I was also a victim of this scam, disguised as a fabulous entry level position into the world of marketing and advertising. How exciting I thought, perhaps it would be a good idea to transfer career paths out of insurance and into the new fun world of marketing and advertising.in this economy, I thought I could give it a shot. I have a Bachelor's in Business, so why not? Ha! What a joke that thought was looking back. It was a horrible experience, dangerous and a complete waste of time!!! No one should go to this interview ever!
The advertisement was on CAREER BUILDER.com for ALONTI INTERNATIONAL, 9 ENTRY LEVEL MARKETING/ADVERTISING POSITIONS NEED FILLING IMMEDIATELY! They had several listings for many areas, Livonia, Auburn Hills, etc, not just one add. They have also been doing this for some time as I can see from Kaila's report submitted 3/24/08. I wish I had googled the company before I went on the 2nd or even 1st interview. I will from now on!
My friend Andrea, sent me this report that Kaila had written, after I told my friend about my horrible experience. She googled the company and came up with Kaila's excerpt. I felt so relieved in reading it, I realized that in my traumatic experience, I was not alone. I was laughing so hard when I read her report because it sounded so eerily similar to mine, and my husband, parents and friends were looking at me like I was crazy as well, with my tale of a horrible waste of 2 days, and my catastrophies of the day.
Aiden was the contact in the ad on Career Builder. Paolo & Nick seem to be the big guys there, I never met Thomas. I emailed my resume and they called to set up an interview. My resume is filled with 10 years in insurance experience and a Bachelor's in Business degree. There was no marketing or advertising experience in my background, but they don't seem to care, because it is all a scam.
My first interview was with Andrew or "Drew", he is from the Livonia office. He was visiting the Auburn Hills office to help out with the interviews the first day. It was like a cattle call. There must have been about 10 people in the lobby waiting for these interviews to enter the fabulous world of advertising. I felt so darn lucky to have stumbled on this and hoping in this economy they would want me.
Drew was very interested in me and said they would be contacting me by 7-8pm that same night to let me know if I made it to round two of the interviews. I was holding my breath, hoping they would call me back, which of course they did, because I looked very professional and was positive and outgoing.
After getting the second interview, I was ecstatic, maybe this was meant to be, that I was to enter a whole new world of advertising. It must be fate!!! Why wouldn't they want me, I have a college degree and customer service/sales insurance experience for 10 years.
They told me to dress professional and bring my smile. They never said what the job was at all, just that they were a marketing/advertising firm for the Pistons, Buffalo Wild Wings, profit & non-profit companies, etc... Etc! Drew (Andrew-Livonia office) said "Do you like to go to Piston games?" Making it seem very glamorous. It is really laughable looking back. I feel so stupid. I should have googled this myself, and in the future I will google any job prospect. Thank you Andrea for finding Kaila's article. I don't feel so alone in this debotchery any longer.
I was a nervous wreck all weekend about my 2nd interview for Monday Dec 15th. 2008. All they told me was that I would be job shadowing someone from 10:30am-7pm. They said to dress professional and nothing more!!!
I thought I was going to be shadowing someone in the office??? I had no idea that I was even going to be leaving the office until I was sitting in the lobby area, where by the way, there is a receptionist that is allowed to keep her baby in a crib behind her desk all day, while eating fast food burger and fries at the front reception desk. That should have been my first clue about how unprofessional they are!!!
There was another girl in the lobby area as well, we were both waiting for some fabulous rep to come and take us out for the day as their shadows.
Nick came out and greeted me, he introduced me to Chris from Dallas Texas. Chris was the person I was to shadow for the day. I came in a dress, with black nylons and black suede high heeled boots. He asked me if I had a warm coat? I said well I do have one in my car, so I went to get it. He still did not tell me what we were going to be doing, some EVENT he said. It was a HUGE SECRET.
Nick said, this is Chris and whatever he says at the end of the day makes all the difference as to whether we offer you the job and can you start tomorrow if you are offered the job. I said yes of course, still thinking this was going to be a great new journey in the life of advertising.
We start heading to what I thought was Chris' car, and he told me to go ahead and get in. Then two more people hopped in, Latoya and A.J. It was the new girl, Latoya's vehicle they were using, HER GAS/HER MILEAGE!!! She had only been there a week and obviously was not onto them yet. I asked A.J. If they had an allowance for gas, mileage, phone? As most reputable sales jobs do have some sort of reimbursement or allowance for this. Not alonti intl/boss executive group (beg). Latoya, or Toya as she went by said her mother bought her the car and she was not supposed to let anyone drive it, but she let Chris drive because she did not feel comfortable driving. It was 17 degrees out that day, and the wind was blowing very hard.
So I kept asking where are we going and what will we be doing? A.J. Said Chris will explain it all to me soon. They said I would not be paid, but that they would buy me lunch.
I asked where we were heading as we were leaving the High Meadow Cirlce, Auburn Hills building, which I had already driven my own vehicle 40 miles from Grosse Pointe that morning.
Chris said we are going to the Oakland County Sherrif's building in Pontiac to get background checks done. I was thinking why? We get there and they do not open untill 12:30, so we needed to kill some time.
We were with a caravan of cars carrying about 4 people per car, mostly they were all 19-21 years old, with no college education. We all caravan to Arby's for lunch since the Oakland County Sherrif's office was not open. I am sitting in Arby's with my 1/2 order of cheese sticks and a coke, and about 10-12 other Boss/Alonti employees - (street walkers), this was all I would be getting out of the day, no pay and much worse to come.
What was also irritating is they did not even offer me a cup of coffee at the main building before we left. After our big spender Arby's meal, we proceeded back to the Oakland County Sherrif's building. Their system was down, so we were heading to Grand Blanc, which was at the exit 101 or 102 Holly Rd Exit off I75.
I could not believe I was going 25 more miles north after already coming 40 miles from home. I thought maybe we were going to visit clients or commerical offices perhaps to sell advertising or marketing time or ads, no dead wrong.
They were playing this x-rated rap music the whole time, with words that begin with a (P) & (F) constantly throughout the music. I was starting to wonder what I had gotten myself into at this point, but the main office seemed nice and so this must be a professional operation.
I did start to think that I am out here with 3 other complete strangers and anything could happen to me. No one ever took my drivers license down or asked me who to contact in case of an emergency. If something happened to me, they would not even know who to call.
So on our way to Grand Blanc, they were telling me about themselves. A.J. Had mentioned that he had done time in the Oakland County Jail, where we first went to try to get the background checks, only a week, and it was a while ago when he was young and stupid. He was only 19 now. He was a very nice young man I must point out, and he was happy to be earning money with them. A.J. You can do much better!!! Toya was totally being used, had only been there a week and a half and they were using her nice Kia SUV, her miles and her gas. I asked A.J. If they are ever reimbursed for gas or mileage and he said NO.
Chris was telling me Abbey was his girlfriend & one of the roomates, she was in another vehicle in the caravan. The weird, cultish thing about them is they do all live together and work together and date. It is all so unprofessional! Chris, Abbey, A. J, and a 4th person all live together. This is a common thing with this company, as I see from reading all the blogs about Alonti/Boss Executive group. They also move around territories a lot, from city to city and state to state. Chris was hoping to go back to Texas eventually and be a manager of his own office, but he said Abbey may get moved somewhere first, so then he would go where she was going first.
I was learning all of this on our long drive to Grand Blanc, which is about 23 miles north of Auburn Hills and now I am finding myself 63 miles away from my home, and that is one way. And they expected me to do this everyday... 126 miles roundtrip with no gas or mileage allowance, because Genessee County is the territory, Grand Blanc, Holly, Fenton, etc.
I still was not told what I was going to be doing. A.J. Kept saying Chris will tell you at the appropropriate time. So, we go to the Grand Blanc court to get the background checks done. Chris says after the background checks, well I cannot drive. His background check prohibited him from driving. At this point I was like what did I get myself into. One guy had been in jail previously, Chris is not allowed to drive for some reason, and I am stuck with these people. I was so glad Toya was there, but she was new and being taken advantage of and I felt sorry for her. After all it was her car, gas and mileage that were being used.
Chris did say as we were leaving Auburn Hills, we should have taken your BMW, I said well I would have needed notice for that as my car is messy and cannot fit 4 people in it. Thank goodness I was not railroaded into taking my car. I had already wasted gas, mileage and time from driving out to Auburn Hills twice.
So, Toya had to drive again, which was a good thing, because Chris was driving way to fast @ 85 miles per hour on I75 in freezing temps, and the roads were icy. Toya said she promised her mother she would not let anyone else drive her car, but she did let Chris drive because she did not feel comfortable, even though it sounds like he did not even have a license.
Toya drove us to some affluent neighborhood in Grand Blanc, we were on a street called Kings Crossing or something like that. Chris said she can park the car right here in front of someone's house. It was then they sprung it on me, that I would be walking in my high heeled suede boots door to door trying to sell these coupon books, kind of like the entertainment book, but smaller and only good in the Grand Blanc area. I was completely mortified and pissed that they did not tell me what it was and that they did not warn me not to wear high heels. I believe now that they want us unsuspecting fools to come very nicely dressed so we lend more legitimacy to what they are doing. They can dress all casual and comfy with the proper boots, gloves and hats, while us panzies are the "SHOW" like we look professional, so it adds merit. I am so disgusted!!!
So I am trapped way out somewhere I have no idea where I am and a cab ride would have been too expensive, plus I could not even have told a cab how to get to me, in some neighborhood which I have no idea where I am. So, I start walking door to door freezing in 17 degree weather with Chris and Toya, as she was still in training and I was the shadow. A.J. Had to go in another direction on his own.
As we were walking door to door, Chris would lead us not on the driveway and street, but across each lawn to the next door. The lawn was wet and muddy because that morning it had been 40 degrees and had rained the night before, so even though the temps had dropped to 17 degrees with a ton of blowing wind, the ground had not frozen yet. Needless to say, my black suede high heeled boots were sinking in the muddy wet grass with each step. My heels had an inch of mud caked on them by the end, and the front was all muddy too. I was getting more upset at this point because I was feeling so betrayed, foolish, freezing, not getting paid, wasting my time and now I was going to have to buy new boots as these were getting ruined!!!
Chris could have cared less. I was the most professional looking one out there, and that was all he cared about. We were walking around now for about 1 1/2 hours when we went to this one house and the lady and her son were so nice to us. They said they didn't want the book but that they would donate $20 to the wheelchair basketball players, who the book was being sold to benefit. I see from other people's comments about this company that it appears as though only about. 50 cents goes to the handicapp basketball players and $10 of the $30 book goes to the sales person. I really wondered if that $20 donation was going right in his pocket. He did not have her fill anything out for the donation, Chris just gave her some coupons for pizza. I felt really bad for her.
Then as we were leaving that nice lady's house, I went to step off her porch and my high heeled boot got caught on the pavers or something and I tripped and went flying off the porch into her rock garden, where I proceeded to have my nylons ripped and my knee gashed in about 4 places, my pearls also broke from the violent fall, I was almost impaled by a tall metal pole sticking out from the ground in her garden. My cashmere gloves were torn as well. I was bleeding with a big hole wripped in my nylons, my boots full of mud and ruined, and still had to continue on walking door to door. He never said do you want to go back since you are bleeding? I had some tears strolling down my face at this point, because I just could not believe what I had gotten myself into. I did say to him at that point that he really should have told me how I needed to dress, I said I feel rediculous going door to door dressed like this. His response was: "You'd be surprised" like it is normal for a girl to go door to door selling in high heeled fashion boots, or like Kaila in her stilettos. Kaila wrote a very good article about this company as well, and that was what inspired me. She got to stand outside of a Kroger store at the cart corall with others trying to sell those stupid coupon books in the freezing cold as well. I think she was more lucky than I though with the door to door assignment.
Finally after about 2 1/2 hours of freezing in the 17 degree weather with the wind blowing profusely and bleeding and tattered, Chris says, "would you like to go get some hot chocolate before we head back out?" At this point we walked back to Toya's car, so I said "look if you had told me what I was going to be doing, I would have told you ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR ME, so could you please take me back to my car at their Auburn Hills office." To my amazement and happiness he agreed. I felt so trapped and unable to do anything. A cab would have been to expensive since I don't have a job and I could not even have told the cab where I was located?
I am a licensed insurance professional with a Bacehlor's in Business degree, what on earth would have made them think I would be interested in peddling their stupid coupon books door to door. When they called to ask me back for a second interview I did say "this is not a telemarketing job is it?" They said Nooooooo, like of course not, NO it was worse, door to door sales in neighborhoods of coupon books, but of course they didn't tell me that part, it would have been too honest for them. I am so appalled by this company. They use these young people that have nothing and are willing to do what is asked of them. It is such a scam. There are many more articles you can find on this company, and they also go by many more names, like Robinson Group for one.
It was quite silent as they drove me back. I was thinking poor Toya, whose car they were further using to drive me back to my car and then they were going to turn around and go right back out to Grand Blanc to peddle their coupon books till about 7-8 pm.
I was never so happy to get back to my car ever! I called my friends and family and started telling them about this unbeleiveable day, they could not believe the things I was telling them.
Thanks to my friend Andrea, who found Kaila's article on google and said that I should google every company before even going on a first interview, I now am much smarter. After reading Kaila's story, it inspired me to tell mine to further educate the unsuspecting poor souls out there just looking for a decent legitimate job. It was very sad really.
I feel lucky to be alive and back on the normal track to finding a REAL job.
Please run as far as you can away from these unethical companies.
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