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Report: #152325

Complaint Review: BWL Technologies - Better Way Of Life - HMI Health-Mor - FilterQueen - Springdale Ohio

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  • Reported By: College Hill Ohio
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  • BWL Technologies - Better Way Of Life - HMI Health-Mor - FilterQueen 11385 Landan Lane Springdale, Ohio U.S.A.

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There are MANY Rip-off Reports about other companies doing exactly the same thing in the same way throughout the country. Different companies with different names and different owners all do the same thing: 1.) Advertise for a sales force for "FDA Class 2 Medical Air Cleaner"; 2.) Promise (in the ad, then on the phone when you respond, then in the "interview" that you are invited to) that it is NOT a commission-based job, that you will be given 30 genuine hot leads every two weeks, that in return for spending about two hours with each lead - demonstrating the product - you will receive $1200 and a new set of genuine hot leads; 3.) The "interview" turns out to be a presentation with 20-50 others in attendance, too; 4.) At the end of the presentation, you get a one-minute interview and are told to call a number later that day; 5.) If you dressed professionally, showed up promptly, and seemed gullible enough, then when you call later, you are invited back the next three days for a "free" (i.e. uncompensated) seminar on air quality testing and such; 6.) After three days of this, anyone who is still attending (not having been bored to death nor become wary of the operation) is told to generate 10 of their own leads (i.e. friends and family) on which to "practice" their demonstration (i.e. sales technique); 7.) Each of these 10 practice demonstrations must be preceeded and followed by a call to your trainer, and at the followup call, the trainer badgers you for not having sold a $3000 device (which is worth about 20% of that, as evidenced by the open market - search eBay and other online stores); 8.) Some of the "Sales Force Candidates" will, out of desperation, buy one or sell one to a family member, so that he or she can go on to the next phase, and receive the 30 hot leads; 9.) The 30 leads turn out to be some false leads (non-existent addresses, etc.) and some leads who were told that they had won a prize, and simply had to listen to a 20-minute presentation in order to claim it; 10.) By assuring that you will NOT make 30 presentations, they will never pay you the $1200, even if you do sell one or more devices; 11.) If you are gullible enough, you will continue on the sales force, thinking that your check will come in a few weeks, and that you'll do better with the next set of leads; 12.) meanwhile, the company will close its doors and not answer the phone for many months, until things cool down, when they will place another classified ad in the papaer for a Sales Force. Repeat ad nauseum. See also:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff93826.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff133897.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff102511.htm

Check you local Better Business Bureau (not that they're very good, but maybe yours does SOMETHING -- Cincinnati's shows complaints, one of them unresolved)

What is needed is a class-action lawsuit, but the various small companies aren't juicy enough. Health-Mor / HMI / Filterqueen keeps itself clean, but allows many unscrupulous "businesspersons" (cough, cough) to run this kind of business selling Filterqueen and Defender.

If you're reading this, then you've probably already been ripped off. Too bad. I wasn't gullible enough -- I asked a question at the "interview": "What if one of the 30 leads isn't home when you show up for the presentation?" Because I was that savvy, I wasn't invited to the free seminar for the next three days, and all of the rest that follows. But my research shows that they did the same thing to others here last year and the year before, and that other companies are sticking it to their sales forces throughout the country.

John
Cincinnati, Ohio
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 08/03/2005 09:14 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/bwl-technologies-better-way-of-life-hmi-health-mor-filterqueen/springdale-ohio-45246-3601/bwl-technologies-better-way-of-life-hmi-healthmor-filterqueen-ripoff-promise-of-a-sa-152325. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
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1Employee/Owner

#6 UPDATE EX-employee responds

Nick that's hilarious

AUTHOR: Ashley86 - (USA)

POSTED: Wednesday, January 11, 2017

 Nick was one of my"bosses" at bwl. They had a short lived office in Alexandria where they brought a guy from Troy and a woman named Jessica that lives in independence but worked in Springdale with them. The three of them came down for the first day of interviews where nick was the quiet in a suit guy in the back junky office. Looking back now I realize they kept who didn't seem skeptical and kept an upbeat attitude and didn't ask a lot of questions. When we called the number at the end of the day we were "awarded" an unpaid training that was offered to us at a no cost training ;) I worked for this company for over two months and even attended a brainwashing seminar in Pittsburg where we got a free room for the leaders of the company to pump us up about trying to get more "leads" again.

We many times went door to door doing"air quality surveys" we had doors slammed in our faces many times got yelled at and then sometimes if we were lucky we would have someone do the sure quality survey and we would get a small reward of a gas card if we got so many. Which was nice because that was all the pay we were getting..... I sold 7 units in 2 weeks and was only paid around 100 bucks because it was a c line sale which meant it was a bad or low credit loan company. An a line sale is what u need we were told after that. When we got the in home presentations and we got to the end we had to call our supervisors and they would ask how it went. If it went okay we would say fantastic this means they would be hard pressed to sell to them if they seemed interested it was super fantastic.... all I can say is yes it's a scam you are interviewed in the group and then they teach you about the product but will not mention cost until about the second or third day. I wish I had never even went into the first interview

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#5 UPDATE EX-employee responds

Nick shows you the typical pattern

AUTHOR: Tim - (USA)

POSTED: Monday, September 19, 2011

Nick in this day and age, people don't need a door to door salesperson selling a vacuum cleaner when the internet is around.  A lot of the internet doesn't have anything good to say about the product from the people who worked for Healthmor all the way down to the independent distributor.  

I would hope that since it has been awhile since you have defended the company that you either went to college by now and/or found other legitimate work to do.

Be a real man Nick and really tell the people the real story about running the company before I get another phone call from a tv station asking questions.

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#4 REBUTTAL Owner of company

An honest company with an honest response...

AUTHOR: Nick - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Friday, September 22, 2006

There are too many wonderful people working in my organization every day and enjoying every second of it for me to sit quietly while under attack. I don't typically respond to tabloid sensationalism, however if anyone were deterred from either working for our company or doing business with our company because of the incorrect information posted above, it would be an absolute shame. Please let me address a few points:

1. The individual who typed the original 'report' on BWL Tech was merely copying and pasting from some other report on some other company. Following the plagiarized 'report' he clearly states he stated no longer than the interview... Not exactly the informed voice to look to for decision-making advice.

2. We do have both a bi-weekly pay guarantee and a commission based pay. Both pay structures are used in an effort to both reward sales efforts and create security in guaranteed income. Regardless of which pay one may qualify for, everyone always has been and always will be paid on time...every time!

3. We do in-home presentations of our equipment. These visits are set up through an appointment-setting department filled with experienced telemarketers. These visits also may be set up by our customers who have enjoyed our presentation and would like to send us to see some of their acquaintances. We do offer gifts and incentives for this help in setting appointments because, once again, it's all in the name of giving out Associates more people to visit with. Never have we or will we ask an IAQS Associate to go door-to-door looking for an appointment.

4. The quality of our equipment clearly shows itself when either presented to our customers or tested in independent labs. The Defender and Majestic air and surface cleaning systems have withstood the test of time and are now almost 80 years proven. These two products combine to create the newest breakthrough to improving indoor air quality, and reducing indoor air pollution. This is according not only to us, but also by B.P. Loughridge MD. He states this in his book called, "Every breath you take". To read more on the subject go to www.dietandhealthdesign.com

5. I do not know about the company in Wisconsin, so I won't comment on them. The company in Troy, however, is ran by one the most loving, compassionate, and hard working couples on the planet. I will vouch for the integrity of that office 100% as well as anyone who they have in to train and develop new associates.

It's ok to have an opinion, however no one has the right to be wrong about the facts.

We have over 30,000 customers in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana alone and are currently not only in our largest sales volume era, but we are also in our largest office expansion and growth phase we have ever been in.

Creating such an exciting, enthusiastic, and profitable opportunity for my co-workers to enjoy has been my life's dream and a pleasure. There are over 200 hundred people in our organization in Ohio alone who have experienced their Better Way of Living...I welcome every one of you to join our team and realize how great it can be to finally work for yourself and be in control of your future.

Thanks for your time - Nick B.

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#3 UPDATE Employee

theyre in Superior, WI now

AUTHOR: Joe - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Wednesday, September 20, 2006

I just finised up with the first training day, learning about the defendor. the trainer was VERY loud, and refused to tell us the price of the items we were to sell, saying he didnt want us to dwell on the price. that made me a little wary. During the origional interview, the interviewer would not tell us what we would be doing, but said that they would set up appointments for us to go out and set up some kind of display, making it seem like it would be in a commercial inviroment. today i found out it was all residential sales, and we would acctually have to ask our customers for names of people they knew who might be interested. the only reason i am going back tomorrow is to show the other people in the class what i have found here.

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#2 UPDATE EX-employee responds

Not a rip-off, but

AUTHOR: Jason - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Saturday, May 20, 2006

Hi,
I BRIEFLY worked for these people, only in Troy the company is called LBW Technologies, or it is now. There's actually a BWL Technologies down around Cincinnati.

I myself have mixed feelings about the whole experience and the company itself. Having dealt with the products,I believe they really do measure up to their claims. I've seen the Defender Air Filter compared to smaller, cheaper ones, and there really is no comparison in my opinion. I also think the Majestic surface cleaner beats every vacuum cleaner on the market. So I would say that they probably are worth the price. But that being said, getting someone to commit to paying those prices that day or that night after a 2 or 3 hour presentation can be another thing. The price on the Defender is about $995 and the price of the Majestic is about $2595.

When I was working with them, which wasn't that long ago, we would usually give people a free Defender if they bought a Majestic. However, to get a sale you really had to be a very good salesman, and you had to be in the home of people who felt comfortable spending that kind of money and who were very health conscious and wanted to protect their investments. I wound up in several homes where people really wanted the system but didn't feel comfortable spending that much money, even with all the financing plans available to them.

Personally, I know I made some mistakes along the way, and that's why the business didn't work out for me. For one thing I was working another job at the same time and so I couldn't and wouldn't dedicate myself to it 100%. I wanted to see if it's something that I could have some success with before I went full bore into it and quit my other job. I got off to a pretty quick start, but things dried up for me almost as quickly.

My honest and objective opinion is this is a legitimate business who offers great products, and can POTENTIALLY be very profitable. However, I would advise some caution as well based on my own experiences.

When you're going through your training, you will be told that you get paid $1200 if you do 30 qualified demonstrations in a 2 week period. I was told that getting 30 appointments or getting 30 demonstrations in would not be a problem. This is not entirely true, because they're probably not going to have that many preset office appointmentd so that every rep can do 30 demos, or even so that ONE rep can do 30 demos off of office appointments. On top of that, to get 30 qualified demos in, you may actually have to set or go to twice that many appointments, because you can run into several problems along the way with people not being home and things like that. I didn't do it for that long, but in the time I was a rep, which was for 2 or 3 months, I don't think I saw or heard of anyone in our office doing 30 qualified demos in a 2 week period. As a matter of fact, I think some people quit because the appointments just weren't there for them.

On the other hand, the company does offer pretty generous compensation if you do make a sale. There really aren't too many other jobs out there where you can make $300-$600 for a couple hours work- unless you're a psychiatrist or lawyer or something.

My only really criticism with Health-Mor and all its offices is that I wish they would be a little more straightforward with everyone up front. I mentioned that you're probably not going to be able to do 30 qualified demos in 2 weeks time off of office appointments. I was led to believe that even if you don't make a sale or very many sales, getting that $1200 every two weeks won't be a problem at all- and like I said that's not entirely true. It takes a lot of work on the rep's part getting referrals, and then on top of that getting appointments set off of those referrals, and then getting those appointments to hold up. I personally think they should spend a lot more time in training reps how to get referrals, particularly their "customer-book" referrals, because without referrals, you're screwed basically. I know every single person who started in the business out of my class struggled to get referrals. And you're definitely better off if you can to set all appointments yourself, because often times the telemarketers are instructed to tell people presentations are going to take 60-90 minutes, when typically they take at least 2-3 hours.

I ran into situations where people thought they were going to take no longer than those 60-90 minutes, so they made plans to do something else almost immediately after that time. You can also be unintentionally sabotaged by the telemarketers in other ways too- they might not tell a wife that their husband has to be there for the entire presentation as well, or vice versa, and I don't think they always made an effort to double check to see if someone was married and if they actually owned their home. And of course, often times on office appointments the people only had a vague idea of what the product you had actually was, since they were told they had won a prize and to claim it just had to allow a rep to show them a product and give their honest opinion on it.

In short, and I know I've actually been pretty long winded, I think this is a legitimate business opportunity. But if you're looking for "easy money", look elsewhere, because you're going to have to work hard, and as they say, work smart. It helps if you have a little bit of financial security to fall back on and/or if you're an incredibly gifted salesperson... because although the products do sell themselves, they are priced very high, and appointments can be very hit and miss- like I said I saw or heard of very few if any reps who actually got 30 qualified demos in in a two week time frame. I think the only sure way to success is to get a ton of referrals, set a ton of appointments yourself, and get into the homes of people who can afford the machines. If you do that, you can make a good bit of money. I did see some people who were very successful doing things that way.

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#1 Consumer Suggestion

They are in Troy, Ohio now...

AUTHOR: Lucas - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Wednesday, October 05, 2005

First off, I want to thank you for first creating this Rip-Off Report on Health-Mor/Filterqueen/BWL Technologies. I also went to an interview and (for kicks) the presentation (called, "Training") the next day. The man who did the mass interview explained nothing of the product we were selling, and actually told us nothing about any position other than the IAQS Apprentice Program. He never mentioned what IAQS stood for. After the presentation/interview, he took our applications by the door and asked us a few questions (2 or 3) and then told us to call back later to check on our applications.

I thought the presentation was hilarious, and could tell it was a potential sales pitch how the man constantly stressed the fact that we would have to pay nothing to attend "training". I called back later in the day and was told that my application was accepted and to be there at 10 AM the following morning.

Their office was located in a basement/office and had almost no signage indicating its location outside. In one room there were two vending machines and in the other there was a small (maybe 10 x 15) classroom. The same guy from the previous day was going to teach the training class. He was going to accomplish this with a projector and a labtop. The set-up didn't look entirely professional, and I think this is where some people started feeling a little uneasy.

I also called into question the quality of the man who was teaching this class. The day before he played off like he was a Professional from outside Ohio who travelled the Eastern sea-board to represent this company, in training he said the following:

- He was 18 and went to the Marine Corps.
- Served 4 years and worked in a related field afterward for about 2 years.
- Told a story how he did roofing with some buddies before deciding labor wasn't "for him".
- Said he had lived in Troy, Ohio for 8-9 years.
- Said he didn't go to college because "people who go to college don't even end up in the area of their degree"
- Said "college isn't worth the money spent on it"

The man himself was dishonest. And I think a few people noticed this. The first day he pronounced the name of a main road here in Troy as "Dor-Set" and in reality I have not heard one person from this town ever prounce it any different than "dorset".

This man would yell at us, literally his volume was incrediably too loud for such a small room. He explained that he would give us breaks, but not to ask for them. We were forced to sit on cheap hard wooden chairs and many people were uncomfortable.

The straw that broke the camel's back (concerning the guy) was after his admission that a "senior Vice President of the company" was just outside the doorway, he blatently swore 3 times that I documented, though possibly 4. What type of Businessman swears to future employees in front of a boss?

Anyhow, so the trainer covered some "interesting facts" at the beginning of his presentation. One of which was: "56% of Americans who graduated High School make less than 50k a year." Now, as a student of Political Science and Economics, I knew that fact was wrong. He never stated his sources, nor did he have them cited in his presentation. This was getting fishy.

Next he spoke about the pay. This was so confusing (I think it was by design) that even I (a veteran of some pretty intricate economics courses) had a difficult time following it. As I understood it:

30 Displays in 2 weeks would get you paid $1,200. Anyhting less and you were paid nothing.
All Displays over 30 would be $40 per display.
If you met the 30 Display limit both bi-weekly periods, you would get a $300 bonus for expenses.

He also mentioned Profit-Sharing, which was a comission of of sales generated from your displays. (Displays are Presentations by the way)

I never stuck around for him to ask me for certain leads, such as family and friends. I left right after he began talking of a Cruise Give-A-Way to customers who gave 3 referrals. That was the last straw. What company has to give out prizes just to get referrals?

All in all, it was getting too crazy for me, too many grey areas, and absolutely no crediability with the instructor. I'd keep typing but I am writing this at 1 AM. Anyone else have these experiences?

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