Pyramid Schemes

[Two-Twenty]

My "friend" set me up by sending me to one of those prepaid legal shield hotel seminars.

I guess I understand that the only way to get people to go to these is to fool them.

I've been fooled like 5 times. Someone you're acquainted with calls you and says that you've just gotta come to this meeting right away...

Then you sit there for 2 hours listening to a guy tell you how to become a millionaire by getting others to work for you.

Should I aggressively confront him about sending me to this naivety convention?

Or should I just never talk to him again?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by RockChalk

The absolute worst are the door-to-door home security people. My dogs do a good job of running them off

Anyone who buys/subscribes to prepaid legal deserves the fate they receive

It seems to me that the best sales technique would be for a family to come home from an outing and discover the salesman waiting for them in their dining room.

[RockChalk]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

It seems to me that the best sales technique would be for a family to come home from an outing and discover the salesman waiting for them in their dining room.

Yes, that outcome would be the best because there would be one less annoying door-to-door salesman in this world

[Direckshun]

I applied for one of those jobs before without knowing it. It's sneaky how they get their employees, too.

I got a phone call... saying "Hi, we're from [company], and we've been referred to you as a great customer service guy."

Really, from who? "I don't have that information, sir. But we're looking for some people with good customer relations and sales experience. Would you be interested?"

Is it flexible? I'm a college student and I could use another job on the side. "Very flexible."

What's the job? "Meeting with clients and creating sales opportunities."

What am I selling? "I'm sorry?"

What product or service does the company sell. "Oh, you'll get a full explanation when you get here."

So I go. Suit and tie, as instructed. It's upstairs in this decent looking office building near midtown KC. As soon as I get there, there's this loud, happy music playing, and a lot of people talking and socializing. I'm college-aged, and I'm not noticeably younger or older than anybody in the room. Brunette comes over and grabs my arm and instigates conversation.

What is this? "Oh, we just like everybody to be comfortable before we get into it."

I know, but what are we doing? "We have a very organized way of letting you in, so I'll just let the presentation do it."

I tell her about myself, she laughs the whole time, sympathizing with my concerns over college and the job market. Assures me that she was in the same position (although I believe I'm older than her) and tells me that this job was the way out. I look around and notice they're having one-on-ones across the room just like the one I'm going through.

So we finally have a seat, and they launch into it. They speak at breakneck paces and they're talking about exponentials and a bunch of stuff that is barely understandable. They talk about how difficult the job market can be, and hell, how difficult jobs can be in general, and how glorious financial independence is, which is why they want to make this job easy. They go on to say that we're selling to a huge demographic of middle- and latter-aged folks, a booming economical treasure chest, to be sure.

They have a video they played, too, and included talking heads saying nothing about the product but instead things like "hooray for financial independence" and people dancing in palaces and shit. Only about 25 minutes into the presentation did anybody say anything about the product we were selling -- some fountain-of-youth creams and drinks that you usually see in late night infomercials.

The speaker says something about how people who care about how they look can try medication and "all its crazy side affects," or they can try our product and watch the results.

They then congratulate you, wish you the best, and hand you a pad and paper to essentially sign yourself over to the job. There were about five others with me, again, all the same age, and they started signing. I couldn't help but look at the display product and think everything was a crock of shit.

I put down the pad, I get up. Dead serious, two people politely step in my way.

"What's up?" This doesn't feel like my scene, I don't think I want to do this.

"Why not?" I just really, really don't. I'm gonna take off.

"Well--" says one guy, before the other one interrupts him and allows me to take off without any more hassle before, I guess, I threaten to make a scene and scare off the other applicants.

There are quite a few jobs out there like that that feed off of the bottom tier of college-aged folks. I might recommend the job to a high school graduate who didn't want to do college but was good with sales, but even then I think I'd just be like "go get a job at Borders, man."

[Dante84]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

There are quite a few jobs out there like that that feed off of the bottom tier of college-aged folks. I might recommend the job to a high school graduate who didn't want to do college but was good with sales, but even then I think I'd just be like "go get a job at Borders, man."

The print industry is booming!

[tooge]

I had a ****in gypsy show up at my door once trying to get me to subscribe to some magazines. she wouldn't go away. I told her if she didn't get off my front porch I would go in, get my gun, shoot her in the face, and then tell the cops she tried to break in. she told me to **** off and left.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by tooge

I had a ****in gypsy show up at my door once trying to get me to subscribe to some magazines. she wouldn't go away. I told her if she didn't get off my front porch I would go in, get my gun, shoot her in the face, and then tell the cops she tried to break in. she told me to **** off and left.

I probably would have shut the door and gone back to whatever I was doing.

But threatening to shoot someone in the face sounds efficient.

[RockChalk]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

But threatening to shoot someone in the face sounds efficient.

It certainly sends a strong message

[themanwithnoname]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I applied for one of those jobs before without knowing it. It's sneaky how they get their employees, too.

I got a phone call... saying "Hi, we're from [company], and we've been referred to you as a great customer service guy."

Really, from who? "I don't have that information, sir. But we're looking for some people with good customer relations and sales experience. Would you be interested?"

Is it flexible? I'm a college student and I could use another job on the side. "Very flexible."

What's the job? "Meeting with clients and creating sales opportunities."

What am I selling? "I'm sorry?"

What product or service does the company sell. "Oh, you'll get a full explanation when you get here."

So I go. Suit and tie, as instructed. It's upstairs in this decent looking office building near midtown KC. As soon as I get there, there's this loud, happy music playing, and a lot of people talking and socializing. I'm college-aged, and I'm not noticeably younger or older than anybody in the room. Brunette comes over and grabs my arm and instigates conversation.

What is this? "Oh, we just like everybody to be comfortable before we get into it."

I know, but what are we doing? "We have a very organized way of letting you in, so I'll just let the presentation do it."

I tell her about myself, she laughs the whole time, sympathizing with my concerns over college and the job market. Assures me that she was in the same position (although I believe I'm older than her) and tells me that this job was the way out. I look around and notice they're having one-on-ones across the room just like the one I'm going through.

So we finally have a seat, and they launch into it. They speak at breakneck paces and they're talking about exponentials and a bunch of stuff that is barely understandable. They talk about how difficult the job market can be, and hell, how difficult jobs can be in general, and how glorious financial independence is, which is why they want to make this job easy. They go on to say that we're selling to a huge demographic of middle- and latter-aged folks, a booming economical treasure chest, to be sure.

They have a video they played, too, and included talking heads saying nothing about the product but instead things like "hooray for financial independence" and people dancing in palaces and shit. Only about 25 minutes into the presentation did anybody say anything about the product we were selling -- some fountain-of-youth creams and drinks that you usually see in late night infomercials.

The speaker says something about how people who care about how they look can try medication and "all its crazy side affects," or they can try our product and watch the results.

They then congratulate you, wish you the best, and hand you a pad and paper to essentially sign yourself over to the job. There were about five others with me, again, all the same age, and they started signing. I couldn't help but look at the display product and think everything was a crock of shit.

I put down the pad, I get up. Dead serious, two people politely step in my way.

"What's up?" This doesn't feel like my scene, I don't think I want to do this.

"Why not?" I just really, really don't. I'm gonna take off.

"Well--" says one guy, before the other one interrupts him and allows me to take off without any more hassle before, I guess, I threaten to make a scene and scare off the other applicants.

There are quite a few jobs out there like that that feed off of the bottom tier of college-aged folks. I might recommend the job to a high school graduate who didn't want to do college but was good with sales, but even then I think I'd just be like "go get a job at Borders, man."

That's not sneaky at all. I mean, you even noticed the glaring red flag of "Hey, we've heard you're great! What? You want to know how a company you've never heard of heard about you working some crap minimum wage job? Uh, we can't tell you! That's doubly great that you just told us that you're a desperate college student though!"

So how much money have you sent the Nigerian prince?

Like half of Manhattan got sucked into Quixtar when I was there. I had probably 50% of the people I knew try to sell me into that shit and even more baffling is how they'd get psychotically pissed when I said no.

That and the ****ing losers that go around selling overpriced magazine subscriptions so that they could win a trip to Cancun or somewhere.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I probably would have shut the door and gone back to whatever I was doing.

But threatening to shoot someone in the face sounds efficient.

[Setsuna]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I probably would have shut the door and gone back to whatever I was doing.

But threatening to shoot someone in the face sounds efficient.

You're a panzy.

[chasedude]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

We've all fallen for this stuff. I once let a vacuum cleaner salesman into my house, and the guy wouldn't leave. Even though I ended up getting a free vacuum out of the deal, it didn't work on blood stains at all.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I probably would have shut the door and gone back to whatever I was doing.

But threatening to shoot someone in the face sounds efficient.

well, it seemed to work. I suppose " i'm gonna shoot you in the face, and then when I'm done skull ****ing your lifeless corpse, I'm gonna call the police and tell them you tried to break in" would have been more efficient

[whoman69]

I read through this whole thread wondering why its a prayer request.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by whoman69

I read through this whole thread wondering why its a prayer request.

If you had fallen victim to the same scheme 6 times, you would be asking for prayers as well.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by whoman69

I read through this whole thread wondering why its a prayer request.

He's praying for a better brain