The Alliance Group TAG, Cydcor pyramid sales scam Baton rouge, Louisiana

I'm guessing you were not very good at the position, because if you only lasted 3 weeks you must have sucked. As for fraternization, that happens in any job you work at, you've probably slept with one of your co workers. Don't make excuses for why you failed at a job, suck it up, forget about it, let someone else make their own judgement about a company before you ruin it. I hear McDonalds is hiring, they have a great management structure.

I had a run in with The Alliance Group in Baton Rouge and luckily I caught on quick to what was going on because I'm sure nothing good would have come from them trying to keep me away from my car to leave and also barking orders at me to go door to door when originally I thought I was going in to interview as an Analyst.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this information because I didn't notice until now (and I've actually visited both websites numerous times), but it seems that they are using another business name also, Smith Business Consultants, Inc. or at least Smith Business Consultants, Inc. is now using the same physical address as The Alliance Group; when on CareerBuilders.com, Smith Business Consultants, Inc. are showing that they are located on S. Harrells Ferry Rd, about 500-800 feet east of Millerville; all the other "map" sites locate it at 3029 S. Sherwood Forest Blvd #325, Baton Rouge, LA, 70816, with the contact number being the same, (225) 296-5022. There website being: http://www.smithbc.com/. I should have recognized the little familiarities with the websites before; luckily I'm seeing them now...and the matched addresses and phone also.

Now as far as being well known on campus, well, that's their jobs; that's what makes them good at what they do. For example, Benny Hinn (the faith healing preacher on TV), who lives in a $10 million home, has a Gulfstream G4SP plane (G4 for Urban Lingo) and receives millions from followers because he hits people in the head, they fall and convulse on the ground and "presto", they're healed by his touch. He's good at putting on a show, keeping the soft minded close to his word (we call it taking advantage of people), good or bad marketing (either way, its marketing), he couldn't survive without being "the well known man on campus".

I guess I just wanted to say that no matter what, theres always going to be schemers and cons out there that want to take advantage of bad situations for their own benefit and profit. Its very unfortunate as well that were all in one of the largest bad situations to be taken advantage of too, the recession (Depression). Im just glad to see that there are means to help and expose people easier these days than in the Great Depression and the late 70s and 80s Recession. So, I bid you adieu and remember, it seems that The Alliance Group and Smith Business Consultants, Inc. seem to either sharing the rent at the same location, which is understandable in these hard times, or, the more obvious, theyre one in the same and Im sure theres a couple other names out therewell run across them!

I attend LSU and The Alliance Group's name is very well-known on campus. I have several friends that have interviewed with the company, and yes this is not a position for everyone. However, I have known acquaintances who work or have worked as an intern for the company and they enjoyed every moment of it. Everyone has an opinion and they all won't be positive. But think about major companies, how much negative press is there about LSU or Walmart for that matter ( does anyone remember the accusations from employees over the summer )

I am an education major and my heart is not in marketing, but if it were I think this would be a fun, friendly company to work with!

this is just another persons point of view of the company, same mother company cydcor, but different branch office, same thing, same everything

I just wanted to volunteer some information to you regarding Cydcor and your claims as to its deceptive practices. I worked for a branch of Cydcor out in Los Angeles, called The Ad Group, or TAG (www.teamtaggroup.com) for short. I wasted a good two months of my life working for them and after realizing this was merely a complex pyramid scheme I quit. The only reason their practices are not illegal is because you never give them any money. But, as they say, time is money, so in the end you are giving them quite a bit. As for the specifics of my experience at Cydcor, here is the jist of it.

My initial interview involved them telling me that in less than a year I would be making well over $100,000 a year as a manager if I stuck with them. They said I would run my own lucrative business, and that they would guide me in thisendeavor. What essentially ensued was me spending two weeks in the field walking around in the 90 degree heatof Los Angeles in the summer in a suit doing door-to-door sales. I did this for 8 hours a day, plus an hour before and an hour afterwards, for an average work day of around 10 hours. They called this face-to-face business. I had no pre-established meetings, and spent my days walking into somewhere between 50 and 75 businesses a day, feigning my importance and often resulting to lying (as was encouraged) in order to get past the gatekeeper and speak with the decision-maker. I would, on a good day, get to speak with around 5 of these decision-makers. At this point, 3 out of 5 would tell me to leave, scream at me, or curse at me. The remaining 2 would, if I was lucky, buy something. I represented Quill office supplies, and on a very good day I would make around two or three sales equaling around $400. This would result in a commission of around $100. So, you may think, that isnt so bad! Whats wrong with $100 a day during your training phase? Well, understand that you work 10 hours a day and that you pay for your meals, your gas, and you get taxed. Your territory that you canvas could be anywhere from 10 miles away to 25 miles away. In Los Angeles you are looking at driving an hour at least just to get to your sales territory. So at the end of the day you are making somewhere around $60 or $70 on a good day. On top of the fact that you have to drive to the office everyday first before you go into the field and again when you return. Gas is expensive, and so is wear and tear on your car.

So, what happens after this training phase? Well, you get promoted! Wow! After only two weeks of hard work I got promoted to a Leader! Im so proud of myself. I cant wait to learn more and get some new responsibilities and perks/pay! Oh, wait. No, just new responsibilities. What sort of responsibilities? Well, for one, I now have to arrive at the office an hour earlier, at 7:00am every day to do leader training. Then, at 9:00am all of the interviewees come in, and guess who is interviewing them? Me! Yes, I am interviewing AND HIRING people who are literally two weeks behind me. These people have already been interviewed once (roughly a 15 minute interview) and this is their second interview. The trick is that all of these people who we interviewed the first time were called, even though we tell them we only call a small percentage. We call everyone. The idea is that they are hungry for the job and feel like they need to prove it. So my job is to reel them in. I hire them to my team and then I am expected to train them completely from start to finish. How do I do this? Well, now when I go into the field to do some good ole door-to-door sales I am bringing my interviewee, who most likely is miserable and does NOT want to take this job. I even had multiple people say after the first half hour that they would not take this job if their life depended on it. Oh well, too bad, youre stuck with me for 8 hours doing door-to-door sales. I had a girl that was so miserable she cried in my carfor 15 minutes after someone cursed at us for soliciting them even though they have a No Solicitations sign. And yes, we were encouraged to solicit those people as well. And to lie to security guards, lie to receptionists, and lie to everyone to get to the owner. You can understand that many of them were irate that you had infiltrated their businesses in such a way and wasted their time. Most just tell you to leave, but some are very angry and treat you quite poorly. This was always embarrassing when you have a poor, undeserving person with you who is literally on THEIR JOB INTERVIEW.

After a full day of terrible door-to-door sales you then tell the person you are interviewing that you want them to be on your team. You tell them theyre great and can make loads of cash. You only have to work in the field a few months until you hit Assistant Manager you tell them. If youre lucky theyll take the job and join your team. Then you take them in the field with you every day to train them and split your doors with them. Sometimes you have 2 people and you split it 3 ways. What does this mean? Your sales commission just dropped by either 50% or 66% because you are seeing either 50% less doors per day or 66% less doors. But thats okay, because as a Leader you make more money, right? No. You dont. Same amount as the guy youre training. And what is that, you say? Zero. You work on commission only. So yeah, there are PLENTY of days when you LOSE money by making zero sales and paying forgas and food. Also, at the end of the day as a leader you are expected to stay later and socialize as well, to make the new guys feel at home. This means you show up at 7:00am to the office and train for 2 hours. Go into the field at 9:00am with your interviewee/new hire, and leave the field at 5:00pm. You arrive back at the office at around 6:00 6:30pm. You stay at least half an hour to an hour. You leave the office at 7:30 8:00pm. Your work day is at least 12 hours a day, for a nice average work week of 60 hours. Oh, and if you dont make your sales, they expect you to work Saturdays. In fact, just before I was to be promoted as a Leader I had a day where I made zero sales. They told me I should consider working Saturday to make up for it. I did not. They in turn did not promote me. I had to work the next Saturday to prove my worth, and then they promoted me.

After you are a Leader for a while (2-3 months they say) you hopefully accumulate 5 people under you that are all promoted into the same title as Leader. At this point you become an Assistant Manager. You still make no base salary, but your commission doubles. This is because you are spending half of your time training with the Managerof the branch, thus you are only in the field about a third of the time. So youre likely making less money. After you train a few months you then take the 5 Leaders you trained who hopefully havent quit, and you go open your own office with them and the guys they hired. Where? They tell you where they have an opening, which is, in the case of the 2 months I was there, either of two towns in middle-America. You have no choice. So yeah, you are moving, bringing a bunch of people who have never been their either, and hoping all goes well.

In my two months working at Cydcor I realized how many people were hired and how many of those quit. After the first week I started taking a log out of my own curiosities. Here are my statistics:

Time span: 7 weeks

Average interviews per week: 96

Average interviewers hired per week: 9

Number of interviews in 7 weeks: 673

Number of newly-hired in 7 weeks: 63

Number of newly-hired still employed after 7 weeks: 2

Note that by interview I mean 2nd round interview, which means each and every one of those interviewers were offered a job. So, out of 673 people we tried to sucker in, only 63 fell for it. Of that 63, only 2 were still falling for it after 7 weeks.

When I realized Cydcor was wasting my time, and that I was making zero money, I quit. I was treated extremely rudely by Jamie Hepp, the Manager of the branch, and one of the top 6 guys in the entire company. He told me I was nothing but a quitter and that I lied to them about me taking the company seriously. He berated me and talked down to me for about 15 minutes and then told me to get out of his sight.

After quitting Cydcor I joined another firm in sales and have done extremely well. In less than two years I am making a six-digit salary and working with a great company that treats me with respect. I work a normal work week and I cherish the moments I had a Cydcor for putting things in perspective. Its one of those jobs that youre glad you had because it makes everything else seem so much better. I wish there were a way to shut down Cydcor, because all they do is reel you in so you can make sales for them. They do not care if you succeed or if you fail, because after all.. they have zero investment in you. You are being paid nothing. You only make money if you make money for them. And youre being trained by other people that they are not paying either. It is a brilliant scheme to dupe people into running around doing door-to-door sales for you. They dont care if you stay a week or a month, just as long as you make some sales for them. And if you dont make sales they dont care about that either, because they arent paying for your gas, your food, or giving you a base salary. Your failure or success is a mere formality to them, and in the end does not affect them in the least". They just keep hiring and hiring and hiring'. Then those people figure it out and they quit,. Then another batch of people come in the door". It is an ever-revolving system of abuse that makes money for a very few people at the top of the entire scheme;. It is a wonder that these guys are still able to participate in such unjust business practice.

What a piece of TRASH!