her business to grow.
Ory Fernandez: “Because I need to make more money. I want to work and I want to grow it to where I have a few girls that I can send out.”
The franchise owner of a small weekly paper called the Coffee News told her he could help expand her business with an ad in his paper for her face-painting business.
Ory Fernandez: “And the ad was going to run for six months and he was having a special or something like that. He was going to put it in Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, in family restaurants.”
She wrote out a check to Coffee News Miami $390, then then waited for her ad.
Ory Fernandez: “I tried calling him. He never answered me. I thought ‘Oh, maybe he is busy.’ You know, whatever.”
She waited a month: no ad, no response.
Ory Fernandez: “I would email him and still call him and nothing. He just disappeared.”
The single mom bought the ad to boost her face painting business. Instead, she got the boot.
Ory Fernandez: “I gave him $390
Patrick Fraser: “Do you feel like its down the drain?”
Ory Fernandez: “Yeah.”
Well Howard, Ory paid the franchise $390 for the ad. So who owes her that money?
Howard Finkelstein: “The parent company of Coffee News does not owe Ory the money. The person who owned the franchise is responsible. And in this case it’s simple: you take the man who owned this franchise to court and he has to return the money.”
I contacted Ron Wasserman through his Facebook page. He owned the Coffee News franchise that covered the Palmetto Bay area and took Ory’s $390 check. He told us he did not have the franchise anymore. That he did not have the money to repay Ory, but he would reach out to her. She says he never did.
I talked to the president of Coffee News, based in Maine. Bill Buckley told me Wasserman gave ads away at ridiculously low prices and lost the franchise. Buckley said when a new owner bought the Miami franchise, they would run the ad for Ory for free. So far, no one has bought that franchise so the ad has not run.
Ory Fernandez: “I want my money back. I don’t even want to deal with them anymore.”
Ory’s is determined to make her face-painting business grow after learning a costly lesson.
Ory Fernandez: “Do your research before you give somebody your money. Really good research on the person, the business.”
So true. And if you are dealing with someone, if possible pay with a credit card. Then if you don’t get what you paid for, in many cases the credit card company will give you your money back.
Ory never got her ad to grow her business, but maybe we can help. If you plan face-painting for kids or adults, the link to contact her is below.
A problem got you painted into a corner? Want some help to face it? Contact us. We aren’t artists. Come on! A reporter and a lawyer, but we can draw up a solution or two.
With this Help Me Howard I’m Patrick Fraser.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To contact Ory at Gypsy Dreams Face Painting
http://www.gypsydreamsfacepainting.com/
https://www.facebook.com/oreofacepainting
CONTACT HELP ME HOWARD:
E-mail: helpmeHoward@wsvn.com (please include your contact phone number when e-mailing)
Reporter: Patrick Fraser at pfraser@wsvn.com
Miami-Dade: 305-953-WSVN
Broward: 954-761-WSVN