First off, I wish I'd have known about this site before I invested my HARD-EARNED money in this questionable company. I would have over $8, ooo more in my pocket right now.
See http://usacomplaints.com/view.Asp? Id=74354 and
http://usacomplaints.com/view.Asp? Id=77070
For over 23 years I've been trying to start a business on the limited funds I have available at the time. All I've ended up doing is giving $50, $100, $150 or more to one of the many bottom-feeders that roam this planet preying on gullible people such as myself. They sure have found a haven here amidst the anonymity of the internet, oh the things I've seen in the past 4 years.
Anyways, I finally decided that the only way I could start a legitimate business was to invest a larger amount. I was naive enough to believe that the bottom-feeders wouldn't take $7,450 of someone's hard-earned money, or they would just be asking for trouble. I was so wrong.
I saved some money and was searching for a franchise to invest $10,000 or less in at franchise1.com. I applied to a few and got responses from them all. They were all anxious to get my money. I decided to look further into International Merchandise Group. I talked to one of their representatives and did what investigating I could. I liked what I heard and found, and decided to invest.
Upon receiving their information I began to find discrepancies between what their representative had stated and what I read. No great alarm, I still liked what I read. Then I was assigned a mentor to train me and what he stated was totally different from what the representative had stated and what I had read in the information.
Now I was getting a little leery. During the training I was given access to the PALS site which lists the merchandise I have available to sell to my customers and this is where I find out the depth of the deceit. The thing about bottom-feeders is they sugar-coat the information to get you to give them your money before they give you the rest of the information, or access to the rest of their site. They know if you know the whole truth from the beginning you won't fork over your money. The main reason I bought into this so-called opportunity was the promise of the great deals I would have to offer my customers from this PALS site and the fact of the matter is that while there are few, there aren't as many as they lead you to believe. But I was still willing to make a go of it, what the heck, I've spent over $8,000.
I've tried telemarketing and don't like to make "Cold Calls", and why I decided to continue to try to make this work was the fact that I was promised the retailers I would be calling had already been contacted and were expecting my call. I was told this by their representative and was also told 1 out of 5 would become a customer.
In the information I received from IMG, in their booklet "Domestic Guide, Road to Profits", it states, "Your IMG mentor will help you in every aspect when generating your first 50 customers. A customer is a retail store that places an order with you. We will provide you with about 20 stores at a time. Each store has been contacted by IMG and asked if they would be interested in seeing our inventory.
Once we verify they want a list of our inventory we ask if they would like the information sent by fax. We obtain the contact person or decision maker and pass all this information to you. Fax all the stores on your buyer list the buyer introduction package. The stores that respond immediately become your first customers. Answer their questions and supply pictures or samples. This is the brokering end of the business. Here is where most of the work takes place. The stores that did not respond to your fax or email follow up with a non-aggressive phone call to verify they received your information.". This is word for word from the booklet.
During the training with my mentor the 50 customers the mentor was to help me in every aspect to generate was cut to 25.instead of a customer being a retail store that placed an order with me became a retailer that allowed me to fax him or her on a regular basis.instead of faxing each retailer first, I was to call, then fax. The 1 out of 5 customers I was going to get from my list as stated by their representative became 1 out of 25. I have this in my notes I took during training. Part of my training was to take notes of the sessions and email a summary to my mentor so he knew I was getting the information. I was still not dismayed, because these retailers were expecting my call.
Well, after receiving my training, I was sent my first list of 25 retailers. Shortly after, there was a death in my family and I had to put off starting my calling. After about 3 weeks I finally felt up to start and contacted my mentor as to whether I should call this list since so much time had passed. His response was to call, that they were luke warm at best when I received them and to use google and switchboard.com to find more because I would probably have just as much luck with what I would find there. I still have this email.
Now I'm starting to get irritated because the lies are adding up, but I figure I may as well try. I begin calling and the contacts are wrong, I can't speak to most, and the ones I do get to talk to tell me, "I'm not interested.", or "I'm not buying anything right now.".
I'm not saying that if the right person put in alot of work with this that they couldn't make some money, but I am saying I was misled, lied to and deceived. I feel I deserve my money back and would appreciate any help in this matter.
Carol
Pendleton, South Carolina
U.S.A.
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