I was contacted in early May via email by someone at Final Touch Jewelry that said they saw my resume online and felt that I would be an ideal candidate to represent their company.
After a brief phone interview with a Mr. Gary Rike, president of the company, I was given instructions to fly to Dallas for training, see their showroom at the Dallas World Trade Center and to see their jewelry.
In mid May, my wife and I made the trip at our expense, having been told by Mr. Rike that the expenses would be paid for once I sold a certain dollar amount of their jewelry. We were told that they are manufacturers of the jewelry and honestly beleived him.
My wife and I were impressed with the Dallas World Trade Center and beleived that if they had the money to be in that building, they must be legit.
We toured the 400 square foot showroom and saw all the jewelry theh had on display which, oddly enough, had no pricing on it. (That should have been a warning!)
Mr. Rike explained how to sell the jewelry, that their customers were mostly gift shops and that they had a large list of customers in Florida.
I was so impressed at the facilities that I gave Mr. Rike a cashiers check for $3000.00 for the samples that I would have to cary around to show the customers.
When I received the samples, my wife and I were disapointed at the quality, but, ever the optimist, I said that I would give it my all to sell these items to stores in my area.
They also provided me with a 400 page catalog of fine jewelry that was beautiful and, again, believing that they were the manufacturers, decided to also use the catalog, which by-the-way, cost me $25.00.
I had business cards printed and began to make my calls to the list of customers they provided, most of which did not exist.
After a few hundred calls showing the jewelry and their pricing it was all too apparent that the jewelry was severely over priced. I checked out some jewelry wholesale websites and found most of the same jewelry for at least 70% less than what they wanted me to sell it for wholesale.
I called the company to inquire as to what I was doing wrong and was told that I just have to find the right stores, after all they have over 8000 stores that buy from them around the country.
I told Mr. Rike Sr. That I was not able to sell at these prices. His response: "Well, good luck to ya."
It became apparent quickly that I had been had. I did not post anything on usacomplaints.com because I felt ashamed that I had let myself be duped. But after reading the comments by another dupee of Final Touch Jewelry, I decided that I had to warn people too.
Lesson learned: Do not let your desperation for a job get in the way of good research.
Beware of Final Touch Jewelry and its deceptive practices! They are not manufacturers of jewelry. They are scammers.
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