Southwestern Company Lied, Harassed, Threatened, Exploited, Cheated, Raped Nashville Tennessee

The Southwestern Company is a company which recruits students to door-to-door sell their books in America over the summer. The issues with this company are limitless. Many concerns have been raised about the way this job is marketed to students and not an insignificant number of students have had extremely bad experiences while working for Southwestern.

I had Southwestern Company recruiters sit at my kitchen table and tell my parents and boyfriend that I would be selling in safe neighborhoods, that I would be accompanied by another person for safety, that I would have time to attend church on Sundays, and that I would make $8500.

I sold books door to door in the 4th ranked highest crime city in America. I was not accompanied for safety. I was not allowed to attend church. I made -$150.

At the end of the summer I had totaled my car, been raped by a coworker (no background check was run on him) and owed the company $150. I walked away with nothing. However, the company made $5,822.48 off my summer from hell. I was not compensated for the car wreck, the rape, or the mental and physical distresses.

I put up a site to educate students and parents regarding issues within the company:

http://southwesterncompanytruth.com

The company has sent threatening letters to me and my family trying to shut the website down. According to my attorneys, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the site. It is a personal site and meant to educate parents and students.

Now, the company is in the midst of filing suit against me for $250,000 in punitive damages for the website with another $50,000 in attorney fees.

So to sum things up: I was lied to, in a car accident, raped, and scammed. I posted a website. Southwestern is filing suit. What a monster of a company!

Kristen Rae
Lawrenceville, Georgia
U.S.A.