Looks like someone has researched the Help Kids Canada scam -- mentioned in the summer of 2013 in "Chocolate for charity scam still operating?" and "14-year-old selling chocolate bars victim of sexual assault" -- and figured if it worked in English-speaking Canada, it would work in francophone Canada as well.
Let us welcome into the highly competitive world of chocolate bar sales a Québec-based company called Ado-Boulot. That's who you call, their website says (in French, of course) if you want a successful fundraising campaign to raise money for your charity.
According to a report from Montréal on CBC News, Ado-Boulot, in addition to fundraising for non-profits, does a fair bit of selling for its own account.
The company's website says it donates a part of the sale proceeds -- how big a part is not specified -- to a registered charity called la Fondation d’Adolescents en Difficulté du Québec (FAD). Ado-Boulot also says it helps pay for activities for its teenage employees,including field trips to water slides or La Ronde, and that it organizes humanitarian trips to Cuba and other countries.
A quick look at FAD's website makes Walt wonder if there is any connection between FAD and Ado-Boulot other than using the same web designer. For instance... could it be that Ado-Boulot is using Help Kids Canada's sales scripts? CBC Montréal Investigates says a local mother is raising questions about the sales techniques taught by the company to teens selling chocolate bars door to door.
The tactics include "suggesting" that good-hearted people -- read "suckers" -- buy “two, four, eight or even ten of the five-buck bars to encourage the kids. And they're told to place two chocolate bars into the hands of a potential, rather than just one, to suggest that two is the minimum which any caring person would buy.
But what if the customer has diabetes? The script used by Ado-Boulot says the proper response to that objection is "I understand, sir or ma’am, that you’re diabetic but you could offer it to one of your loved ones."
Even if FAD is real, even if Ado-Boulot helps to fund it, the tactics are still pretty hard-sell. Just like Help Kids Canada.
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