From: Wright Tools
Good Morning Jeff,
My google alerts tell me that Ray's contingency program has upset a lot of people on some of the racing forums. I'll do my best to describe some background, and the actual specifics of the program we had set up with Ray, and the reason we ended it. I'm also trying to clear our name here, because I have given Ray every opportunity to clear it on his own, and he won't respond to us either.
Background:
Wright Tool isn't traditionally a well known tool brand in the "automotive" market. The primary reason for this is that this market is flooded with "truck" brands such as Snap On, Mac, Matco, Cornwell, etc. that have trucks that travel around to various automotive shops and race shops to sell their tools. Wright focuses on heavy duty markets such as Oil/Gas, Mining, Power Generation, and HD Construction, and we sell our products through industrial distributors such as Fastenal, Grainger, and thousands of local industrial distributors world wide. We do not advertise or promote in any racing venues whatsoever. No magazine ads, no track signs, no semi's, no hospitality tents, etc. Wright had a local relationship with Ray Vierheller , and Ray pitched an opportunity to give racers a high quality, U.S. Made hand tool option different from the truck brands. The structure of the program that Ray proposed to us is below.…
Program:
Ray would become a distributor of our products, and would purchase our products at distributor pricing. Ray would receive a "buy-in" to the program from the racers, which structure was presented to us by Ray below. The buy-in would qualify the racers for the exact amount of product from us, in which Ray would purchase from us at a distributor cost.
Structure:
Initial awards program cost to the racer is $200.00. With this $200.00 investment, the racer would receive a $200.00 credit toward the purchase of Wright Tools, and a decal to display on each vehicle they race.
Each $500.00 increment spent qualifies them for an additional payout for a win or runner-up performance.
Up to $500 in purchase = $200.00 win, $100 runner-up
Between $500 and $1000 = $300 win, $150 runner-up
$1k to $1500 in purchases = $400 win, $200 runner-up and so on…
** Keep in mind, these ^^ payouts were supposedly coming from the initial investments that racers make. At no point in the program was there ever cash paid to Ray from Wright for any contingency. We were strictly selling product to Ray for which those in the program purchased from Ray. It seems to me that Ray was banking on two things… 1) Racers not cashing in on their $200 worth of product and building up a "bank" and 2) Signing up enough people that only a minimal amount would earn the bonus money.
Long story short from our side, we signed Ray up as a distributor, and sold him product when he sent orders in, period. Distributors are not agents of Wright Tool. They purchase product from us, the manufacturer, and sell to the end user. We ended Ray's distributorship on Jan 31st, 2012 when we started getting complaints of racers not getting paid from Ray, and we didn't want our brand associated with that. We're an 85 year old, family owned, US Made hand tool company, and it has taken us a long time to build our brand. It's hard enough to succeed as a US tool manufacturer with all of the import product flooding the market daily. Some people don't care about that, and are only interested in how they can take advantage of other people's hard work. I feel our generosity to even set Ray up as a distributor was taken advantage of, not to mention how he has taken advantage of all of the racers in the program. Ray won't answer our requests to respond to this issue either, and after all of the racers he has upset, it baffles me that he actually shows up at the races. I have given Ray every opportunity to clear our name from his mess, and he hasn't. I'm sure the racing community will make sure that Ray isn't able to scam any more money from racers since it seems they are a very tight knit group, and hopefully no other Manufacturers fall for the scheme either. I will also say this. The racers aren't the only group that Ray owes money to. If anyone would like to talk to me more about this issue, they can contact me directly using the information below. Thanks Jeff.
Best Regards,
Ty Smith
Director of Business Development
Www.wrighttool.com
O: (330) 848-0600
C: (330) 606-0820
E:
[email protected]
