Last week, a tiny outfit called One Stop Communications grabbed headlines around the world with its offer to give free iMacs to anyone willing to spend US$100 a month on the company's collection of shopping sites.
Orders have poured in.
"We're now approaching 3,000 people who've signed up online, and more than that have sent letters," One Stop CEO Israel Rosenfeld said Tuesday.
Those iMac supplicants may be in for a big disappointment. If this all sounds too good to be true, it might be.
Last summer, Rosenfeld pitched a similar offer through a different company, AcTVnet of Tel Aviv, Israel. According to the deal, anyone willing to spend $100 on AcTVnet's online mall would get free ISDN access. As with the iMac offer, orders and upfront payments poured in. But AcTVnet filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter, leaving lots of customers at least $100 poorer.
"I was one of those who was lured into the trap," said Jordan Lewinski, a fourth-year medical student at Tel Aviv University. "After I paid the sum in advance, the company failed to deliver the ISDN line and then filed for bankruptcy with all the money paid by the customers missing from its accounts."
Rosenfeld acknowledged that AcTVnet closed down suddenly last summer, citing a scrape with Israel's monopoly phone provider, Bezeq. He doesn't dispute Lewinski's contention that AcTVnet and its partner company, Shani Technologies, failed to refund customers' money.
"There are some customers that are really upset," he admitted.
Still, some customers probably received a rebate from their credit-card companies, he said, because Israeli law prevents credit cards from charging customers for services they never received.
Moreover, Rosenfeld said, some AcTVnet customers have "helped" him launch One Stop Communications. "That means it can't be that bad." He wouldn't name the former customers or say exactly how they were backing his new venture.
