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Report: #757090

Complaint Review: Impact Events - Bedford Texas

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  • Reported By: Elissa — Fort Worth Texas United States of America
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  • Impact Events 2350 Airport Freeway #650 Bedford, Texas United States of America

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Newspapers and websites need to open their eyes and stop the growing phenomenon of con artists posting ads for scam related jobs. I am disgusted by the increasing amount of these jobs in the Star Telegram, careerbuilder.com and monster.com. My fianc is currently unemployed and has been trying to sift through jobs on these websites. There are jobs promising "$600- $1,200 a week!", or "entry level position working in the entertainment industry!". I am weary of such ads because I was a victim myself.

Last fall, I applied to an undisclosed company who's ad on monster.com sounded too good to be true. Turns out, it was. The headline read, "Entry level position working in sports and entertainment marketing and event planning". I thought I had hit a gold mine and immediately applied, not knowing that there were probably 15 more ads for the same company. I got a call no more than an hour later requesting an interview the next day. I could hardly wait!

When I went to the interview I was surprised to see five other people in the waiting room. That was it, game on. I was going to beat out these losers and get the job of a lifetime. The waiting room was a soothing blue color, smelled like incense, and had The Black Eyed Peas playing in the background. I thought I had arrived. I was called to the back office for my interview and I laid it on thick. I was outgoing, bubbly, excited, everything I thought I needed to be to land this job. So excited in fact, I did not even ask what the job entailed, the pay, nor the hours.

The next day, success!! I got the position! Work started the next day at 7 am. I lived and hour away from the office, an hour and a half since I had to drive through rush hour traffic and battle 35N to 121. So, I got up at 5 am and was ready to go. Since this was my first day, I had to train with one of the team leaders. I did not know it, but this would be my final interview. This is where I got to really see what this company was all about. I was introduced to two guys about my age. I was told that I would be following them to the days location. We drove for about an hour to Arlington. We stopped in a parking lot that housed a popular bowling alley that I was told we were doing promoting for. I was lead to believe that we would be doing promotions for this company, possibly handing out flyers for advertising. This made sense to me, even though it was not the entertainment field I was expecting. When we arrived at the shopping center and walked into a coffee shop I was a little confused. This sound have been the first red flag.

I was wearing nice slacks and a button-down blouse with heels, dressed to impress. The guys I was with were wearing the same, a tie being the only difference. My trainer walked up to the checkout desk and asked to speak directly to the manager. I was thinking, ok, maybe this is legit. However, when my trainer pulled out a coupon booklet and started a pitch that went something like, Hello sir, you look like you like to have fun, dont you? Well on average, Americans spend $30 to $40 dollars on a trip to the bowling alley. What I am going to offer you is the opportunity to take that same trip for ONE THIRD of that price! Isnt that awesome?. This is when I decided there was something fishy going on. I was about to become a door to door salesperson!

After we had pitched to the unsuspecting manager who told us that there was no soliciting allowed, we sat down for our final interview. I was very skeptical, but I needed a job so badly! My trainer showed me this diagram of how the company worked. He told me that your pay depends on how many coupon booklets you sell. There was no base pay. But wait a minute, I thought the ad said that I would be making $600- $1,200 a week. I didnt even think about how odd it was that I never filled out a W4 for this Fortune 500 company I was now working for. I didnt care. I was so hard up for money that at that point it didnt matter.
My trainer told me that I was invited to the Mavs game later that evening. The company would have a private suite. Sounded pretty cool. I was in. Worst mistake of my life.

The Mavericks game was great, I think we even won. But after the game, the head of our division gave us a speech about our new campaign the Mavs. Great! I knew this was a good idea! Until they passed around a coupon booklet. Yes, I was going to be selling coupons for the Mavericks. Better than a bowling alley, and as I would soon find out, better than anything else I would be selling as well.

Bright and early that next day, I came into the office, ready for work. We had a team meeting around 7:30. Then we split into groups. The owner of the office, well call her Amanda, handed out Mapsco printouts of different areas around DFW. Some of these maps stretched all the way out past Rockwall, a two hour drive from where we were at. I hopped in the car with a cute girl about my age and we were off to Southlake to sell some Dallas Stars tickets. The first few businesses we went into didnt bite. They either told us to leave or were simply not interested. Then I was on my own. Going into restaurants, department stores and anywhere else I saw. No luck. It had been three hours and I hadnt sold anything and not only that, but my feet were killing me! By the end of the day, I had managed to sell only two booklets, amounting to about $20. We returned to the office around six that evening. I went home with not even enough money to pay for gas.

The best part of this job is that you get to work Saturdays too! Same hours, no pay. After a couple of weeks of this torture I was done. Maybe it was the time I was left alone of the street in a bad part of town and I got mugged. Maybe it was the time I had a man come up and grab me and tell me I was doing the devils work and tried to kidnap me. Whatever it was, I had had enough. I collect my training pay and left.

Sounds awful, doesnt it? Would you want your son or daughter out on the street working for no money and putting their life in danger? Honest people given false hope of a good job with great pay, only to be subjected to slave labor? When you go onto monster.com and careerbuilder.com, it is not hard to find these companies. There are now over three of these companies in DFW alone. They constantly change their names and locations, but they are all part of the Smart Circle Scam. As if this wasnt enough, there is a new scam called the White Van Speaker Scam, people who sell cheap speakers and tell people they are worth more than they really are by putting fake price tags on the boxes. They advertise on websites and in the Star Telegram claiming they install electronics. If you google White Van Speaker Scam, it is not hard to figure out which ads are related to the scam.

My point is that there are too many good, hard working people out there that will buy into these scams, like I did. It needs to stop.

I should also note that I have found multiple names in the DFW area alone. They are D.R.S. Marketing Firm, Universal Endeavors, DFW and Associates, Moxie Marketing Inc., Impact Inc., and Novelook Marketing, just to name a few. More and more appear everyday.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 07/27/2011 10:32 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/impact-events/bedford-texas-76132/impact-events-manipulative-scam-artists-bedford-texas-757090. 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:
1Author
5Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#6 UPDATE EX-employee responds

It's a mind game.

AUTHOR: MonMon - ()

POSTED: Monday, April 01, 2013

Yes I was a high roller for a very long time. It's a mind game really. You believe it, you can do it. But once the excitement leaves and you realize the dreams PROMISED to you will never come.

You do realize you wasted more time in gas, car maintenance, going out of town... SHE sent us out of town driving in OUR own car, paying for OUR own gas, food, hotel, etc... Promising "Well as you make money through the day you can pay for those things..."

So basically I was sent out of town weeks at a time... each day I would make money and cash in my pocket... by the end of that day that money was put into my gas tank, put into the food I ate that day, and the rest put into the owners pocket... I was left going home with honestly SOME FUN memories BUT... fun memories don't always leave a good taste in your mouth when you realize you still have no way to pay your bills...

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#5 UPDATE EX-employee responds

Another Ex Employee

AUTHOR: LumberCat - ()

POSTED: Monday, April 01, 2013

I wonder who you are "MonMon" because I worked there too (Connect DFW) for about a week last summer.  I don't even see how you lasted that long unless you were one of the "high rollers."  That first week alone I worked 65 hours including Saturday, which I was told would only be a 4 hour shift but turned out to be 8.  You don't have time for anything else, my last day I worked alongside this guy who had a wife and kid who had been scolded with me that morning about his sales.  They sent us to a territory that had been worked literally the day before so we got no sales.  I felt bad for him because he had to provide for a family and didn't want to leave until he made some sells.  He took some coupons home to try to sell that evening after already being at work for 11-12 hours it's just not worth it.

I quickly realized I was spending more in gas, because it was an hour drive to the office plus the drive to the locations, than I was making.  I didn't even get the "guaranteed" $300 for my first week.  When I went back to pick up my check they gave me some bogus explanation as to why I didn't "qualify" for it so I just left it alone (more than happy to just leave everything behind).  For the 6 days/65 hours I worked I only made like $192, which should have been even more but my trainer was fudging the numbers when I was outselling her some days. 

It's sad there are so many of these "companies" doing this, after 2-3 more interviews with the same types of places I learned how to screen them on the phone and even in the job posting.  While I can't remember the names, some of the other companies sell DirecTV, AT&T cable, set up shop (or "events") in Sam's Club, Costco, or Best Buy.  The postings will say something like "we provide a great service to our clients by reaching the customers directly" or "unlimited income potential" (which is just another word for commissioned sales).  The others are just straight up door to door sales and the most annoying thing about those is that if you fail to catch it early on and do go back for your second interview you're stuck there all day even if you discover you don't want to do it.  The best way be sure it's legitamit is to ask them questions about the pay and the hours and the daily duties beore even wasting your time and gas going to an interview, if they can't answer directly or give you more vague bs then you'll know what it is.

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#4 UPDATE EX-employee responds

More information you'd like to know about your "savings...

AUTHOR: MonMon - ()

POSTED: Thursday, March 14, 2013

I worked for this company as well and I spent almost a year walking up and down those streets peddling coupons. I have to admit she is correct in everything she wrote. The only thing is she realized it the first couple weeks and it took me almost a year.
First off I want to let you know you don't need to on-foot solicitors to acquire these coupon books. They sell them online. It's funny you say you are saving money but the truth is, they charge you more in person. You can spend $10-20 LESS online. The extra you spend in person goes into their pocket. As a saleswoman I would often have to lie to people like you and claim they were not sold online just so I could get your money. And you're right! It worked. I had your extra cash in my pocket. ;)
The frustrating things about this is that owner. "Amanda" as she called her (Her real name is Rachel. I'm not afraid to say it because her name is all over the internet as a scam artist) picks her favorites. She chooses people that work for her and invites them to her home, takes them out for drinks and partying, and promotes them within the company. Yes, I was one of those people for a while enjoying nights out and trips on her dollar. But she became catty and started to not like me so she stopped inviting me out with her special crew. I honestly didn't care because I knew I was doing great and deserved a promotion anyways... but surprise surprise. I wasn't getting it. But people around me were. And after seeing the downward spiral they went through I'm so glad I didn't. She promoted them and gave them their own office... in other states.
That's right, these people had to move and leave their lives behind. I had already left the company but stayed in contact with some of these new office owners. I was so proud of them! Excited! They were in young and making money... sad to say ALL those people that moved thanks to Rachel lost their businesses... she made money off their offices and they were left in a hole of nothing in a whole other state with nowhere to go. They had to break contracts, leases, ruin their credit and have mommy and daddy pay for them to come back home so they could survive. Sad...

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#3 Consumer Comment

Invested?

AUTHOR: Flynrider - (USA)

POSTED: Friday, September 21, 2012

"Invested 341.00 in Royalty 7 plan over 3 months ago.  Attempted to withdraw funds 4470.00 from my account recently."

  You use the term "invested" rather loosely.   That level of return is absurd.   Real investment involves a bit of study and due dilligence.    Handing over cash to someone who promises to make you rich in no time, is not quite the same thing. 

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#2 Consumer Comment

A customer of these coupons.

AUTHOR: Jenny - (United States of America)

POSTED: Friday, September 21, 2012

These sales people come into my office about once a month with something new. They are very professianol and informative. I love the coupons they work great. I bought the Mav's one , the Texas Rangers one And the Stars one. They saved my family hundreds of dollars. I guess this guy never took a marketing class before. It's called direct marketing. And alot of companies are doing it.

You said the job said entry level. It sounds like that's what you were doing. When I read this report all I was thinking is that your a lazy winer that was a bad salesman. I do sales for my company and I know you couldn't do it. Have fun being unemployed. As for the company that sells these coupons keep them coming I love safing money and going to games.

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#1 Author of original report

More Company Names

AUTHOR: Elissa - (United States of America)

POSTED: Friday, July 29, 2011

Here are some more companies I found in DFW that are also part of this scam.

MP Incorporated
Galleria Marketing
United Synergy Group (Inc.)
KC Event Marketing
City Hype
APHinity Concepts
JDC Marketing Group
Evantage Inc. (part of the operation smile scam)
BGA, Inc.
ICM (Dallas)
Dallas Roadshows (90/10)
DFW Promotions
DFW, Inc.
C4 Connections (seems to be a money gram related scam)
The CMI Group
IE
K.O.B. In-Store Concepts
JDC Marketing

If anyone has any other companies in the DFW area, please post them here. If I have posted a company name that is not involved, I appologize. I went to each of these companies websites and even applied to a few and have confirmation from the actual companies that they do the smart circle cards.

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