I received a telemarketing phone call today from Jim Williams. He claimed to be a representative of a Company in Tempe Arizona called Image Incentives. He claimed his company builds websites to help people make money in their own home-based business. After asking me several questions, he presented me with a nine minute recording telling me what I could expect from owning my own home-based business. After the recorded presentation, I was transferred to another sales representative who's first name was Eric. I don't have notes of his last name, but in my opinion he was what I would call a hard sales expert. During our conversation he mentioned the company name of Smart Advertising Solutions.
I should explain that I have been in the home-based business field for some time and own several websites myself, so I have some experience in this field; therefore I suspected that this alleged hard sales technique was leading to some kind of scam. I finally decided to hang up.
My curiosity got the best of me so I decided to do a google search for a company called Image Incentives. No luck there so I tried Smart Advertising Solutions. I hit the jackpot with that name and even found this site using that name. Next I called the Arizona Attorney General's office and was directed to the Better Business Bureau. The representative at the BBB started giving me a verbal report on Smart Advertising Solutions, which included a payment to the State of Arizona in the amount of $225,000.00 in fines.
I informed the representative that the company was now operating under the name of Image Incentives and she added that name to their list of AKAs.
I then went to the Arizona website at www.arizonabbb.org, entered the Smart Advertising Solutions in the company search field and printed out a five page report on this company. Check it out for yourself.
I can only imagine that if this company came up with $225,000.00 to pay a fine, how much money this company must be earning with this alleged scam.
My only hope is that because of companies like this you don't become discouraged with the home-based business industry. It is estimated that there are over 144,000, 000 home-based businesses and that number is growing rapidly. Unfortunately, like any other industry, there are companies that are not legitimate. Always check things out before you get involved. If you feel you are getting high pressured, that is a sure sign that something is wrong. Normally if you do a google search and add the word "scam" to the end of the company name in question, you will see if other people on the web have had problems with the company.
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