CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va — A Chesterfield student thought he had won some cool prizes as part of his school's fundraiser, only to find out that the rewards he worked for were actually fake.
When David Jones learned that Matoaca Middle School was hosting a fundraiser with the chances to win what would normally be expensive electronics, he was determined for his six grader to claim those prizes.
“We were excited about it. We were following the contest very closely. I'm like, 'you're going to get number one, you're going to get number one,'" Jones said.
The school used a fundraising platform called The Mega Blast and asked students to solicit donations to raise money for student awards and incentives. The more money a student raised, the cooler prizes he or she could win.
Jones' son was able to get his friends and family to donate a total of $2,200, making him eligible to win AirPods Pro headphones and a Nintendo Switch gaming device.
But when Jones received the AirPods, he said they didn't work properly and the settings looked funky.
“So that was a red flag, and then also looking at the cord, it was a different type of cord. It wasn't a traditional Apple power cord that came with it, so that was another red flag," Jones said.
Jones took them up to the Apple store where he said an employee informed him that they were fake, a disappointment to his son.
“He was shocked," Jones said. "I was probably more shocked. He just couldn't believe it. I guess he was a little taken aback.”
Jones said he reported his concerns to the school, and the school then gave him a new set of AirPods and the Nintendo Switch.
But again, he said those items turned out to be inauthentic too.
“I was a little leery of the AirPods Pro, so I took them to the Apple Store, ran the serial number. They also came up counterfeit, and then also the Nintendo Switch was very — they just looked counterfeit right out the box," Jones said. "There were no English instructions whatsoever. I started Googling online about where serial numbers should be. It didn't have any serial numbers. It was actually blank. So I did take it back to the school."
Jones said the Matoaca Middle School principal did his own investigation of the items and came to same conclusion.
According to a spokesperson for Chesterfield Schools, the fundraising company is responsible for the prizes.
A spokesperson for The Mega Blast told CBS 6 that it relies on local independent sales representatives, who are not employees of the company, to source their own prizes.
The Mega Blast does not pay for or have any enforcement policies for which vendors the representatives should use to obtain their items. However, the company will recommend reputable vendors such as Best Buy, Amazon, and Costco.
"Our representative has worked with local Richmond schools helping them with their fundraisers for over 30 years, including working Matoaca Middle School for the past 10 years," the company spokesperson said in an email.
However, Jones felt it was problematic that there aren't more policies in place for overseeing the sales representatives' prizes.
"We don't know where the issue is. Is it with the fundraiser? Is it with the representative? So having those sets of standards, I would think, would be kind of imminent for running a business like that," Jones said.
Jones said he did speak with the sales representative involved in his case and asked where his son's prizes were purchased.
“He said he normally gets these prizes from either Costco, Sam's Club, Amazon, Target, but he couldn't really identify where these came from," Jones said.
Jones said he received a call Tuesday afternoon from the principal saying the representative had dropped off new replacement prizes, but he would still like to know the source of the original items.
Now, he's pushing for more accountability and vetting from the school and fundraising company to ensure that students' achievements are properly rewarded in the future.
"I want to make sure there's oversight in a lot of these processes, especially for fundraising. We should all be aware," Jones said.
Have you experienced a similar situation? Email the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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