Xtreme Marketing Inc Innovage dirty, dishonest, pyramid scheme, you work 50+ hour weeks making $50 while fat cat boss makes $5,000 doing nothing Tampa, Florida

I found this ad on Craigslist that offered a job at $8-$10 an hour or more. Didn't explain too much more. I got a call for an interview and I went to this little hole in the wall office and I saw 10-20 guys all dressed up in suits and thought, "Wow! Now this looks like a nice job." I get the second interview after passing the initial one. Again, nothing was explained about the company other than... in exact words. "We work for a company called Innovage who promotes products not yet on the market for companies like Vivitar, Crayola, Disney, MLB, and even the NFL!", "We aren't sales guys, the only way to describe the business is to go out and watch what we do!"

Well that sounded really exciting. I'm trying to get a job that works for big name companies and is into marketing and promotions! No sales too! Well I go in on my first day of observation and immediately I sense that this isn't what it seems. They said the company is a HUGE company and has all these big name retailers on there side, yet the 2 "owners" are a short, middle aged asian guy who speaks broken English, and a white, British chap that's middle aged and has a heavy accent. Both who tell me that they make soooo much money it's insane and that Stu (the British one) makes on average of $10,000-$20,000 a week, while Ray, the little asian one, makes $5,000-$10,000 a week "promoting".

Great! I thought, although there office doesn't have a sign in front anywhere, the office is really small, and theres no company logos of any of the brands they name dropped in the interview but cool... it sounds good so far... a little too good. Well I go to find out that I don't actually work for Innovage but a company called Xtreme Marketing Inc who apparently works for innovage who works for all those big name companies. Weird, but I'll still give it a chance. Well I go out on the road with another fellow about my age and he expains that he has to drive around and do cold sales from business to business. And on top of that, I'm not selling any cool products from the NFL, MLB, Vivitar, Crayola, Disney or the other dozen companies that I was told but some unknown make up company called Makeover Essentials. I'm selling a 3 piece gift set for $20. WTF!

Well to make a long story a little shorter, we had to solicite business in our own cars, using our own gas, buying our own demo make up kits to businesses who had no idea we were coming. Cold selling make up was the business and all that crap about not being in sales... LIES! Working for big name companies... LIES! Working for Innovage... LIES! $8-$10 an hour... LIES! and that's only the start.

When I get back I am offered the job. Ray tells me theres a base pay of $300 a week starting out and it goes up $100 everytime I hit a certain number of sales and get new make up to sell. He did mention he would like guys to sell 30 kits a week and we would get paid every week in cash.

I gave it a shot because I desperately needed a job. I work a full week to get paid $50 for my 50+ hours of work. (Everyones hours are 8:30 am - 6:30-8 pm Monday-Friday and sometimes Saturdays) I also find out that I only made commision on the sets I sold which our pitch was "It's a $120 make up kit, comparable to MAC and Bobbie Brown that we sell at manufacters cost of only $20! That's a lie because Ray and Stu make $7 a piece on each set and you make $7. We actually charge $22 because they tell us there's tax. So Ray and Stu are at the office all day doing who knows what making as much as I am off of each make up set while I'm busting my ass walking around all day cold selling from business to business, selling this crappy make up set that we lie soooo much about just to make freaking sales! They probably do intentory, interviews, Craigslist ads, and count all the money we just made for them!

They promised me $300 a week and lied. They said they worked for big name companies and lied. They tell us they sell the make up at manufactuers cost and lied. They told me there's no sales or numbers to worry about and lied. They pretty much lie about everything so they get people to come in and sell crappy make up for them while they sit back and cash in out of all your hard work.

That's not all. Everyday before we set out we have these ridiculous cold sales, we go over the same sales pitches with new ways to swindle unexpecting people out of there money and if you ever have anything negative to say period... you get yelled at because negative attitudes bring everyone down and you can say nothing bad about the business or the business model or you get penaltized. So you can never call them out on any of there schemes or you'll get fired with no pay.

This is the worst job I've ever had. I got paid about $1 an hour for my time not to include the gas you have to pay the other guys to drive there own vehicles around (there aren't any business vehicles to drive. You use your personal vehicle), the food you buy for lunch, all the drinks you buy because you're walking around all day, and your own gas to drive to there which if you took out the gas it takes you to get there you're still spending around $15 a day for your lunch, drinks, and the other guys gas which totally negates any profit you made for the day. On top of that they do 1099 tax forms so they don't even take out taxes and you'll have to pay taxes at the end of the year for all your earnings.

So don't ever get sucked in this terrible work place unless you want to bust your ass for some scuzzy Brit and broken English Asian who make money off of poor jobless saps like myself and are too lazy to do the leg work themselves. It's a total scheme and the products they sell are crap. Like anyone would ever pay $120 retail for that make up unless they were totally insane.

Please stop these people from being in business. They laughed when I asked if they were BBB certified. They said it was a waste of money and that all business' do is pay $3,000 to have the logo and that it means nothing. Everything they say is lies and horsesh*.