It was in one of my early years of fundraising on my own. I was working with an area elementary school and using a program that included chocolates manufactured in Wisconsin. The order taking and product delivery went fine. It was a day or two after I delivered the student-packaged orders that I took a tense call from the principal.
[Mr. S] was a hard man to work with. When I started in fundraising, he was one of the many loyal customers of a long-entrenched and very successful competitor. I kept calling on him, however, and when things started changing with the company and rep he had been using, he asked me to stop by. I was probably one of the few who kept calling on him, so persistence paid in this case.
The phone call was that we had a problem and I needed to come to the school immediately. I did.
Someone [suspect] had called the school saying he bit into a chocolate and found a staple inside. Mr. S was ready to put the word out to return all the product and notify the newspaper. That would have been devastating to my young business and the fall out from something like that could ruin me. I would have had to pay for the product and the school’s profit loss from the returned product.
While I was sitting at his desk, I called the candy vendor and asked for the highest-ranking person I knew. I was told, “He’s in a meeting.” I think I used the words potential injury and lawsuit in the same sentence when I demanded they get him out of his meeting. They did.
When I explained the situation, he said I would get another call momentarily.
That call was from the in-house corporate attorney, who, as it turned out, had partial ownership in the company. He was terrific as he had been through stuff like this before and kept Mr. S and me informed and one step ahead of the situation all the way through.
He explained to us the near impossibility of such a happening — that there are multiple metal detectors on each candy line, including one at the very end. He mentioned that staplers are not allowed in the candy rooms and that the detectors are mostly for any potential metal fragments from the machinery itself.
From the product shipment and candy type, he was able to get a report of the manufacturing process on that line for that day and there had been no problem.
He wanted us to call the person making the complaint and find out:
- Is he ok? (Yes)
- Was he injured? (No)
- Did he go to a doctor? (No)
We suggested he go to the doctor. (Would not)
- Where was he when he bit into the chocolate….including a detailed description of what happened?
He was in a band rehearsal at a local golf club. Claimed he opened a box of caramel pecan chocolates and shared them with his friends. - Did anyone else find a staple in their chocolate? (No)
- Did he still have the piece of candy with the staple in it? (Yes — instructed to bring it to the school).
The lawyer advised me to go to the golf club rehearsal area to look for staples. Mr. S went with me. Not surprising for a reception room, there were staples on every post from where banners and streamers had been hung. We pulled a few from different areas and of differing varieties and sent those, as well as our “damaged” chocolate, NDA to Wisconsin.
At this point, he told us his suspicion and advised how to proceed. The purpose of the “are you hurt” and “did you go to the doctor” questions would prevent the guy from claiming harm later. Collecting staples, including the one in the piece of chocolate, would enable analysis to determine several things.
After the staples were analyzed, the lawyer called and confirmed that:
- Even though there are already no staplers in the candy making facility, none of the staples matched the types of staplers they had in the office areas.
- The staple in the piece of chocolate was a match to some of the staples we sent, meaning it came from the golf course and not the chocolate maker.
I was to call the man and ask what I could do to make it right for him, i.e. free chocolate and/or his money back. And, the manufacturer would pay for a trip to the doctor to have everything checked out. He refused to do that.
The lawyer said,
“As soon as anything comes out of his mouth that sounds like he wants anything more than that — tell him he will hear next from the corporate attorney, who has already been in touch with federal authorities…and hang up immediately.”
Federal authorities were involved because of the multiple states involved.
During the conversation, in response to my asking how to make it right, the suspect said….
“A big screen TV would be good.”
Boom.
By this time Mr. S was convinced this was not a staple in the candy issue and was extremely appreciative of the way both I and the attorney handled the situation.
The attorney told us that we would hear back from someone about resolution within a day.
It was just a couple hours.
The next call I got was from a man who identified himself as a federal agent. He confirmed that this was fraud and extortion and asked if we wanted to press charges.
No. The negative publicity would still have been harmful and the type of attention that could encourage school officials to ban product fundraising.
The case was closed. And I did earn additional business at that school and with that principal.
All of this happened over a two day period with the second day only because of the transport time to get the staples to Wisconsin for immediate analysis.