racingschools.com bettersaferdrivers.com Robert Prevost, Mark Ebert , President & CEO will not honor gift certificates Tucson, Arizona

44-7402. Gift card fees; expiration date;
disclosure; exceptions; civil penalty
A. Any gift card subject to an expiration date or a fee, or both, shall clearly and conspicuously disclose the following:
1. The expiration date.
2. The amount of the fee and when the fee is incurred.
B. The disclosure required in subsection A of this section shall be clearly visible to a consumer before the purchase is made. In the case of a paper gift certificate, the information in subsection A of this section shall be disclosed on the front of the gift
certificate.
C. For a gift card purchase via electronic or computer means, the existence of an expiration date and the amount of the fee and when the fee is incurred shall be conspicuously disclosed to the consumer before the purchase via the means used to
purchase the gift card. For a gift card purchase via telephonic means, the existence of an expiration date and the amount of the fee and when the fee is incurred shall be disclosed verbally to the consumer before the purchase.
D. This section does not apply to any of the following:
1. A gift card distributed to a consumer pursuant to an awards, loyalty or promotional program when no money or other thing of value has been given by the consumer in exchange for the gift card.
2. A gift card that is sold below face value to a nonprofit or charitable organization or donated to a nonprofit or charitable organization for fund raising purposes.
3. A card for prepaid telecommunication services, A debit card connected to a person's bank account or an electronic funds transfer card.
E. Notwithstanding title 44, chapter 10, article 7, the sole penalty for a violation of this section shall be a civil penalty of not more than five hundred dollars per card violation.
As is clearly stated above, You "the seller" MUST state before the sale that there is an expiration date on this item. Sir that NEVER happened, The fact of the matter is this, YOU still have MY $500.00 it's that simple, my money did not disappear, you took it, and have offered nothing in return because a date has elapsed, or you sold the company. In our phone conversation your ONLY concern was with the fact that I mentioned your NEW business "bettersaferdrivers.com and you ENCOURAGED me to take whatever legal action I felt necessary against "racingschools.com".  My problem with this is Mr. Pervost is at the time of my purchase YOU owned that company, the fact that you were not able to sustain that company has NO bearing on this situation. You have my money ($500.00) and are refusing to compensate me for anything shy of "I'm sorry but your money is gone." Given that I am located in PA I am investigating via legal counsel whether PA law may apply to this situation as the purchase was made here. And to assist you here is a small subsection of the PA law, "Under Pennsylvania law, unused gift certificates are turned over to the Pennsylvania Department of the"Under Pennsylvania law, unused gift certificates are turned over to the Pennsylvania Department of the Treasury
as unclaimed property. The business must turn the gift certificate over two years after expiration date. If there is no expiration date, then it must be turned over five years from the date of issuance."unclaimed property. The business must turn the gift certificate over two years after expiration date. If there is no expiration date, then it must be turned over five years from the date of issuance." I look forward to resolving this very trying situation with you Mr. Pervost.

Please remove bettersaferdrivers.com from the at fault parties as stated in the title. Though owned by the same individual  Robert Prevost being the original owner of racingschools.com, and the owner at the time of my certificate,  the companies are not one in the same bettersaferdrivers.com is his new company and is NOT related to racingschools.com That being said i have been in contact with Robert Prevost and he has stated his dissatisfaction with my mentioning of his new company in my complaint title. I am not however able to change the title, it appears to be permanently affixed to this post, I will however make further attempts to correct this issue.

Someone by the name of Nathan called me yesterday to attempt to redeem a RacingSchools.com gift certificate that, "in his own words" was issued "several years" ago. He couldn't even remember how long ago because so many years had already passed.

ALL gift certificates ever sold by RacingSchools.com clearly stated on the document itself that certificates expired within 12 months from the date of purchase. This policy at that time met with the applicable laws of all 50 US States in which these multiple redemption source certificates were sold. There was nothing about a 10% EXTENSION OPTION listed ANYWHERE ON THE CERTIFICATES.

RacingSchools.com was licensed 2 years ago and the new operators took on the liabilities associated with any and ALL current, unexpired gift certificates registered on the compay's books at that time. RacingSchools.com has been operating successfully and without unresolved complaints since 1997. This customer found a long expired gift certificate afters several years and wanted to use it despite knowing full well the certificate had expired as he himself acknowledged during a phone conversation yesterday.

Regrettably, with the licensing of the company's operations in the middle of the country's devastating economic crash in 2009 to a third party, old unredeemed, expired gift certificates could no longer be exchanged for a driving experience. The original owners of RacingSchools.com were able to protect every one of their current, non expired gift certificate holders at that time by ensuring the new operators would honor those certificates unlike thousands of other small businesses in this country that simply disappeared and filed for bankruptcy during  that time.

This customer simply failed to follow the clearly printed redemption guidelines of his gift certificate and is now attempting to soil the good reputation of this long standing company by publicly posting information he knows to be wrong and false on its face. Shame on him!! We will consider responding with a slander and/or libel suit against this individual if he ever chooses to identify himself properly to us.

This was purchased 5 years ago, last contact was less than 2 years ago, and at that time they stated there would be no issue with redeeming the certificate for $500.00 Again I understand that a fee may be charged due to the late usage of this certificate, but to null and void it, is COMPLETELY unacceptable. Someone has My $500.00 with NO accountability! Racingschools.com had my contact info this entire time and could have easily contacted me and said "look you need to use this within such and such time", but that NEVER happened. instead I get "Sorry your money is gone." They have in essence STOLEN MY MONEY.

How many years ago is "Several"?

Your problem is if the company was bought out you are probably out of luck as they may be under no obligation to honor them.  Because generally the new company will not honor certificates from previous owners, or if they do they will have a "grace" period where they will accept them for a certain amount of time.