You answer an ad in the paper or on-line for management, manager trainee, or an office help position for an amount around $18.25/hr. Or so, with no exp. Necessary, will train, co. Expanding in your area. You call for an interview, and the person on the other end tells you it's for "a residential safety company specializing in fire and personal safety." The interview is in their (blank) location, but the position is for your area. "There is no experience necessary, and they will train you. The company offers paid training
And an $900 signing bonus." They will say that an interview is available at either 9,11, 1,3, 4:30, or sometimes 6:00.
When you go for your "interview", you are first taken into a conference room with a map of the United States and a white board as the centerpieces. You may be alone or with a group of other "applicants" for your "orientation". You will be referred to the map when they speak about the company expanding (one color of push pins most likely referred to as the goals for the next 5 years, and another color for the next year). They will refer to something called: "You pick a city". After which you will see a demonstration in a pie pan and a glass of what is referred to as a chemical called FM-200, from a small, white fire extinguisher bottle, which in reality is halon, which is illegal to release into the atmosphere in a non-emergency situation.
The person then goes over the positions available with the company on the white board, saying how the $18.25/hr. (or whatever the amount may be) figures into the "minimum profit guarantee", or M.P.G., for the sales positions they have available. They will then proceed to go over the 6 steps on the "management" side, the 2nd step being $2,000 in retail sales (or R.S.); they will say something like the most important step is the 5th, the Office Manager Candidate, or O.M.C., that training takes 2-4 weeks and the last step is as an office manager, of which "no successful one has made no less than $4,000/month", or something similar to that effect.
You will then be taken for your interview where you will be asked a series of authentic-sounding questions that are formatted. You will be told that you will have to go through a background check, "it costs the company $246, the company pays for half, " and you pay for the other half, "which is $80". By the way, the background check is never done—they pocket that money. You will also be told about the "refundable" $100 kit fee, due the day of your "initial training." Chances are, unless you mentioned that you have something serious in your background, questioned anything during the first 5 questions of the interview, or have a problem with either of the "fees", you were most likely "hired".
You then were given the Registration Form to fill out where you gave out 3 references, your S.S. # and thumbprint, and were told you were not officially hired until you paid the $80 registration Fee, and that the position would probably not be held for you unless you took care of that asap. Once the day of your "intial training" approached, which was most likely held on a Saturday morning, sometimes Friday, you would be "sweet-talked" on the phone and reminded to bring your $100 kit fee for that day.
Once at your "intitial training", you would realize that somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-20 (or more) other people were hired that same week for the same position. You would be first asked: "Is anyone in this room excited about becoming a manager, having their own office, and making $4,000/month?" Chances are, the person holding this I.T. Is none other than a dwarf who probably goes by the name of "Thomas", Thomas Finch, or something similar. He is in his early to mid-20's, has dark, short, spiked hair, always wears expensive suits, and drives a green toyota corolla, probably still with a NJ license plate. He will proceed to give you a "company history", and try to convince you to relocate!
This p*k, Thomas if he is the one doing the I.T., may identify himself as either, the manager or a trainee or something of the like, even the president of the company. If you don't see him at this I.T., you will probably hear references to him as such in due time.
At this I.T., you will be also told about the profitsharing, called the S.I.B., or Special Incentive Bonus, that you will earn 20% of your office's volume along with a training scale on how many people you train per month, tax write-offs, and their "pin program": eagle, red, green, blue, yellow, pink, purple, bronze, silver, O.M.C., and the one you want—the GOLD pin (all these subject to change over time, of course). After you take a break and pay for your $100kit, and sign a 10-point "Manager Trainee Contract", you will be told to do a fire safety survey, told about the warm-referral system (going first to family and friends) and all the sales aspect before being given an "incentive" for over the weekend, usually to cut that $2,000 requirement in half and be at your green pin already by Monday.
There will be meetings at one of their offices or a hotel conference room every day, Monday thru Friday. There will occasionally be raucous Wednesday-night meetings, called "Wild Wed.", where you will be encouraged to do basically anything for cash and other incentives. Those who sell the most that week will also be invited out to bars, etc., where the people running the show, especially Thomas, have been known to do lewd things with the young female trainees.
At least once a month, practically like clock-work, there will be very special one or two-day training sessions which will be touted as 30 days of office training in two days. You will have to sell a certain amount, or pay a "registration fee", most likely of $600, in order to "qualify" for this special training, which will be held in a hotel conference room either locally or in some tourist city location, such as Atlantic City, for example. You will be led to believe that you will be put on a 10-day schedule after this meeting to finish up your training and receive your gold pin, most likely in the presence of the company president. These special trainings, which always include the same information as any other meetings, are usually called EDS (Executive Development School), TAC (Training Acceleration Class), MCS (Management Completion Seminar), or GPA (Gold Pin Acceleration) class. Be assured, they will come up with other names for these special "incentive" classes. They will likely be announced to you at your initial training, or soon thereafter.
Be assured, the only way you will get your office, if you do at all, is to do at least a total of $10,000 in sales for them (the carrot will always be held in front of you, for months even, until you do at least this amount). You will then be assured to be asked for at least another $6,000 as a type of security deposit on your office inventory as a way to threaten to put you back in training if you don't pay it and don't make a certain volume in a very short time frame. The person who will do this has always apparently been the brother of ringleader, Mr. M.
This company's "manager" Thomas, will lie constantly to your face. If you become "negative", they will tell you not to come into the office until you sell a certain amount. They will encourage loyal people to look out for and snitch on those who are "negative". Although they don't say the product by name when they do this. Some of the other products they tout are a child safety i.D. Kit, smoke alarms, CO alarms, first aid kits, and a flame retardent that has gone by at least a couple names, the latest being Flame Stop (previously called Flame Pruf). They will talk about upcoming products like Christmas ornament smoke alarms, extendable chain window fire escape ladders, and wireless home burglar alarm systems. You will never see these items, except for maybe different-colored fire extinguisher cans, even ones with faces sprayed on them—how inventive! They will most likely claim in their literature that their headquarters is in the Cleveland, Ohio area. (Chagrin Falls)
These crooks have been at this scam for at least ten years and have travelled from state-to-state, changing their own names and the name of the "fire safety" company each time they move. The prick, whose real name is Thomas Daniel Finch, is the ringleader. Sometimes he is listed as the president of the company. He has at least several partners who help him out and is probably the brother of "Matt Williams" aka "Mark M." as well, basing their scam on the same fake office manager model, just with a different product and advertising for different hourly rates in their ads, based on their location. They can be in any state, operating under any name with any alias.
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