The Autowraps offer is enticing. Drivers can get up to $400 per month in exchange for covering their car in corporate logos like PowerBar or Yahoo!--as long as they don't plow over pedestrians or speed. But as The Stranger reported last October, Autowraps participants believe the company has trouble holding up its part of the bargain ["Auto Asphyxia," Pat Kearney, Oct 10, 2000]. Larson is the latest to have a host of claims.
First, when the car was wrapped on June 2, the rear windshield wiper was torn off. Autowraps never fixed it. Furthermore, Larson was forced to harass Autowraps before getting the free boxes of PowerBars promised in her contract.
More important, Larson had heard nothing about the details of her Autowraps inspection. (To get paid, every Autowraps driver gets a monthly inspection to make sure the logos are still intact.) Larson says Autowraps simply would not respond to her e-mails and phone calls.
It was July 3, and though a box of PowerBars recently showed up on her doorstep, Larson still hadn't heard anything about the wiper or the inspection. Fed up, Larson called Autowraps and demanded to speak to CEO Daniel Schifrin.
Schifrin informed Larson that she would not be paid until a new inspection was set up because she had missed her June 30 appointment. Larson told Schifrin she had never been told about a June 30 inspection.
"He totally started yelling at me, accusing me of being irresponsible and unstable," Larson says. Then Schifrin called Larson a liar, she says, because Schifrin had a copy of a June 27 e-mail informing her of the inspection. (According to the Autowraps contract, drivers are supposed to get 10 days' notice about the inspection. A June 27 e-mail wouldn't constitute sufficient notice.) Larson and Schifrin duked it out some more before Schifrin admitted he had a wrong e-mail address for Larson, but was terminating Larson's contract anyway. (Autowraps had her correct e-mail address when the company sent her the original contract.)
A few days later, on Friday, July 6, Schifrin sent Larson an e-mail: "We can only have drivers in the program that are level-headed and can interact with the public in a calm manner." On Saturday, July 7, Larson received an overnight FedEx package containing a $250 paycheck as well as a reprinted version of Schifrin's e-mail, terminating the contract.
The Stranger called Autowraps for an explanation, but CEO Schifrin offered no specifics about Larson's allegations. He simply yelled at us: "Why are you writing about this? I am the positive-press king! I put money into people's pockets!" he screamed. What The Stranger could glean from Schifrin's tantrum was his contention that Larson was just one Autowraps client out of several in Seattle, and therefore, Larson's problems were an aberration. Unfortunately, we've heard that one before. Last year, when we profiled dissatisfied Autowraps participant Brad Cerenzia, Schifrin provided us with names of other Autowraps clients--challenging us to find complaints. Autowraps customers Heidi Turner and Evan Blackstone echoed Cerenzia's complaints, saying they had trouble contacting the company and getting paid.
