In 1986 I had just dropped out of high school, and was desperate to find a good job and a way to stay out of trouble. One day I wound up responding to an ad almost indentical to the ones that I'm reading about on this site... Start out as a "Manager Trainee." Move into management and owning your own business within weeks.
Rah! Rah! Training sessions and sales meetings and the whole nine. I'm amazed that this sounds like it is unquestionably THE EXACT SAME COMPANY! Some years after I had gotten my life back on track, I was approached by a young man who was pedaling luggage and knock-off perfumes. When I asked him about the company that he was working for, I was certain that it was the same one that I'd been taken in by.
I worked for "the company" in Greater Cleveland for about a month as I recall it. At the time I was there they were selling cheap luggage, pool cues and other odd items (to this day I still laugh about how naive I was to be pitchng the luggage according to their sales pitch. We'd tell people that it was made of "Quarter-grained llama, streched over canvass!").
I remember the road trips that we'd take to Buffalo, NY and Erie, PA, where we'd stay about 10 people to a room, in these really cheap hotels. Worse yet, we'd all have to divy up the hotel bill between us. We'd literally be in the streets of these strange cities all day and much of the night, selling these ridiculous items to whomever, wherever we could find them.
I can laugh now, because I'm 38 years old, long ago went back to school and earned my Bachelors, and for many years now have been a Managing Director for a real company. But it does concern and upset me to hear that these same scam artists are continuing to expand around the country, changing names and exploiting young, impressionable and desperate young people. All I can say is that if you ever suspect that you're being approached for "employment" by any of these people, PLEASE believe what I and so many other people on this site are telling you, and WALK AWAY!
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