Our school got frustrated with SA and started using Great Lakes in 2004. (I was refered to them by the JC Penney Corportate office.)
From our experince GL has a different (and more realistic) business practices.
1) The don't offer free shipping to new accounts
2) They don't discount the shipping as deep as the 'out of business' scrip bokers did.
3) They don't promise to ship same day. They take slightly longer to process orders, but they have always met their committment to our school.
4) They don't waste money shipping backorders randomly. The very few back orders I have had were organized and shipped with my next order.

At first we were frustrated by the different policys, but our school has learned to be more organized,and take more repsonsibility. We have had to budget a bit more for shipping and allow an extra day or twofor order turn around. All in all it has been a positive change for our program.

I did interpret it that way - but I took it to mean it was written March 1st. Oh well...

Originally posted by <guest>:
Rockne -

I went back and couldn't find a date anywhere on it regarding when it was written (I may be missing it but I looked through it twice).

We should make it more clear. It is marked in the url -- the 0301 in the url = March 01.

Not that you'd be expected to know that I thought it was marked even more than that.

Tim

Rockne -

Thanks for the reply - regarding the article I linked to - I went back and couldn't find a date anywhere on it regarding when it was written (I may be missing it but I looked through it twice). Maybe you guys could just add in either the headline or byline the date an article on your site was written. That would be quite helpful for anyone searching the internet on scrip information that happens to stumble across the article - especially that 4 of the "players" that are referenced at the bottom are "out of the game".

I like the suggestion above - it would be great if everyone that ordered scrip (I'm guessing a different topic) could provide who they ordered from, when they ordered, how much was ordered, and if/how much was back ordered - talk about a great heads up to a company going under...

I'll tell you what I got from Great Lakes regarding their company, they've been in business over 11 years and they claim they've posted a profit each year (good business model) so I'm presuming they don't have a large debt that can be called. Sounds good - now if there was some way to actually authenticate this.

We jumped ship from Scrip Advantage and headed over to Great Lakes in September and luckily didn't lose any money. I have been searching the internet daily since September for news on Scrip Advantage financial trouble. And until the last few weeks saw nothing. It was hard for us since we are so far away (east coast) to really know what was going on so I even emailed a few schools in CA that used SA but never heard back from them. But I suspected something when I noticed their computer system wasnt updated and we had our first large backorder.

I would encourage everyone using new Scrip providers to post here with their first sign of trouble (backorders, etc.). Its a great place to stay connected and can hopefully help if a similiar situation arises again. The quicker we know of a problem, the better.

Originally posted by <guest>:
Rockne/Tim -

You seem to be an original founder of this forum and or site? If so, and knowing what you seem to know about the history of the Coyle brothers - how could an article be allowed to be posted on this site that seems to "recommend" Scrip Advantage and/or National Scrip Center. Even if it was just a columnists opinion - could you guys have executed editorialship and warned people reading the article about the possibility of instability with any of these companies? Seems you know enough to ask this: is Great Lakes legit? New England scrip legit(the article is even referred to at their site)? I understand your response would just be your opinion...

www.ptotoday.com/0301scrip.html

Yup -- Rockne = Tim Sullivan, and I am the founder of PTO Today. In a former life I also worked for a company that offered scrip for sale, so I've followed this particular type of fundraising even more closely than others.

You ask a very good question. That article was written 4 and a half years ago, and is dated. I wouldn't say that it recommends NSC or SA, but the article (from 4.5 years ago) is generally positive about scrip.

It's tough/impossible for us to continually update all old articles as news/details change. What we've done to date is just date the articles, so folks know they're old/archives. There's another article from that same general time that lists Troll as a bookfair option. Troll was purchased by Scholastic several years ago.

We're discussing internally if/how we should update old articles. Or if we can make the fact that they're old more clear.

In the meantime, we've been well in front of this issue, in my opinion. We actually reported on Schoolpop's financial troubles before anyone else. Because schoolpop was a public company, their financials were accessible. First I heard about Scrip Advantage's issues were right here on these message boards. Since then we've been actively investigating (and linked to it from our home page), in an effort to keep groups informed.

As far as Great Lakes or New England or others -- I'm not privy to their financials, and I don't know the principals of those firms well. I do know that scrip is a tough business. To succeed in it on the business side you have to be disciplined and conservative. Several of the folks who've struggled/failed were the opposite of that. Do check references. Do check credit references. Great Lakes has been in the business a long time; they're quite large and I've never heard a complaint. Seems to me like they're fairly conservative.

If you're sticking with scrip and want to see scrip succeed, know that things like realistic turnaround times (as opposed to one or two days) and realistic percentages (the broker needs to keep some) are part of the deal, if you want to work with a stable company. If a broker offers you the moon, expect trouble down the road.

Tim