From: Letter
Subject: Your Resume on Monster fits our Career Criteria
Date: April 4 9:33: 05 PM CDT
To: *
Reply-To: lbeford@carolina. Rr.com
Sunday, April 04
*,
After reviewing your resume we feel as though you fit the criteria we are looking for in a local Account Executive position. We are a marketing company that works with all the local Schools and Teams in your area. We do all of their published materials including Sports Posters, Game Tickets, Programs, Banners, Websites, Coupon Books, and Schedule Cards or Pocket Schedules; what ever these teams license or contract us out to do for them. *, your job as an Account Executive would include maintaining relationships with local schools and teams (High Schools all the way up to the Pro's), as well as their sponsors. Sponsors would be businesses such as Bank of America, Pepsi-Cola, AT&T Wireless (just to name a few) as well as smaller "Mom and Pop" type businesses that support these local teams. The territory is local; about a 60 miles radius around the city (we pulled all the resumes from zip codes) and it is established so one would take over existing accounts. Of Course, we are always looking to grow too, so business development is fundamental to the position. If you qualify, we do have a base salary plus commission structure, with medical benefits and a retirement plan. So *, if this interests you please call us (do not email we have already reviewed your resume) to get more detailed information and possibly set up an interview.
Thanks,
ScoreOne Regional Manager
Phone: 888-265-1680 prp
Letter Value: 1AB9E9-23DA81
The above is the email I received from Advantage Promotions Sports Marketing or ScoreOne. I was perplexed with the initial email for several reasons. Things that raised a red flag for me were; 1. The email subject was titled "Letter", 2. It was not signed by a specific person but rather "ScoreOne Regional Manager", 3. The contact number was an "888" number and 4. The Letter Value followed by a number. After all this I bet you are wondering why I even bothered to contact them. Well, at first I had no idea they were a part of Advantage Promotions I only knew them as ScoreOne. If you do a Google search for ScoreOne you will find no evidence of a scam. So with this, I thought what the heck, and gave them a call. When I called for more information the woman who answered repeated exactly what the email had previously explained and you could clearly tell she was reading it straight off of the papers she could be heard shuffling in the background. Remaining optimistic, I thought maybe she was just a secretary that had been hired recently so I scheduled an interview for the following day in Birmingham, AL (I live in Oxford, MS which is a good 3 hour drive away). My interview in Birmingham went great which I suspect everyone else's did as well. The office was located in a very nice part of town on the top floor of the building making the situation seem a little more legit. This is where I met Lindsey. During the interview the only thing she seemed interested in on my resume was my athletic background, the rest of the interview focused on her sales pitch. She gave me two posters to take home with me, both of which were from areas I was familiar with (which makes sense now, seeing as they were trying to get as many sales out of me as possible without any intention of ever having me sign a contract, obviously they would send me to areas in which I know people). Lindsey also sent me home with a package containing "company info" which ended up being only a few sheets of paper with the cheesy sales pitch and a detailed list of what I could say to comeback with when I was turned down. One thing that caught my attention was the first thing I read out of the information provided in the packet. It states, "Our public relations team had worked very hard to obtain the contract and build relationships with the schools and sports team. Please do not jeopardize that relationship and their hard work by going to that school or calling the Athletic Director. If a business ask you to call the distributor, contact us and let the Public Relations help you make the sale". (Those are their typos, not mine) In addition, she also set me up for a phone interview with Larry O'Brien the next morning. All the phone interview consisted of was a couple obvious questions from the packet and an assignment for a "trial day" at a local town. Luckily, I took the time to do another Google search. This time I looked for Advantage Promotions. Not to my surprise I found several posts about their scam. I am embarrassed for not have finding this sooner. Obviously, I will not be going to sell ads for them on my scheduled day. I have wasted much time and money on this "job opportunity". I honestly do not know how Lindsey and Larry sleep at night. It must be a tiring job looking for new people to con into selling ads for them for only a day (or whatever short period of time it may be. I certainly will not be around to find out.). Best of luck to them.
I know this report is lengthy but I wanted to make it as detailed as possible to keep job seekers in the future from falling into the same trap I did.
0 comments