Lear Marketing Group - Cydcor the most dishonest and fraudulent company this company can promise the world but deliver nothing Powell Ohio

i only had one interview with ken lear and thanks to this website that was all of the time that he took from me, i will say, about cathy's comment, that liberty national insurance is just about as bad. after my run ins with cydcor were over, i went on a few more cydcor interviews, i started working for liberty national insurance. they also pay 100% commission, and i remember in my interview i was told of trips and vacations and i asked about vacations, and whether or not they were paid, and i was told that there were no vacations and "we should take that out." anyway long story short i got no training, clints who did not want to deal with me, well over a 100 miles a day on my car with no payback, and no paycheck, though i went to a ton of their customers to help with little problems that could have been done over the phone. they also had no phones for employees, so i got to use my own, no business cards, i had to buy my own, and a month after i started they moved.

Here in Mississippi there is an outfit called "Encore Marketing" that also cold calls and does face to face solicitations for BellSouth.

Their ads appear in the Clarion Ledger-brazenly stating that "BellSouth and Encore are hiring."

Don't get suckered into working here. Misery and aggravation are all that awaits.

cathy. You are a liar and you have obviously been brain washed. now ill break it all down for you. except in my case i was an "in store" person selling bellsouth products to cingular customers. I feel really sorry for you door to door people because I used to bring in as many apps as you whole offices did all day. So I especially feel your pain.

I will go on posting this rebuttle to every rebuttle that says cydcor is GREAT AND WONDERFUL and how that these people just "didnt make it" since i spent a lot of time to write it and break everything down to lamens terms. Every office works the same so here we go..

First let me state that the office does state there is only a 2% chance you will make it to management. This is very true because these people that you say "didnt make it" in relaity did. They made it the hell out of that company and they are the lucky ones. THey work you hard and they do not let you get a break at all. They lie to you to get you to start and once your in, its REALLY hard to get out.

here is a e-mail that i send to an online job site about the company I worked for

"I am just contacting to you let you know about a fraudulent Ads on your website placed by Fourtune 5 Marketing. I was lead to belive this this was a ligitamite company based on their ad's on your website and In reality the company was nothing like their ads suggested.

The things I'm telling you did not get told to me until AFTER I was hired. Everything they say in their ads they use to get you to join the company.

For starters

"Fortune 5 Marketing is an industry leading Marketing & Advertising firm representing a variety of Fortune 500 clients in the areas of Retail, Communications Companies, Financial Institutions, Dot.com industry leaders, Internet service providers and more. We execute promotions within the Jacksonville area working with new & existing customers to expand our client's customer base."

They do not represent "a variety of fourtune 500 clients" in fact they only represent two. That is Bellsouth and Direct T.V. The people who represent the clients is actually their mother company Cydcor. In fact they even mention on their ads that they '"Fortune 5 Marketing, Inc. is a premiere, privately owned and operated sales and marketing firm based in Jacksonville, Florida." They are governed by Cydcor.

Second " Our new and unique form of marketing is consultative and requires excellent people skills. However, we do not do any form of door-to-door sales, cold calling or telemarketing." "Our forms of marketing are direct, personal and face-to face, but guess what, the customers come to us. Sound different?

What we did was not any kind of "consulting" work. The interview process lead me to belive that we would be in an office, confering with pospective customers. Not inside a Cingular store accosting customers as they tried to get out the door to sell them bellsouth products. We may have not been "cold calling" but we were definatly doing cold face to face sales. We were glorified solisitors.

Another thing they fail to mention in the interview/hiring process is two of the stores that you are sent two are at least an hour and a halfs drive away.

Here is another fraudulent statement they have made. "We expect a deep personal commitment from all of our employees and in turn reward them not only financially, but with advancement within the organization as well. Growth and compensation are based on personal performance.

This marketing firm was the basic pyramid scheme. You were not granted "rewards" at all with advancements. In fact, you got paid minimum wage no matter what you were within the company. You were in training, then you become a leader who had to train others, and when those others trained a certain amount of people you became an assistant manager, then maybe when your "second generation" trained a 'thrid generation" you became a Manager of your own company. You do get commision too. But you basically make the same the whole way through because you are constantly training someone else. Compensation was not offered at all. I did not even know you had to drive anywhere until my first day on the job. Gas was not compensated at all, neither was lunch. sometimes you were not even compensated for the time you worked. Most nights we did not leave until 8pm, but they would only pay us up to 7:30 pm. When i asked about their ad saying you were compensated, they told me to write it off on my taxes.

They also state that you get base pay AND commision. You do not. You get base pay if it does not EXCEED your commisions. If you do exceed your base pay (6.15 an hour 60 hours a week) you only get your commision. "


Okay, now that we see how they get you suckered in, lets go over EXACALLY what happens when you get "in the biz"

you're "paid training" consists of following a leader (second in command) around a day or two learning the ropes, if you were like me and closing peope the second day, too bad, your leader got all the money from the apps. Once you have proved yourself (you do this by teaching the four fives and the eights, the FIGS,the theroys on selling products and such) you get promoted to leader. This is when you are supposed to be in the big bucks. NOT!!!

If you are a leader now, , let's say that you work from 8am to 8pm (we'll just pretend your not there till 9 verifying LOA's okay?). That's 12 hours. That means that you work 72.00 hours a week. So 72 hours times the minimum wage, its 6.15 in my state equals $442.00 a week. Not too bad. (Yes I did the math right, overtime seems to be optional to these people)

But wait!!! You have a leaders meeting that lasts from 8 to 8:30 that YOU DO NOT GET PAID FOR. So there goes 30 min a day out of your time (3 hours a week). Then there is this so called lunch hour that you know you don't take, but you still don't get paid for, so there's an additional 6 MORE hours out of your paycheck. Then your manager makes you sign out at 7:30 PM every night even though the bell party doesn't begin till 7:45, no matter how late you stay, with no explanation why. So there is an additional 3 hours out of your 72 hard earned hours. So now you're left with 60 hours a week that they decide that they will pay you for. Still 369.00 not that bad as long as you don't have rent, car payments, a stomach. ect.

So let's get on to the deductions! Let's say you spend $5.00 a day in gas. (30.00 a week) lets say you DO take that lunch break, and oops,you have a trainee that doesn't have any money. So we'll say, 10 dollars one day for you and your trainee, and 5 dollars for lunch rest of the days (35.00 a week) Still 309.00 not too bad.

There's more! How about Team night? Oh yes, the night you and your little minions go out to drink and party. And yes, its REQUIRED! SO let's just be modest and say you have a beer and dinner. That will usually cost you around 30 dollars, since it seems no one ever wants to meet at a fast food chain. Now you have 279.00 in your wallet. On top of team night, you also may have office night; (also required unless one wants to be considered the outcast of the office) this is a bi-weekly maybe monthly thing in most offices. This night your manager wants to go bowling. So, three games, shoes, some food, and a beer, well say you just blew 45 dollars. Now your paycheck is 234.00 dollars.

But let's say that you (gasp!!!) bypass your salary, (kind of hard to do when the thing that you sell the most only gets you $7.00 in commission) Lets say you make oh, $500.00 dollars. Breaking it down per hour based on the 72 hours you work is a whopping 6.94.
You can get more than that for fewer hours at your local fast food chain.

This is barley enough money to live off of!!!!!! But don't worry, you won't have time for anything else but work anyway.

Enough with pay, lets get to this we do not give false information to customers thing You have to call in to someone to get the customers current bill information, and before I left I know they changed the systems. They do not tell you if this customer has any additional things on their bill such as inside wire maintenance, or Equipment maintenance, or any international long distance plans. They just let you know what regular plan they have and what regular long distance plan they have, and they also include taxes when they tell you what the person's phone bill is.

So let's say this person has, BPP, with the nickel plan. That's 25.99 without taxes or anything else. But lets say the person giving you the information forgot to mention that they have both maintenance plans (a 9.00) charge and that they also have a $5.00 international plan as well. So all of this with taxes is running them, oh, $80.00. So you decide to go for the big buckaroos and sign them up with the complete Choice unlimited plan. Its only 49.99 why wouldn't they want it it's cheaper and they don't have to pay 5 cents a min for long distance????

So you're taught to confront the customer just like this. Awesome, I just got your information and I can defiantly help you out today! What im going to do for you is put you on our new and updated plan, its exactly like your plan now but you get more features on your phone, and its only going to cost you 49.99 plus tax. Customer is very excited; you get the information and the signature. This is when you tell them they get long distance for free now, just to get them hyped up so you can rehash.

So customer, who are you using for your internet? AOL! Ugh, look, since you're obviously a wonderful B***south customer this is what im going to do for you today, I'm going to let you have DSL internet for only 32.99 a month. Oh, you'll think about it later? Im sorry but this promotion is only good for today. Well, you know what, since you are such a great B***south customer, what I'll also do for you is throw in a $100 gift card just for trying it out. That will give you $75 dollars to cover your modem, and you'll have an extra $25 to spend on whatever. Okay? Great! Get customers info again. Yay for you. You just signed a customer up and made a little cash. But, you lead the customer think that he or she is getting free long distance, internet, and more on the phone for what they were paying before.

Now let's do more math shall we. The internet is 32.99 a month, plus an additional small connection fee every month, plus tax. In essence, the internet will end up costing them around $50.00 a month. Next the phone, the plan is 49.99 plus the maintance plans they did not tell you about so, that's 9 more dollars, plus the international plan they had, so that's 5 more dollars, plus the long distance tax, that's .99 cents then the federal tax that's 7.15 then the other taxes, about 15.00 more dollars. That means this customer will be paying about 87.13 JUST FOR THEIR PHONE LINE! In essence, they will be paying around 140 for the package that you lead them to believe would only be $80.00. If that is not manipulation, I do no know what is. You most defiantly hide things and you most defiantly misrepresent information

How? Do you say that you misrepresent? Well, there is a sheet that the customer has to sign with the prices of each individual package on it. The only tax that is shown is the $7.15 tax. They train you to skirt around the tax issue and if the customer is insistent, to just tell them it may be a few more dollars. You also tell the customer that your only going to be there that day (hence the REAL meaning for having to switch stores everyday) You also tell them that deal ends that day as well, when you defiantly know the promotions for weeks at a time.

So before you go on here and try to lie to the public, remember there are many many many of us that have worked under cydcor and know its schemes and we will call you out on it. Do not be deceived by the promises your manager gives you because as soon as one of those customers calls Bellsouth to complain because of YOU. You better believe that anyone who's taught you anything about skirting around customers questions will retract what they said to keep from getting fired with you. You better believe that the company you're working so hard to protect will be the first one to throw you under the bus if any complaints arise.

Just for all of your information whom try to down a Reputable company (who have a client base of Bellsouth, AT&T, and Verizon for example) and have no actual evidence towards what you are reporting, I am here to shed a little light on the truth.

KSL Concepts, is the number 1 Cydcor contract company in the USA. Ken Lear and Sarah are both very good honest hard working people who have made there way through a company that promotes by performance; and, might I add, have earned their place in their businesses as Owners, and by the way Ken is an Organizational consultant for Cydcor.

You know, if this were an insurance company such as Liberty Mutual or Liberty National you would have to go Door to Door and drive your own vehicle. But guess what, you deduct it from your taxes.

Now you have to be a complete moron to believe these false stories on which these ex-employees have condured. They are just mad that they can't work hard for their money. This company pays you what YOU Earn not just to pay you for half A** work. OK! Just wanted to clear that all up. Have a wonderful day!!

Sadly, I don't think Sarah made it to management. If she was still with "the company," I would've run into her worthless a*s when Lear Marketing became KSL Concepts in Atlanta.

Thankfully, this toadie Ken Lear is out of the business. Life in the big city must've really sucked in his double-wide trailer. He popped up to defend Wentworth Marketing (see report filed here) and then disappeared after making a joke at Al Carnes' expense regarding the beating he took at the hands of an irate business owner. While it sucks that Al got beaten, he should've known the risks of trying to log-jive an honest businessman with his 4's, 5's, and 8's. Having been on both sides of the fence, it's a case of two needy folks - Al needing the money, the owner needing time to take care of his store. Good thing Al's out of there.

These spin doctors are easily the biggest con men currently working today. That some government agency isn't nailing their asses to crosses right now is a shame.

To anyone interested in their integrity:

As with everyone who becomes involved with Cydcor (or should I say "Scamcor"), I began with the vision of managing my own marketing office in a reasonable amount of time - the "12 month linear path to management". This is the promised opportunity and just the first of many highly questionable, unethical, and possibly illegal activites which serve as the foundation for this disgusting excuse for a business.

For me it is not the typical complaint of going broke which is my issue with the company; I actually made money. It goes far beyond simply money, although I have seen every one of my co-workers struggle financially because of the terrible 100% commission structure of this company which leaves its employees to twist in the wind after 65 hour work weeks.

It is the FACT that 1)It is EXTREMELY difficult to sign businesses up if completely honest and forthright and certainly doesn't provide enough income to support oneself let alone a family. 2)It is impossible to start anyone with any measure of professional credentials without being so overwhelming vague and misleading that the "best" candidates for possible positions with this company end up being bottom feeders desperate for an opportunity - this makes me wonder what I was thinking when I left a good job for this "opportunity". 3)There is virtually no professionalism i.e. lack of: enforced attendance, use of printed marketing materials, business cards, and direct contact numbers making us appear to business owners as if we are nothing more than slick con men rather than legitimate sales people.

At the end of the day, the numbers simply don't add up. Anyone who can do simple math can realize the turnover rate of 95%+ is absolutely ridiculous for a business which is supposedly reputable. I can't stomach being hounded to "take control" a.k.a. bully someone into a decision they aren't prepared or comfortable making. I am nauseated at the thought of taking one more "interview" out and trying to pitch someone on this terrible job, getting them to enthusiastically start, and them seeing them quit (after I have spent my own money and time on them) being completely disenchanted. I simply can't be a part of what is a glorified pyramid scheme and comprimise my integrity on a daily basis anymore and would STRONGLY, STRONGLY emphasis the serious issues with this company to anyone considering employment with this meat grinder of a company with its con-men managers.

I guess I was not willing to work hard enough, but I am willing to work smarter. After goind on a day of "o" I decided to do reserach (that thing that got me through college) and found out the truth. So I never returned I had better thinggs to do with my time. I put my faith in God and not in man, besides I had that filling in the pit of my stomach that told me something was wrong. I hope everyone who is trying to be a Rhino one day wakes up an realizes the emptiness their lies and deceptions have cause in others lives (as well as in their own). One last parting though-God don't like ugly!

W- what are you so afraid of not publishing your real name and why are you picking on someone who is obviously smarter than you? I find it absolutely hilarious that all of you "owners" live with people on your crew. In the real world, living with subordinates is against company ethics, but then again, Cydcor does not have any ethics. One of these days you will realize that you have been brainwashed into thinking that you will be rich by owning your own company. Why if you "own" your own company do you have to answer to someone higher? My mother owns her own business and the only person she answers to is herself. The only way you will ever make money is if you are a good enough of a scammer to convice others to stay in the business long enough to open their own "office". And the overrides are because you invested your time training people? Get real, overrides are nothing more than a percentage that you get from other peoples sales. In other words-a pyramid scheme!!!!!

Sarah, you didn't say if you were a manager or not. If you are, then you already know the inner workings of this company but of course you wouldn't cut your own arm off by admitting its near criminal activities.

And if you are not a manager yet, why are you still with the company? I was told you should be in management within 9-12 months. And it's 100% true that anyone with a quarter brain and the stamina to work 70 hours per week for $300 while losing all of their family and friends will become a manager.

So are you a manager or not? If you aren't, then you need to re-examine your life. And if you are, how do you look at yourself in the mirror at night?

Sorry you weren't willing to work hard enough Mica. That's all it takes.

Did this company change its name agian?
Aparently, "Sarah" plan to be with cydcor until she goes broke.

This is completly untrue. I am actually Sarah. This "report" was filed, (and signed by my name). However it was actually written and filed by 2 jealous ex-employees that couldn't make it in the business. Very unfortante that someone would read these articles and judge a company on such false information. This is a wonderful company, with wonderful management that I have been with for about 3 years and plan on being with for many years to follow.