I answered an ad on Craigslist for a B2B sales position, with the opportunity to make $100k. The ad said that "the product was a service niche that no one else offers for businesses' promotional needs and "they" enable them to offer travel promotions and cruises as incentives to gain new business, reward loyal customers, or for their employees, as well as to use for their personal travel for their family and friends.
The package offers about $15,000 in benefits to them, for only $1295, so sales come super easy. "They" also give them a non-compete in their area in their particular industry." It goes on to say that each sale will pay a $500 commission that will be paid to you as soon as it clears the bank.
Upon contacting the ad, the "Director of Sales, " by the name of Linda Carter, sounded very desperate to fill the positions. She explained that she was looking to fill specific territories in our region and one gentlemen was being flaky so she may have an opening for me. She said my job would be to cold call business owners about the travel packages, set up appointments, and then pitch and close the sale. I would also have to print out all of my own sales marketing material on my own printer at home. There was no base commission, and health care benefits were not available, but "it was something she was looking in to."
In an email (after I told her my concerns), she explained that there may also be growth opportunity as a Territory Manager someday. Email after email, she never once mentioned her affiliation with Coastal Vacations. From the way she spoke, you would have thought she was an employee/manager of Incentives International.
Not until she sent me the new link to the website (which she said was being worked on earlier), and I called her out on it (asked her if she was a director of Coastal Vacations in an email and she said, "Yes, I am.") that I put two and two together and realized she had JUST started her membership with Coastal Vacations, and was attempting to build her pipeline by selling memberships as pure travel packages.
On the website, she states that she has a "relationship" with Coastal Vacations for the travel portion, and she uses the promotional products to make it seem like it's not just her selling the Coastal Vacation memberships. If you go to a different Coastal Vacation director's website, you can see that a Level I membership is $1295, the exact price she is charging business owners for their so-called travel incentives.
The business owners have no clue that what they are purchasing is a membership to Coastal Vacations, a MLM, and they are part of Linda Carter's pipeline. Do you think that these business owner's would want to know this information before deciding to "join?" Some individuals, like myself, have a bad taste in their mouth when they hear the name Coastal Vacations and would not want to be involved. And some individuals could care less as long as they receive a good product somehow.
But, everyone has the right to know what they are purchasing to make the right choice for them.By not disclosing this information to the people she is trying to hire as her "sales reps" and by not disclosing this to business owners, she is conducting immoral business practices. Coastal Vacations should be ashamed to condone such practices, but all they seem to care about is signing people up.
What would be even more disappointing is to see these business owners, many of whom have a small marketing budget, spend $1295 of what they believe is a travel package to only find out they purchased a membership for something completely different.
After Ms. Carter realized that I caught on to what she was trying to do, she tried to justify herself by saying she has spent huge amounts of money trying to establish Incentives International (business license, website, etc.) and she was doing the Sales Reps a favor by splitting the commission 50/50. She felt that although the rep had to do all the work, she deserved half of the commissions just for starting the business and offering customer service to the clients.
She also said she was not ashamed of being affiliated with Coastal, yet I found it strange that she never once mentioned their name until I asked. Also, why doesn't she just tell her business owners that for $1295 they are purchasing a membership into Coastal Vacations, a MLM? If she is not ashamed or scared of losing business, wouldn't this help her then?
What I find most disturbing is that she actually emailed me again (after I bid her farewell with no hard feelings) and she tried to insult me like a grade school child because she had nothing more productive to say and she knew she could not alter my opinion.
There needs to be a way where potential employees and consumers can communicate/connect so that we all don't become victims to this type of nonsense. I am just glad I caught on before I could have gotten in trouble for selling these so-called travel packages. If anyone wants to see the actual job posting, or the emails I received from Ms. Carter, please feel free to email me. Thanks and good luck to everyone!
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