I received an email from careerbuilder telling me about a company that was interested in me.
I've submitted a lot of resume's into the black hole of online job postings, and kind of had given up as even 95% of the ones that reply are one scam or another.
I'd been committed to the idea that any legit opportunity should not cost a dime.
This initially came to me as the name Crescent Processing Company. Then after casual phone interview I was scheduled for training the next day. Having been out of work for quite some time. I admit I was desperate but this was first opportunity that didn't ask me for money. I even made it clear that I had no capital to invest.
That was ok. Compensation was 100% commission and I agreed.
They make it sound like you'll be apart of a team and they'll set you appointments.
This is the first act of which they engage in fraud.
The appointments are not real appointments.
They assign you a team leader that you're suppose to call each morning.
Here's number 1 sign it's bs. They want you at a business at 9A.M.
Most biz's don't open till 10 - 11.
However, I thought they really made real appointments.
No business owner is going to let some yayhoo come in off the street and start going through their charging statements!
But I was led to believe that the appointments were confirmed with recordings of the owners agreeing to the meetings.
They don't supply those, and I wouldn't trust them if they did.
So the first appointment they set me up for was 25miles away, 9A.M..
I'm just starting out, have been out of work for a while, so my time is extremely valuable at this point. These leads need to be laser targeted.
The biz was open, but the owner wasn't there and probably wouldn't be in for couple days? And this is a confirmed appointment?
So I drove 25 miles at 9A.M. For nothing.
Already I felt burnt.
So I went randomly into a few biz's just to kinda practice the pitch, get comfortable.
I don't mind generating my own leads. But under the terms for being compensated, I HAVE to go by their rules. Which is B.S.
After couple hours I was out of gas and headed home.
I've dealt with B2B sales before and unsolicited appearances are a huge no-no. It's almost cardinal sin actually.
But I thought them setting up appointments was all legit.
Anyway after I get home, I get a call from team lead and he's giving me an ear full. Really chewed me out pretty bad.
I can't believe the way they treat reps. Or any biz even clickbank and other affiliate product providers, they treat reps like crap.
What amazes me, is no one made any progress in these practices.
With that said, as an independent sales rep I can sell any payment processor, I figure the one supplying solid leads I'll try to promote, however after investigating further about their fraudulent sales tactics, I've come to realize they're the #1 to warn biz owners to stay away from.
Some biz's have told me that they receive random debits from their accounts, and all kinds of other fees that they don't provide prior to signing up.
I let the first day slide, cuz he did have a point that I didn't stay in contact with him, I should have called him right after so he could see what was up. But what's he going to do go kidnap the owner from their earned sleep-in and bring them to a forced unsolicited appointment? Plus I was out of gas, so I couldn't make anymore anyway.
What made me most angry was his constant badgering of how much time and money I wasted them, when clearly they're wasting their own, as well as mine especially.
I did what I usually have to do to get some gas money for the next day run.
I figured maybe the first one was just to get me out and about, and do just what I did anyway which was visit with other owners to do some prospecting, which is probably the worst practice for credit card processing. It really needs to be more regulated because I really didn't know this company, they hide under so many names.
TransTech, Certified Payment Processing, Crescent...
I could only imagine if was selling some kind of fraud scheme, I mean these people want charge statements faxed, social security numbers. There's no way biz owners should be entrusting this kind of stuff.
Definitely an issue of national security.
Better merchant practices need to be made aware and developed.
Something I do see a possible opportunity building maybe is about all I can take from this.
I think there should be opening for class action suit as I'm not the only one that's gone through this from what I've been finding online. They seemed pretty busy with calls, so could only imagine how many of these things they're doing.
And I'm really even more bitter towards credit processing companies now that I see how they treat their reps.
I've had some businesses where they failed because solely from horrible payment processing practices.
I did lose contact. Had some legit concern that I lost contact although we were talking at 1pm so I could have made more runs, but he preferred to just gripe me out?
Anyway I gave them benefit of the doubt the next day.
Got enough gas to make all the appointments.
First appointment, be such n such 9A.M. Dont lose contact.
Ok so I get there, place isn't open
Don't lose contact so called him. He tells me it's what I get for losing contact the previous day like it's some kind of cruel and unusual punishment?
I'm their rep, the face of their business. And they want to get me rattled? Really not good energy to be going into biz's angry.
So anyway, he tells me wait there till they open.
So I waited
While waiting I remembered some concerns from the day before trying to come up with a good rebuttal for the square up.
They offer something similar but they were missing 1 small detail.
It's a mobile terminal, so I just wanted to know if it required an internet connection service fee like a cell phone. Makes sense right? If you have square up, you're paying mobile phone fee your merchant account fees. It's a no brainer as long as the mobile service is included into the merchant fees.
So I call him up for a quick question while I'm waiting
Then he gripes me out about how I'm wasting so much of his time and money from sending other reps to closed and unsolicited appointments over such a simple question. Simple yes or no, but he insisted on spending 10 minutes ripping me about it pretty good.
I was ready to call it day right then, but I look down and just remember I gotta get something going.
So I still waited til 11 A.M.,
they open at 10, didn't physically open till 11.
I went in and was informed that the owner was out of town.
So frustrating!
But I stayed in contact and as much as I wanted to let him know how much time and money he'd just wasted all of us. Mind you he'd obviously wasted all that supposed precious time telling me to get to a falsified appointment.
I bit my lip and let him give me the next one, it's across town might be able to make by 1130 before lunch.
I get there, it's not even a business it's some ones home.
Obviously no one answered, go figure that right.
Stick to the plan stay in contact!
He come back with they're out of town.
Then tells me that's all he's got for me.
All that griping and not only could I have been making a possible $1,040 on each appointment had they been legit appointments.
I got to thinking about it, trying to figure out why?
Why would they do this?
What's the point in any of that?
NO one made anything...
Just like with the affiliate companies that don't pay on this net thing?
If your reps aren't making money, we're not going to rep for you anymore.
Just look at clickbank, they're sales are dropping like crazy because nobody wants to promote them.
A lot of people have tried, but eventually they quit.
And no one makes anything! I don't get it?
I can understand on some of the affiliate thing for the net, it still can possibly generate sales for the company.
But for TransTech, CPP or whoever they want to call themselves.
And just as the Matt Miller team leader of team #1 stated
"THIS IS TRANS TECH NOT *TECH, THAT'S NOT HOW WE DO THINGS, YOU NEED TO DO THINGS OUR WAY IN ORDER TO SUSSSEEEEED"
How they do things?
So they want to build a biz off of fraudulent unsolicited appointments, and lie about their fees as well as, they are not BBB accredited. There's just so many things wrong with them.
Only thing I can take from it, is to realize what kind of fraudulent practices are going on out there. I didn't feel comfortable with the borderline illegal sales tactics they train us to use.
There's right way and a wrong way to do things, they're wrong, very wrong. Definitely class action suit, because it's got me so angry, I'm severely emotionally distressed.
It definitely gives me some more business strategies, let's me know what other reps are going through, what businesses are having to put up with, and maybe need to implement some things to keep this kind of stuff from continuing.
Only thing I can think, is it seemed like they're a branch of J.P. Morgan. From the way it looks they own quite a few of them with large outreach of companies and investments.
So probably what they're looking for is if they keep driving us now where, and we fill up, I'd imagine that's helping them make money.
Giving them times of when the prospects are coming back or whatever gives them a physical qualified assessment of the prospect.
I don't know it's too bad. I'm a pretty dedicated worker, and it's a shame nobodies really going to benefit.
They might have benefitted a little bit, but I'm definitely going to make sure more people get a heads up.
Hopefully get class action suit going against these.
I love this country, but it sure is getting more and more like it's really Scamerica.
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