DNMC International, DS-Max, Innovage Job advertised as "Admin Assistant", but they made me a door-to-door salesman! Kuala Lumpur Federal State of Kuala Lumpur

(Note: all names, except mine, have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved)

I came to Malaysia about 2 months ago with my girlfriend, who is Malaysian, and I was looking for work. I rang up an ad in the local paper for an "Admin Assistant/Management Trainee" position. I rang the number given, and the lady on the phone asked me to come in for an interview the next day. Well, I got there at 2:30, and I filled in an application form. I waited for a long time, and I was worried as I had another interview at 4pm.

The manager, Paul, interviewed me with another lady, and what he said seemed to be a good prospect - they would teach you management, and in 6 to 8 months you would be a manager. He told me that he would call me about a second interview. He called me a day or so later, and told me to come in the next day, and that the interview would be a training session from 9am to 5pm.

Well, I turned up there the next morning, taking this job interview instead of another one which was for a trainee executive post at a language school, which is my speciality (I have a degree in Mandarin Chinese and a diploma in French). The other people who were there for the "day of observation" as I later found out it is called, were sitting in the office, and someone put on a Mr. Bean DVD. Eventually the guy came and he paired us up with someone already in the company. I was working with a Malaysian Indian guy called Bob. Bob took me and Lucia out to Kuchai Lama, and he bought me lunch. He explained that we were promoting Glow & Glamour, a beauty centre.

After lunch, we got started in the field. We went to the various businesses in the area and tried to sell them to the people working there. He usually asked to see the boss or the person in charge. The first person he talked to, a young man, bought the promotion for his girlfriend. They say that you get a free slimming treatment, face shaping and spa, but it's not free - you pay RM29.90 (Malaysian Ringgits) for the card. He also said that he was from DS-Max sometimes and DNMC International the other times. As Bob went throughout the various businesses, he managed to sell quite a few cards, and I was impressed. Several of the businesses had signs saying "No Salesmen Allowed" and Bob explained that we're not salesmen - we are promoting a product.

According to him, a salesman sells products. It's a pretty fine line to draw, however, and I am sure that what he was (and probably still is) is a salesman. We later met up with Lucia, and she told me that she had only sold two cards. By the end of the day, Bob had sold all his cards. He took Lucia and I back to the office, where I had to fill in a "quiz", and then one of the managers called me into the office and gave me the job. He wanted me to start tomorrow (a Saturday). When I was in the car after dinner that night, Bob called me and told me to come tomorrow for a special company breakfast.

So I went there bright and early the next morning, and we had breakfast downstairs that was paid by the company. I met up with Bob. He gave me a red shirt which company members wear on Saturdays and several other days, and I put it on. He took me into a room with posters on the wall, a whiteboard with everyone's sales recorded on it, and loud music playing. He explained the 5 Steps and the 8 Steps to me, and then told me to teach him what I had learnt. He told me that I would be in management.

Then Paul arrived, and he yelled "Hey guys!" to which Bob told me to reply "Hey what?" He then sent the various teams out to ther specific locations, but first he offered bonuses to the teams that sell the most. Bob told me that I was going to be attending a pre-management meeting. I was exicted, but all they did was play us a video about DS-Max, the parent company of DNMC International, where one lady said that "DS-Max is better than college, because you learn on the job and are making money instead of paying it". I believed it. Paul talked about how you can open new offices and be earning lots of money.

When it had finished, I asked Paul about working in Malaysia when I didn't have a working permit, and he said that it was all right. He said that you can go to Singapore, a 4 hour bus trip, stay there for a day or so, come back to Malaysia and your visa will be extended. This is totally dishonest, but one of his own assistant managers did it.

I then came home, and I looked up DS-Max on the internet. To my surprise, the sites I found were far from positive. I told my girlfriend's father about this, but he advised me to keep on with the job, as he said "What do you have to lose?"

I came on Monday morning, and I was taken into the "atmosphere room", as I would later find out it was called. The music was really loud, but over the din of the music, I managed to talk to another guy who helped me with my pitch. He said that the promotion was only for ten lucky people. What a load of rubbish! Each "distributor" (DS-Max talk for door-to-door salesman) has ten cards, and they can get more if they sell them all. We then had the morning "atmosphere", where Paul told a really long story about Tony Fernandez, who founded AirAsia, a cheap trans-Asia airline, and how he made sacrifices to get where he was. My feet and back started to hurt, and I was getting frustrated. The teams were then laid out, and all team members had to run into the centre and 'high-five' each other.

Bob then took us back to the same area, and he had a new day of observation with him, called Raj. After a few businesses, none of which are successful, Bob let me go out on my own to try and sell, while he went off with Raj. I didn't succeed in selling a single card. I discovered that it wasn't easy, like I'd seen Bob doing, but extremely difficult. No-one seemed to be interested in my product. With a lot of Bob's help, I managed to get a sale, but it was really his sale. Nevertheless, he gave me the commission. I met with no success in the afternoon, and my feet really started to hurt. I decided that I was going to quit this job.

Near the end of the day, we met up with some of the other distributors, and Bob left me with them while he went back to close a sale. They took me back to the office, and when Bob got back, he talked to me about the day's performance. Then another guy came in, and he started to lecture me about the law of averages. I could sense that he was going to go on for ages, and I told him that I had somewhere to be at 7pm. Bob got my change for the sale that I made, and then I left. True to my word, I went to the Hindu temple, whose evening programme started at 7pm.

When I got back home, I talked to my girlfriend's uncle (her father was away for a week) and told him that I wanted to quit. He advised me not to turn up the next day. That is what I did, and I've never set foot in the office since.

The company seems to engage in a number of dishonest practices.

- The position is advertised as an 'admin assistant/management trainee', yet it is actually a door-to-door sales post. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have taken the job.

- Bob told the people that it was an 'invitation' card, (kad jemputan in Malay), and he said that the spa etc. was free, when in reality, you had to pay RM29.90 for it.

- He said that this special promotion was for Glow & Glamour's 10th anniversary (I don't know whether that is true or not). But he then said things like "I want you to come to my anniversary" and "we want lots of people to come, as we are having an anniversary", when in reality, the promotion could be taken at any time in the next 6 months at 5 different locations.

- When I first asked Bob about the payment, he told me that you could either choose salary or commission, but that he chose the commission as it was more. I later found it that it was 100% commission based pay.

- The company, instead of giving me a letter of appointment to apply to Immigration for a work permit, advised me to go to Singapore and come back to renew my visa so I could stay longer.

If anyone has been offered a job with this company, and is researching it online, then I would advise you: Don't take this job!!! There are far better ones out there!

S. Michael
Petaling Jaya
Malaysia

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