On October 3, 2014 I was approached at my house where I office from home for our family business [KAM Kartway and KAM Motorsports] by a man selling who said he was selling advertising on take out menus for local restaurants. He was working with Tator Junction on a big order and quoted me some numbers on how many customers they had come through the restaurant and also their take out volume. He quoted me around $500(ish) for an ad. I hesitated and told him that I would need to think about it and mentioned that the amount was over budget for us at the time (our slow season and year-end banquet for the race track was coming up). He turned on his salesman charm and pitched me an “offer I couldn’t refuse”: reduced the price to $364.00 for a larger ad than the one first quoted and said that he would throw in another restaurant’s menu (same size ad) for free. The other restaurant was Dos Chilis (both restaurants are in Boyd, Texas about 3 and 5 miles West of my business location). Being very familiar with both establishments and frequenting Dos Chilis an average of once or twice a month myself (and my husband often went to Tator Junction as well), so I knew that both places did have take-out menus and were indeed popular establishments, as he was using as one of his key points in the sales pitch I decided the offer was in fact a good deal and proceeded to sign a contract and write him a check. He asked me to email his m*********@yahoo.com email account with our logo and any pictures or previous advertisements we had done that they could use for inspiration to design our ad. I did so that next day. The check was cashed and cleared my bank on 10-7-14. On 10-17-14 I received the following email asking me for items (logo, pictures, etc.) for the ad from the “new” designer James Hughes. To which I sent the following reply with attachments for our logo, track pictures, a NASCAR themed ad I had done with one of our young drivers, our KAM Motorsports (parent company) logo, and another ad proof from previous ad campaign and pictures of our karts and drivers. I also directed him to our facebook page and website for further information on our track for which the ad was being produced: KAM Kartway. I wanted him to get a good feel for what we did and what our business was all about. On or about 10-20-15 the sales man came back to my house. [I am going to call him Brian Mann as that is what his business card says and lists him as the V.P. of Mr Manns Menu with a phone number of 817-717-0766 and email address of m***********@yahoo.com (in addition to the art one listed above).] He said that he just landed another restaurant account to do their menus and insisted that I place an ad with this menu too as the place was booming with business and the food was amazing. In fact he had just ate there prior to coming over to my home office. The place was Freedom Fried Hamburgers and the deal he offered was if I placed an ad he would only charge me $150.00 since I had already signed with him to do the other 2 menus (Tater Junction & Dos Chilis). At this point he was such a good sales person I actually needed advertising and signage to be sold for my business, the dirt kart track. We discussed the possibilities and potential of what our track had to offer signage wise and being right on a major highway, sports geared towards children, motorsports being such a popular sporting venue, etc. he had convinced me that he could sell ALL the sign space that I had to offer at the track and as soon as he finished this last contract (I assumed with the burger place) he would get with me and we would have a sit down meeting with our mutually agreed upon sign company and work out the details. I admit that I was more suckered into that one and gave him my credit card information and purchased the additional ad for $150.00. I failed to get a contract for this transaction as at this point I felt that were on a “friends” basis and about to do business together ourselves. Shook hands and he told me to email him specs on signs and sales copy that I’ve used so he could do some “homework” on my industry (Race Tracks). On 10-17-15 I sent the following email to him: Initially we were in communications for about a month trying to pinpoint a date that would work for both of us and he answered my calls (approx. 3-4 at this point) with no problem. Since then I have left numerous messages with him and emailed him several times with the last being on 6-8-15 regarding selling advertising for my track. I have not heard back from him and the latest email bounced back to me saying there was no such email address. I was disappointed in not hearing back from him because I can be a hard sale and he sold me, not once but twice, advertising in a market that my business is already known in and the funds could have been better used elsewhere. I had put some high hopes in him helping me make money for our struggling business by selling highway and specialty signage at our dirt track. So in total I paid Mr Manns Menu (Brian Mann) $514.00 for ads that were never produced on menus that were never printed, nor to the best of my knowledge even authorized by the restaurants. The latter conclusion is based on the fact that on August 1, 2015 my mother was in town visiting and I took her to eat dinner at Tater Junction (first time I had been there in well over a year) and upon settling the tab with the manager after we ate I asked him to see one of his take-out menus. He informed me that he didn’t have any at the time, and he added that he hadn’t had menus printed in some time and, as an afterthought I guess, he mentioned how he needed to get some printed up. I asked him about our ad and the Mr Manns Menu guy. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about so I further explained that at the end of last year I purchased a large ad that was supposed to be on his take-out menu and that I had paid $364.00 for the advertisement. I mentioned that he was doing menus for him, Dos Chilis and Freedom Fried Burgers. That seemed to jog his memory and he said “oh, that guy”, “yeah I talked to him about doing my menus but the deal never happened.”