I ordered supplies from schoolpop.com on July 19th as the school had requested we use them. It is August 10th, school starts tomorrow, and I have no school supplies for my child. I have been unable to reach schoolpop as the phone is either constantly busy or after holding for 10 minutes I am forced to leave a message. I have also emailed schoolpop with no reply. At least 23 families at my school are dealing with the same problem. I am going out to buy school supplies this evening, but am upset that there is no way to cancel my order with schoolpop as no one will return my calls. Our PTO vice president spoke to someone at schoolpop who said they had a vendor problem and were trying to fill 800 orders per day to make up for it. Sorry, but this doesn't help me when I can't speak to customer service. I will be disputing any charge put on my credit card and returning any supplies I receive. I will NEVER do business with schoolpop again and will suggest to my school PTO that they do not recommend them anymore. Let's hope I don't get stuck paying for supplies I never receive. With this kind of service, I say good riddance schoolpop!

At least with this ending I can honestly say they were operating without backorders and dignity. What a change. Great Lakes Scrip seems to be a great company to work with. I've been ordering from them for about six months.

Guess it pays to keep more than one company in your ordering pool! And GLSC has a great variety of scrip compared to Schoolpop so it will be a pleasant switch as well! And don't forget to check out ScripAdvantage, too.

I also spoke with Schoolpop this morning, and they are referring all their scrip customers to the Great Lakes Scrip Center. FYI.

Update: schoolpop now out of scrip business. See our blog: www.ptotoday.com/ptoblog

Tim

Update on Schoolpop.

Spent some time with the latest financial filings this morning. I'd be very, very leery of fronting any dollars to this firm for scrip. If you're preparing for a big back-to-school rush, you're highly advised to make sure you're not counting on (and certainly not solely counting on) Schoolpop.

Takes a bit of reading here, but here's the link to the most recent SEC information:

www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1013690/...0/loyaltypoint8k.htm

In last month: the CEO, the CFO and two directors have resigned. Here's the most relevant text:

"At the current time, the Company is exploring certain strategic alternatives, including the following:

·

The sale of all or substantially all of its assets. Even if a sale is consummated, it is unlikely that there will be any distributions to stockholders."

I'd be very surprised to see this company in business at the end of 2005.

Tim

Great points Tim and solid advice as well!

I can say that Schoolpop (the scrip company) is doing well since they took over from NSC. I order weekly $6,000 in net value from them and it always come promptly and with no back orders.

The other compnies I used occasionally have back orders and one has a shipping company that is not as reliable as FED EX or UPS and sometimes the order is a day later than promised.

As with any company you really do need to pay attention to how they deal with backorders, shipping and customer service. And Tim's advice to order several different companies I've found is not only an excellent safeguard but can also reap you organization higher profits by comparing the percentages offered. Some companies will often vary on a particular vendor as much as .5% to 5% on an particular vendor at any time. Often specials are run offering a high percentage at certains of the year. So I often switch back and forth between companies for the best profit for the schools.

Enjoy your summer and don't forget to buy that Scrip when your program starts back up!

Jackie