Asian American Trade Associations Council (AATAC)

This organization engaged in fraudulent behavior, provided no goods or services, and refuses to provide requested refund. We believe it to be a scam.
This organization contacted my company in October of 2019 and claimed to provide a connection to large, well-known retailers that would sell my products. They contacted me through an online service called Rangeme, solicited me to give them $3500, and in return I was to receive a list of retailers, a listing as preferred vendor on the AATAC website, a "Question of the Day," post to introduce my products, and a booth at a selected trade show of my choosing. We signed a contract with them, which stipulated that we had until December 31, 2019 in order to back out of the contract and receive a refund. Unfortunately, it was not until March 2020 that we fully understood that we were being scammed. We had repeatedly contacted the person who had been helping us and requesting information as to when and how their services would be provided, and were repeatedly told, "let me check with that other department and get back to you." They never posted our website on their preferred provider list, had never provided us with a list of retailers, and had given us absolutely no word on if and when the trade shows would be held. No other department ever contacted us, and no real answer was ever given. When the pandemic began in March, we contacted him again and requested information as to when the trade shows would be held and what was going to be done about rescheduling. He responded by text message around March 13, claiming to currently be at a trade show and again stated that he would request more information from the "info desk," and would get back to us. At this point we became fully aware that this must be a scam because there were no shows currently happening anywhere in the United States or anywhere else in the world at that time due to pandemic. We attempted to contact him by phone at this time, and received no response. We thought that the best course of action was to contact Discover Card and report the charge so we could get our money back. Discover agreed that since we had not received anything in return for our payment and we were receiving no information as to when we would receive our services, they reversed the charges. ATTAC fought it and the charge was put back on, but we were told by Discover that they did not provide proof of service, so they removed it again. AATAC provided Discover with the copy of the contract which stated that we had only until 12/31/2019 for a refund and that, because the trade shows have not happened yet, we were not due a refund because the services were still going to be provided. Based on this they were able to meet Discover's requirement to keep the charge on, and therefore our hands were tied with the credit card company. Discover card believes that the charge is fraud, but because AATAC are claiming future services, there's nothing that Discover can do at this point. On 5/11/2020 we sent a letter to Ivy L., the AATAC contact, and requested a full refund based on lack of provided services. Mr. L. again deferred to a different department and stated that someone would contact us. On 5/15/2020 we received a phone call from Remy I., asking what we wanted him to do. When we stated that we wanted a full refund due to lack of provided services and no information provided as to when the services would resume, he became irate and verbally abusive and informed us that because we had gone to Discover and asked them to reverse the charge, we had violated our contract and therefore we would receive no refund and no services from them at all. He claimed that if we had tried to resolve it with them, which we did, we would've been provided a full refund. He claimed that due to our violation of the contract, we would now be provided with nothing from them at all. When we attempted to ask for proof of this in the contract, he stated, "Talk to our legal department," and hung up. We contacted Discover and reviewed the contract, and at no point is there anything that states a void if we tried to get a refund.