College Pro Painters: The scam and the lies to lure in young college students woburn Massachusetts

College Pro Painters is a scam, and don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise. After months of working my a*s off with nothing to show for it, I ended up owing them a few thousand dollars. College students: please do your research and don't waste your time. You are much better off getting a normal internship.

When I first heard about them it sounded like a great opportunity: looks good on your resume, potential to make a lot of money, a once in a lifetime experience, etc. Going through with the info sessions and the interviews, they made it sound even better. 15 hours a week during the spring school year and then full time in the summer. They gave me a huge contract book and quickly went over it with me, failing to point out their past lawsuits, % of employees that quit (which is extremely high), as well as other huge factors that would impact my decision. 

Once I started working I realized what I had gotten myself into. First off they completely lie about the hours you need to put into it. 15 hours a week? It was about double that. Over the summer? Easily a 7day, 24hr/day job. If you want to have no social life outside of College Pro and schoolwork, go for it. That is what you are looking at. It doesn't stop there. They give you 'free stuff' here and there, and rave about how you get leads handed to you from the call center and the shows they do. Remember this: NOTHING is free with College Pro. They charge everything to your account without telling you, and I mean everything; down to the last t-shirt.

Throughout training sessions they teach you all the tricks: what to say to the unsuspecting customers to make them think you know what you are talking about, when in reality College Pro throws you into it with minimal training. I can't count the number of times I was told "Oh, just tell them this..", "Don't mention that..", etc. Their sneaky policies aren't just used on the customer, but on the franchisee's as well. We do all the dirty work while the general managers profit from it. Not only that but the company is all over the place. They don't have their stuff together at all: training sessions running hours late, missing forms, forgotten paperwork, etc. I'm surprised they get away with half the stuff they do.

They also subcontract some of their jobs to foreign painters without having copies of those painters' insurance or licenses; the homeowners don't know, of course.

Overall, all I got from college pro was months of stress, anxiety, and fatigue. Don't listen to them when they say "It's all about block scheduling and proper time management". That's a load of B.S. They only tell you that just to get you in, but once you’re on board they expect you to be work through every ounce of free time you have. Complain that you aren't doing as well as you'd like? It's your fault for not taking that one half hour break in between 4 classes to make calls to customers. There is no way you can be successful without giving up everything else in your life aside from school, and even then the chances aren't great. 

Take my advice: don't screw up your life by making the same mistake I did. College is a time to focus on school, get part-time jobs/internships, explore, and make friends. College Pro will ruin all of that and destroy your financial situation.