Media Plus Consulting International Media Sales Consultant Scam (Illegal International Work) Nicosia Cyprus

I made it through the training and I lefft becasue I realized that working for this company required too much lying. I even confronted the trainer about this, and he blantly accepted that there was a lot of lying involved in it. HE even said that working as a Sales Consultant, people sell "air" (direct quotes from trainer Tom Boeckx).

The "reports" (magazines) themselves are poor in quality, and inconsistent from one country to the other; for example, one country's reports consisted of 18 pages, while another was 80 pages. There are many typos, and the pictures in the report are plain looking and trully unflattering. 

The business model of Media Plus is to go to a company with a "letter of recommendation" from a minister and claim that the sales consultant was personally sent by the minister to talk to the CEO of said company. Many times however, this is not true. The most laughable part of it all, was when during training they told us to take pictures with all the ministers we met during the trip. They recommend that we have our cameras ready at all times, because many ministers will not take pictures for one reason or the other, so to get the picture, they told us to greet chase down ministers and public figures at public events, outside of their offices or hotel rooms, and snap a picture with them when shaking hands (they also recommended we carry a copy of the magazine to see that in the picture). 

During training you will do a lot of role playing (you will learn about some sales skill, and then put it into practice), after this you will get feedback on your performance. Some of the girls in my group were encouraged to flirt with the clients. To quote the trainer: “Use your looks!” and “It was obvious that the client saw this pretty girl coming from far away, and he was interested, flirt with him! Act on it!” She even recommended us to use her (favourite) tactic of touching the client’s arm to be more “open and personable”!

I know that the visa topic is a touchy subject, but there seems to be something fishy in the way the handle this. Firs off, many of the people in my training were america citizens, and they were actually stopped at the airport before departing for belgium because the company bought them a flight with a return date six months after the beginning of training. These people were forced to change their tickets in order to travel to europe, because american citizens can only remaing 90 days in Europe. To be clear, american citizens can work for thos 90 days in Belgium, but there is no work permit for American citizens in Cyprus, which is where the company is officialy registered, and where all of their accounting takes place. As far as I know, none of the people in the training started the process to obtain any sort of work permit whatsoever (and it might be covered at a later time during training).  

Another interesting thing regarding visas is what the training manual says about possible visa problems. At the very end of the extensive manual there is a section that reads: “We have a visa problem that is unsolvable.” The solution to said problem (according to the company) is to “Ensure all possibilities have been dealt with before departure to be aware of your visa situation.” This is all the manual says regarding visas. What I am most intrigued by, is the fact that most consultants are notified of their future destination with one or two days in advance, a timeframe during which it is unlikely to obtain a visa.

We met about three or four consutants during training, and only one noticeably liked the job, the others were planning on quitting soon or seemed highly dissatisfied with the job. They would often talk amongst themselves about the future projects, and would bash the company almost in front of us. Also, one of the consultant was extremely unprofessional and hit on me constantly, making me really uncomfortable.

Don't even get me started on the pay structure. Terrible pay, only 1000 euros a month for hte first three months, after that it is all commissions. They do pay you 1000 euros every month, but as guarantee on commission, that means: you don't sell anything one month, you owe the company those 1000 euros. Commission is 6% for all the deals you close. 

I have no intention of driving the company to bankrupcy, but I do hope that my experience can prevent other people from making the same mistake I did. To be honest, I took the job because I did not want to let the opportunity go, but I am glad I am not associated with the company anymore. 

What do you mean when you write that you have placed people at The Economist? The Economist has no clue of to what is Media Plus Consulting or the Big Media Group or whatever you wish to call this seedy company. The Economist is a very prestigious group and they would never look to a company such as Media Plus for SAS or country reports. They actually do have inserts and country reports in their EMENA editions, however, the communications agency handling this business for The Economist is QCP, see the following link:

eqcp.com/ 

Now, points to consider:

How many employees do you hire every month, how many do you fire every months?

Where is the independant audit statement that audits the following:

- Circulation

- Readership

- Places where the media is distributed

- Online activity:

- Numbers of clicks per page

- Numbers of page viewd

- Overall traffic of the website

- Isn't Media Plus based in Nicosia, Cyprus, a criminal tax haeven who charges 10 per cent corporate tax when it is 30 per cent everywhere in the rest of Europe? Why aren't you registered in Belgium? Any concrete reason for that other that the one i just mentionned?

What does your employee means by "This is comfirmed"? But by whom? And how? 

Do you really do aperturas? You know, properly opening the country with meetings with ministers scheduled prior to arrival of the consultants? When you talk about due diligence, do you actually do yours? And open properly the country? No, I have been sent to Malaysia and no aperturas had been done, adsolutely nothing!

Moreover, what do you mean by " I can confirm that the training is not a 2nd round of interviews, but there are people who are let go during training if they are not up to par, don't work hard, end up not being good at sales"?

Well, if people are let gto because they are not as promissing as they appeareed to be on the first phone/skype interview, then it is a second round of interview. It is a selective training. And it is perfectly ok, the whole industry has the same procedure when it comes to hiring new consultants. But other agencies are much more honest about it, and you are advised right from the beginning, that this is a selective training, there are 10/12 candidates, and the company will only hire 3 to 5 consultants, depending on the projects they currently have or the projects they will open soon. And they make it very clear that just because you got invited to a selective training does not mean you are hired for sure.

Media Plus should be more honest and more transparent about it's hiring process, and the whole rest of tis business, and make clear that this is a selective training and it all depends on how well you do during those 2 weeks training, which is way too long since everything you learn is in theory. 

When you write "Allegations of people being thrown into prison, yes is valid. But the same is true of rogue traders who have operated at some of the world's largest banks. Do you brand the bank with the same tarnished illogical thought as the writer has here? Based on two rogue consultants out of the hundreds who have worked there?"

Media Plus is responsible for their consultants on the field. If you don't do aperturas leagly and transparently (which you don't), if you offer very poor conditions to work in the field, if you push your consultants to lie all the time, and this is true, I met an ex media plus consultant now working in Dubai, and she told me the company was telling her to lie to everyone in order to get away with the unproper business, and she got so tired of it that she quit, then expect your consultants to have trouble on the field with authorities. I don't understand the comparaison with rogue traders, by the way...What's the connection between greedy traders keen on making always more money, and young consultants who try to find meaningful employment, or meaningful first jobs and get exploited by Media plus, a company that exploits and profit from the poor labor market outoook that characterises our modern times?

Just because Media Plus has been around for such a long time does not mean it does business with integrity. Many dodgy companies exists in the world, it is no evidence of a sound business, you should know that.

And stop mentionning the company is expanding, it is not, it is surviving, and the company was very closed to bankrupcy a few years ago, and the big boss had to take money from other business he is involved in in order ot infuse some cash so that Media Plus can stay afloat. Media Plus is a FONT! Media Plus will sonmeday foot the bill for its unsavory and dodgy activity. 

It is funny to see the response of the company when accused to conduct the worst business ever in the SAS industry. Everything that was written above by the employe is true. There are many other websites with very bad coments on this company.

I am thinking this commpany is a font for other unsavory business. And I have good reason to think that. You see, Media Plus Holding (before it used to be Media Plus Consulting, they changed their names again) does not invest at all in their teams and products.

We are indeed asked to barter everything, from accommodation, to cars for business communtes, the company even asked us to barter with a printing business in order to print the magazine for free!!!! Hahahaha, good luaghs on this one. The magazines are really low quality, spelling mistakes are common, since it is the big boss's sister who edits it and she is no native speaker. The content is very poor, and every CEO who glince at it for a second gets the picture...

No holidays, no salary, only entitled to commissions, but since the media are so low quality it is very hard to sell. On the field, I had to advance the money from my personal bank account for business commutes and when I complained about it, my so-called director told me that I should stop complaining about it or I will get fired!

The company takes a deposit on your first month's salary (500 Euros) for the camera and filming equipment but we NEVER had such an equipment and when I raised the issue and asked why they took a deposit on my salary for an equipment we do not have, I was told to shut it or i will get fired.

Of course no per diem when oyu are on the field, and you will have to lie constantly to everyone, the company uses pictures that are then years old to claim they have met such and such minister, but in small countries where everybody knows each other, it can be very dangerous and damaging to do this. 

They hate when you mention other agencies in the industry and they hate when you talk about the good work that OBG does for instance with their publications. They will threaten to sue you if they find out you went to work for a similar company.

I just love how emplyees write revews saying thew author of the post is a scam. Com on Kelly, you know what I am talking about!!! Stop acting like htis is a respectable company, and the products are so low quality and the promos are such complete mess that this business activity is only set up in order to hide some real estate unsavory business the big boss is involved in.

Media Plus is a real scam, of course their publications are not audited, they distribute 20 copies when they claim they distribute all over the IMF, world bank and so on...

I could go on and on but i think you get the picture. I am awaiting another response from the company saying " this is all lies, these are pissed off emplloyes, etc..."But you fire constantly everyone the minute they raise one of the many scandalous attitudes of the company, so I it seems that there are a lot pissed off emploees? Don't you think? I have never read anything like that for none of the 30+ companies that exist in the industry so there must be something wrong with Media Plus!

We have placed many candidates at Media Plus as well as other leading international companies such as the Economist, and It is an utter disgrace that this person is allowed to write such a slanderous statement and not be forced to provide real categorical evidence to back it up. Media Plus has been around for decades and in that time, have built up a formidable relationship with international governments.  There is full transparency in the work that they do and this is proved by the fact that they have published continuous reports, often in the same country, all with Government support.

Points to consider:

Prior to buying advertising companies will often do due diligence and they will know who they are speaking to, it is only common sense.

Allegations of people being thrown into prison, yes is valid. But the same is true of rogue traders who have operated at some of the world's largest banks. Do you brand the bank with the same tarnished illogical thought as the writer has here? Based on two rogue consultants out of the hundreds who have worked there?

I have witnessed the training first-hand and never have I seen, heard or witnessed any individual being advised to use physical looks to secure a contract. Please provide real evidence to prove otherwise.

The fact is simple; as soon as the company mentioned they were expanding, these "mysterious" blogs started to surface. IF the writer of this report is adamant that what they write is true, I would urge them to take specific legal action and let their name be known. So they can stand against the apparent oppression that this company is making on individuals and the global business community. In my opinion this is an absolute farce. It is blatant misrepresentation of the truth and should be taken down immediately.

 I worked for Media Plus and I know that the person who filed this claim was let go during the training phase, this is confirmed. So I understand why they are negative on the company, a company they never officially worked for. I can confirm that the training is not a 2nd round of interviews, but there are people who are let go during training if they are not up to par, don't work hard, end up not being good at sales, etc. Media Plus has been in operation since 1990, having conducted 1,000's of reports all over the world. If the work they do is illegal, they would have been shut down - this is confirmed as well. If someone writes a negative report or blog, they most definitely did not find success with the company. I can confirm that I have found great success with the company and I've never done anything illegal, immoral, or otherwise.