Remember Cash Rewards?

Lots of places were using this service to promote Boat sales. The quick summary is you buy the boat from X company and then in 3 years, you send in all the magic paperwork with the "certificate" and you get $10,000 back. Basically using it as a seller's tool to motivate sales.

The guy running Cash Rewards, David Meloy, of Coppell, Texas has just pled guilty of 1 count of mail fraud, which carries a max penalty of 20 years in Federal Prison.

Those of you that didn't already know this, or were victims of this can contact the US Attorney's Office, Eastern District at (703) 299-3700 and let them know you were a victim too.

This bozo was using the money to fund his lifestyle, buy cars, jewelry and other crap.

For what it's worth, anyone who bought a boat with this incentive after May 2006, NEVER got paid. So companies that were selling boats with this service after that, are borderline fraudulent, since no one got paid after claims were made.

Links here and here

I was pretty sure MasterCraft had cash reward's, What other boat companys did this?

IMO, the seller of the product should be responsible for fulfilling the claims.

I agree John. If MC offerd this and set it up through this guys company, then it should be MC taking responsiblity.

+1 for sellers.

that sucks for those who bought into the scam.

Being a reputable business and industry leader, what the hell was MC thinking?

We had it at Cope when I worked there. I sold it with a couple boats but basically told the customers there is a chance they never get it. I didn't promise them anything. I didn't like it one bit and I didn't like selling it one bit. Sometimes I even told customers that it cost us 1500(which it did) and I could drop the price of the boat 1500 or you can keep it the price it is and gamble on getting it. It was shady from the start.

I would think MC should step up and take care of these people and use their legal muscle to collect what they can. Of course their legal muscle wasn't worth a damn in their defense against the fellow who had 12 of his closest (and possible inebriated) friends in the bow of an X-14 and chopped the throttle to idle after a rider fell, so maybe I'm off base here.

Was the mail theft charge related to Cash Rewards? I always thought this scam was very close to a pyramid or ponzi scheme. I had looked at a new MC in 2008 and the dealer tried to sell me this program. I did some easy research and decided it was shady. It only hurt their chances of ever selling me a boat for sure.

Originally Posted by polarbill

Sometimes I even told customers that it cost us 1500(which it did) and I could drop the price of the boat 1500 or you can keep it the price it is and gamble on getting it. It was shady from the start.

IMO, this is the way to do it. Give them a form and let them take the option. Then their only complaint is with the fulfillment company.

The dealer here did this with both mc and centurion boats. they were offering from 10k-25k depending on the boat price. this was in the late summer of 2007. same thing, you could take the 3 year rebate or take 10% of the total rebate as cash off the boat right now. dealer was using it to push people into boats they could not afford and then telling them to get them refinanced with the cash when it came..

glad I went to another dealer