IMA International Marketing Association scam con ripoff magazine LMA IMA PRS Virginia Beach Virginia

i was ripped off by this company and later worked for the company, so i have both perspectives. their pitch: hi, my name is ___ with PRS. this is just a courtesy call to let you know that you have been entered into the dream of a lifetime sweepstakes, so congratulations! now, this sweepstakes is held every year for customers of visa, master card, american express and discover. and you do still carry one of these cards correct? great! now as a contestant you are in the running for $25,000 in cash, a brand new bmw 325i series or a trip to austrailia! now somone has to win so we wish you the best of luck. i do have a few quick survey questions. (questions asked to determine age, marrital status, which card they hold.) ok great now for participating in our promotion today you will recieve a free men's or ladies diamond watch. and it's a gorgeous watch so we know you'll love it. and also as part of the publishers sweepstakes giveaway you have been chosen to recieve _____ , ____, and _____ magazines free of charge for a full 60 months! you will also recieve a catalog with hundreds of other magazine selections which allows you to change these selections as often as you wish free of charge! and finally to complement your free magazines you will also recieve ____ magazine for a full 60 months. now the _____ magazine is the only one we ask your help with and as a sweepstakes contestant you get everything for just $3.84 weekly. now i have your address as ______ is this correct? great! now i will just need you to grab a pen and paper to jot down some sweepstakes information. the drawing is going to be held on august 31st, and your order number is c-208. now i will just have to transfer you to my supervisor so that they can validate your sweepstakes entry and grade my preformance. before i let you go do you have any questions reguarding your order? now you will hear a few clicks on the line but please stay on the line and make sure you tell my supervisor which watch to send you, the mens or the ladies ok? then they transfer you to the supervisor who records you agreeing to be charged the amount of nearly $60 a month to your credit card over the next year. they say you pay so much for 12 months to avoid having to pay such a small amount every week for 60 months. then they call you back a few months later and tell you that since you have been such a good customer, they are offering to lower your payments to nearly $40 a month. but in actuality they just record you, again, agreeing to let them charge $40 to your card per month, so legally they are able to take a total of nearly $100 from your account each and every month!! they did this to me before i worked there and i fought with them for months to quit billing me, but they never would. eventually i saw that the only way to stop incurring these charges was to change my credit card number. i did that and shortly there after they threatened to take legal action if i didnt resume making payments. shortly thereafter, i moved to virginia, (by the way, for some reason they do not pitch to virginia residents) and replied to an ad for a job i saw in the newspaper. the same day i called to enquire about the ad, they set me up for an interview, the day after the interview i was hired, and the day after that was orientation day. on orientation day while we went over the pitch, i realized that it was the same company that screwed me. IMA, LMG, and PRS were one in the same. i worked there for a few months, until it became clear to me that they were not only out to screw their customers, but their employees also. hourly pay is indeed $7.00 an hour unless you miss a day and fail to make it up in that same work week. if you fail to make it up pay will drop from $7 to $5.15 an hour, PLUS any of the commission bonuses you make will be taken for that week. one week i lost $70 in bonuses plus got my hourly pay dropped for missing one day WITH a doctors excuse! since it was at the end of the workweek, i was unable to make it up. and then about a month after i started working there they started lowering the bonus structure. when i started bonuses were 4 sales in one day = $40, 9=70, and 10 was $100 cash on the spot. plus say you made 30 sales in a week your hourly pay would go up to $8.50 or $9.00 an hour. but then they lowered the bonuses and the highest you could get for bonus was $40 for making 10 sales! one day when bonuses were $100 for 10 sales, i made 9 and stayed an extra half hour to try to make the last sale, but didnt make it and they told me i wasnt allowed to stay any longer. but i really honestly believe i made more than 10 sales and they just told me otherwise because there was no way for TSRs to look up how many sales they made. which is total bullshit. the whole thing was frustrating, but i did get one good thing out of it, i learned that i really didnt have to pay any of those bills that i supposedly owed to them, because its all just a scam. i called them and told them the whole story and they set my balance due to $0. i havent been hassled by them ever since. so if they are claiming you owe them money, just call them up and let them know that you know the scam they are running, how they change their name every few months to avoid legal action or whatever, or just say you live in virginia, lol, that will make them drop your charges. the thing that ive read that bothers me is the way their pitch is scripted, the way they operate, is in no way illegal, and there is no way to press charges. but thats just what ive heard, it could be totally wrong. but it looks like they cover their tracks pretty well. all i know is i would like for this company to finally be stopped!!!

Bethany
norfolk, Virginia
U.S.A.