Firstly, I am unsure whether this company is a genuine ripoff, but they are very sneaky and refuse to disclose a lot of necessary information, and they are quite deceptive in my mind.
I recieved a letter from Empire Who's Who at my place of work, as a manager and professional I likened it with my award to the "National Deans List" from when I was a student, the layout, letter, and invitation were similar. The envelope contains a card with your address etc., and a space for a short biography to send in free of Charge
Do not do this
Several days later I was phoned at work to verify my information, etc. Etc., and THEN I was hit with a sales pitch, LIFETIME membership $697,3 YEAR Membership ($385?) I was able to mitigate the damage and talk my way to a one year (non profit institution only, they said) introductory membership for $99, plus $19.95 shipping for, as it turns out, an 8 1/2" X 11X envelope containing a folder and 5 sheets of paper. This clarifies my accusation of "Aggressive sales". Calling me at work was completely unexpected. It reminds me of the multitudes of telemarketing calls I've recieved in the past, we all know what those are like.
In a moment of weakness, I bought in at that time... Expecting to request a refund after viewing the materials.in the enclosed package, "all sales are final, no refunds given" which was not made known to me at the time of the phone call. This justifies my "Unclear representation" accusation. Had I initially knew that I would have to pay for this award, I would never have sent it in in the first place. Then, having been called and asked to pay, I assumed as is the case with nearly any purchase, I could get a refund if not satisfied (they did not mention this one way or the other).
Ok, I have a membership, so I access the website, the huge sounding board that they use to sell this... The classified section for a nation-wide membership consists of about 3 printed pages. This includes want ads, job ads, and "for sale" ads. The othre benefit touted is "networking" with fellow professionals. Ok, well, I looked into this too, and at a glance it looks like either high profile executives (in their example) or people at the lower middle, working whatever job and possessing a four year degree, but definitely not wallowing in money and success.
I would highly recommend this site only for those who lack even remedial communication skills and are totally inept to networking themselves professionally (in our out of their field) in any other way. Since I'm stuck with this nonsense, I'm going to start emailing people to whom I have access now, to aske what they think of this service. I explained to the sales rep that I am about as networked as a person can be at my level, and didn't think it would help. I got the impression I could send it back, but it was not explicitely said to me that I could.
Take this as a warning, save your money. I (highly doubtful) will get any more out of this than I have any other online resource (nearly any of them are free of costs). If you Google empier who's who, or use your favourite search engine, you will receive very few hits, if any. I've probably increased the hits you will find by posting this rant here.
John
Stillwater, Oklahoma
U.S.A.
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