My name is Eric, I recently graduated from Penn state this past May '06 with my B.A.in journalism. I job hunt still and make bills with part time work, though I am always looking for a bigger and better job. The person in my position is a prime target for this Quixtar scam, and yes my friend, it is a scam. Personally, I was approached by this IBO - person while still in school, one year before I graduated.
Lets see if this sounds like a legitimate, practical, and solid business practice for a company that is "30 years old with millions in revenue." I am eating chinese food in the campus cafe area reading a newspaper, and random fellow student comes up to me as if he is selling vacuum cleaners door to door. He starts with about 40 seconds of real conversation, and then asks what I want to do with my life. I told the kid that I want to get into radio, maybe writing, who knows.
The guy quickly turns the conversation around on me and explains that in any business you have to be on the top, in an oqnership position to make any real dollars, and that unless I planned on owning a publishing company or a broadcasting conglomerate, I would not make a decent living, despite my education of course and the thousands I was throwing away on tuition.
The guy then explains that he is an anthropology major and even though he enjoys his education, understands that he wants to make real money and that pursuing anything outside of the IBO lifestyle was just not lucrative. Fair enough. This guy talks to me for no reason about making money, already I am turned off, but I was curious and decided to egg him on for a social experiment of sorts.
Soon, I learned that if i got in fast on a meeting being held for new people like myself, I could learn the secret to big dollars without any expertise or education I might already have. SO i go to this meeting later in the week, I meet five other people there who claim to be new and brought in by the same guy who brought me, I asked them how they were approached (thinking i was the only one who was approached so cold) and they said it was the same way." A coffee shop, standing in line at the commons." They all told the same story I had of some enthusiastic kid who spoke to them about this money making world that we ewre missing out on like suckers with our expensive education.
The meeting happens, its odd and somewhat like a cult, we are told that we make money by getting new people to do what we do, which is what someone originally did to us, oh and they said it was definitely NOT a pyramid scheme. They made a point to say that twice. Then we are told about the products, cds, books, and what not we have to buy in addition to our 175$ sign up IBO fee. Oh and this was rich, the presenter goes "Now if youre telling me you dont have 175$ extra dollars laying around to make the furtune of a life time, you're a loser and this is not for you, this is for people with ambition, you cant let skeptics bring you down, its better not to associate with these negative people"
The meeting eventually ends, I am left somewhat curious yet painfully depressed, and I asked the gentlemen who appraoched me earlier "So, do I have to do what you did and just approach people out of nowhere?" I thought that was an isolated event, and that such a wealthy company would surely have a real sales model apart from this cold approach, but he only replied "Well, that depends how much money you want to make, you have to hustle, get more people to do what you do that will now do it under you, then you will have several inidividuals under your team" The money clearly comes from other IBO's trying to nabb other poor soul's who spend money on fees, products, and motivational tools. No real way to move it along.
I stayed close with a few people at the meeting who tried to stick with the program, all had dropped out after the second month, they lost about 300 bux on average, and while they had convinced a few others to join and come to more meetings, the amount put in never rose beyond their spendings. It is awful to try to target college students who have enough money trouble, the Quixtar company (the successor to Amway in the U.S., Caribbean, and Canada) has no right to take peoples confidence in their service, if you can even call it that. The IBO way only exploits people who work hard while being told it is never enough all along. Simply disgusting.
To my fellow alumni and students: Stay the course, do what you love, and do not be taken in by this scammers. Unless you are a natural sleaze, this is not for you. And even if you do wish to go into sales in some way, there is a legitimate way to do it without trying to exploit your friends and family.
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