Stolen popcorn money

[SeattlePioneer]

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I think this is a nice feature of the Chief Seattle Council popcorn sale. Perhaps more councils would adopt this practice if more units started asking for it.

 

 

Do other councils offer this kind of council support of unit popcorn sales --- or perhaps other policies that help units with issues like bad checks?

[T2Eagle]

We can deposit checks directly into the Council account without running them through the Pack or Troop. I've never encountered it, but I assume this means they are responsible for collecting on bad checks since they're bouncing on their account.

 

I suspect even if the Council doesn't specifically set up a deposit system like this they would accept a stack of checks as payment if that's what you hand to them. I have never seen a professional scouter, and I know and love many of them, not accept a check handed to them. (:

[T2Eagle]

I should add that if Council doesn't make it easy for you to sell popcorn then don't sell it. They're getting half the profit from the sales so I think you'll find they're pretty accommodating when you call their bluff.

[Petey091]

I believe the first thing you need to do if you can identify the purchasers is to deliver the product to them. Do not let the mother have the product. The popcorn was sold under the banner of the BSA and we , no matter who's fault it is ,need to provide the popcorn or return the funds to the customer. You also need to ask the parent to file a theft report and give you the case number. Then just move forward from there. You're not going to get the funds from her so don't try.

[Sidney Porter]

First time reading this thread

- For those that are sayin money needs to be paid up front. That is a hard sell for the 99.9% of the scout that you don't run into problems with. I will tell you that if I am a consumer and do not know the scout I have no interest in paying for the product up front without the product. If I am a parent of the scout I am not going to send my scout out to get $1000 worth of orders and then front the money.

 

 

[scoutldr]

My neighbor's little girl just hit me up for GS cookies. She's a Daisy. I had the option of "pay me now or upon delivery". I presume if I don't fork over the cash, I don't get my cookies. The other advantage of cookies is we're only talking about, what 3 bucks? So, if the scout delivers the goods, there had better be cash or checks collected to cover it. Or a police report.

[Loomans]

First time reading this thread

- For those that are sayin money needs to be paid up front. That is a hard sell for the 99.9% of the scout that you don't run into problems with. I will tell you that if I am a consumer and do not know the scout I have no interest in paying for the product up front without the product. If I am a parent of the scout I am not going to send my scout out to get $1000 worth of orders and then front the money.

 

 

I am always amused when someone on the internet maintains that it isn't possible to be successful if you do something the way that is already proven in my actual, personal experience to be successful.The vast majority of our scouts sell to customers who know them - friends, familiy, parent work colleagues and neighbors. A good portion of our local population will buy popcorn to support scouts from any scout in uniform. Doing show and sales or neighborhood blitz programs will take care of the rest. Any potential loss of sales is offset by avoiding situations like the one described in the original post.

[scoutergipper]

Our annual Holiday Wreath sale is all pre-paid. Orders are taken 5-6 weeks before delivery. We won't accept an order that isn't pre-paid. Scouts who sell the most go well beyond their friends and family - we go out door-to-door in neighborhoods well outside where our Scouts live. Did about $25,000 in orders this year. We did have two bad checks out of about 650 individual orders for 1000 items.

[Gone]

This is not really "stolen" money, but here's a leader who, I suspect, figured he'd order the popcorn and try to sell it BEFORE he had the money.

[NJCubScouter]

This is not really "stolen" money, but here's a leader who, I suspect, figured he'd order the popcorn and try to sell it BEFORE he had the money.

That's an odd story. The leader told the council he had "a preorder" for all that popcorn - more than $28,000 worth! Later in the article it says the leader said the customer had canceled the order, but he would not disclose who the customer was. The article also says that the leader later returned about $24,000 worth of the popcorn to the council but then says: "Attorneys believe the popcorn was destroyed — at least the popcorn that was packaged in the tins." I am not sure what the "shelf life" of that stuff is. One would assume that if it was still within its' sell-by date, the council would try to resell it to recover some of the loss.

[Gone]

That's an odd story. The leader told the council he had "a preorder" for all that popcorn - more than $28,000 worth! Later in the article it says the leader said the customer had canceled the order, but he would not disclose who the customer was. The article also says that the leader later returned about $24,000 worth of the popcorn to the council but then says: "Attorneys believe the popcorn was destroyed — at least the popcorn that was packaged in the tins." I am not sure what the "shelf life" of that stuff is. One would assume that if it was still within its' sell-by date, the council would try to resell it to recover some of the loss.

 

I would assume one would only get rid of the popcorn if it has been compromised somehow, or if state/local law required it to be thrown away for some reason.

 

It is odd that they guy would not say who the buyer was. It cost him his role in Scouting.

[NJCubScouter]

It is odd that they guy would not say who the buyer was. It cost him his role in Scouting.

I'm guessing there wasn't really a single buyer, though why someone would make up something like that, I have no idea. And if there was... well, if I received an order for $28,000 worth of popcorn, I would call council and ask them what to do, before actually placing the order. There's always a chance that some customer will try to cancel their order, but if it's for $15 or $20 out of orders by hundreds of different customers, that can be dealt with. Usually the stuff can be re-sold. This guy put himself in the position of having $28,000 worth of popcorn delivered to his house without having been paid by the customer, and no pre-arrangement with council as to what would be done if the customer didn't pay. And it also appears that when things went wrong, he didn't contact the council right away, he just kept the popcorn at his house. None of it makes any sense.

[Gone]

@@NJCubScouter one would think the order itself would raise a few eyebrows within BSA. This cannot be normal. Not saying BSA is to blame here, this is squarely on the guy who placed the order. He's an adult and can read, he should know how to handle this. Common sense seemed to have been misplaced.

[desertrat77]

Well I can definitely say that all this has done nothing to lift my profound hatred of popcorn.

 

A half of a year hence, Packsaddle's comment still resonates.   I have loathed BSA popcorn sales since its inception in the '80s.

[SeattlePioneer]

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A half of a year hence, Packsaddle's comment still resonates.   I have loathed BSA popcorn sales since its inception in the '80s.>>

 

 

 

It's worked well for our fairly small pack. One fund raiser a year meets our needs,  and helps support the council, too. 

 

It's a job though for the Popcorn Chair.    They need to be well organized, honest and have a good business strategy.   I like to suggest that being the Popcorn Chair is very good experience for someone interested in operating their own business some day.