Triad Promotions aka Tri-Universal, Quantum Division, DS-Max, Ropa Promotions, CPEA Rip-off in many ways! Multi-level marketers! Nationwide

Note: Triad Promotions of Falls Church, VA is now recruiting as Tri-Universal Inc. of Los Angeles, CA.

Like the woman who responded here about her interview with Elite Marketing in Michigan, I am also a college graduate who responded to one of the public relations/non-profit/fundraising ads that Triad Promotions in Falls Church, VA placed in The Washington Post. Like Elite, Triad also claims to work primarily for the Child Protection Education of America, the Vanished Children's Alliance, and the Starlight Foundation. Unlike Missy, however, I didn't run after my interview with Triad. I worked for the company for 2 months.

After my first interview, Heather Davis (now owner of another DS-Max sweatshop named Ropa Promotions in Hackensack, NJ) invited me back for a day of observation in which "You will learn the ins and outs of our company and why we're growing so fast." I accompanied a "top training manager" and a "trainee" to an outdoor event (keep in mind that this was December in Northern Virginia) where they asked for information about my work history.

Learning that I had worked for several public activism organizations during college, he emphasized the public service that the company supposedly did by holding free fingerprinting events at "major retail locations." In addition, he told me that the company also "helped out" missing and sick children's organizations. He claimed that they weren't salespeople, but that they had the "gifts" on the table for people to pick up if they wanted to help out the cause. The saddest part is that I bought this garbage hook, line, and sinker.

After they brought me back and "granted" me a third interview, I was taken on as a new member. The owner, Harmony Hunt, artfully dodged all of my questions about salary (the newspaper ad said $28,000-$32,000 yr., but I was told vaguely that "you've been a waitress before, right? It's kind of like that") and benefits ("Naturally, like all major Fortune 500 corporations, there is a probationary period). Everyone in the office/cult seemed so nice and excited that I got excited at the same time without thinking of the consequences.

After joining the office, though, I began working fourteen hour days, seven days a week and still couldn't make my rent at the end of two months. It's not that I'm a poor salesperson, either, but simply that at first I could not morally tell people that the money they thought they were donating was actually "going to help out local community safety programs" when I knew that the only safety program it was helping out was my pocketbook.

I am not a fingerprinting expert, and I don't personally help find missing children, but part of gaining success in this particular distribution subsidiary of DS-Max is in being able to make people believe that you are helping the community when you are only helping yourself. As far as I'm concerned, this makes this division even lower than Cydcor, Granton, and Innovage because we actually prey on people's emotions about serious issues like the safety of their children in order to make a profit. (Worse yet, we're actually trained how to do it)

Also, the funds that go to help the CPEA is only 20% of the suggested retail price of only certain items and owners use this "donation" as a tax write-off, yet they still have the nerve to list their ads under "non-profit" and "fundraising."

After I became a leader, I transformed from a caring, socially-conscious individual to someone that I did not even recognize. I started learning the office tricks: using vague and misleading classified ads in order to sucker the young workforce, false contact names in the ads so you can know exactly how to pitch the opportunity when a caller uses that contact name, and indoctrinating an individual using cultish tactics to the point that they no longer have the ability to think independent of the office cult.

I was supposed to be a great example of the system for my "retrains," but a large number of sales that I made were either to men who wanted my phone number or to wonderful people who just wanted to help out a good cause. Trust me, these people who stand outside or inside of malls, grocery stores, and other retail locations with suits and smiles, claiming to be all about helping kids are not a good cause to help out.

I have watched individuals break complete contact with family and friends who ask that they leave the program. I have seen distributors take and pocket what they knew to be donations from consumers(See the links to Pittsburgh's News 4 expose on Pennsylvania's Elite Marketing complete with video footage at the end of this post). I have witnessed intense and unchecked sexual harrassment towards female "employees" from members of the highest levels of this "business." Most importantly, though, I personally have destroyed countless numbers of lives in the same way that mine was destroyed by this 'opportunity.'

Thankfully, I saw the light before I racked up credit card debt and I left Triad Promotions (the day after I was singled out as one of the top leaders in the office, for those of you who would say that I just couldn't cut it). Naturally, after I did leave, all of my "friends" stopped calling me and were discouraged from speaking to me because a negative like me (i.e. someone who has seen the truth and won't stand for it) can destroy an office.

I've salvaged my life, though, as so many more of you can when you are ready to leave DS-Max. I moved out of DC and am currently teaching high school. I must admit that I am incredibly happy being one of the "9-5 drones" that I used to mock while with Triad Promotions.

It is as a public school teacher that I am writing this now. Before leaving, I learned that DS-Max's Quantum division (the "non-profit" division) is presumably now allowed to use the D.A.R.E. name in order to hock their crap outside of malls around America. As a teacher, I take the work that D.A.R.E. does very seriously and I resent that their good name is being used to fleece consumers and turn a profit.

When you walk outside of any store and a young person with a suit and a table advertising free fingerprinting tells you "Hey, check out what we're doing for child safety today. We're just out here on behalf of D.A.R.E. or the CPEA..." either run the other way or tell the store manager that you do not approve of the store allowing multi-level marketers to harrass customers in the false name of fundraising or community safety.

If you want to give money to D.A.R.E. or the CPEA (and you actually want all of your money to go to them), visit their website and give a direct donation. Don't support these organizations that are preying on naive kids who don't know enough about the world to realize that this is a scam.

If you interview with this office, or any other DS-Max distribution subidiary, realize that they are not offering marketing/public relations/non-profit jobs. Offices like Triad Promotions are the scummiest of all DS-Max MLM scams. What makes these people worse is that they can't even come out and simply sell their discount garbage outside of any mall in America. Instead, they have to use non-profit ploys in order to convince people to buy their trash and join their team.

Triad Promotions no longer does business in Falls Church and I have learned that they moved their ridiculous operation to Los Angeles, CA and are operating under the new name Tri-Universal Inc. I have had friends in So Cal who have unknowingly answered their ad during their job hunts and thanked me because knowing about my experience with this scam, they weren't suckered in. I only hope this posting can also help others.

TAKE ACTION!!!!

INTERVIEWEES: If you interview with Tri-Universal, Inc. or another MLM operation and are angry about them posting their job listings under "non-profit/fundraising" or any other misleading heading, call or email the classified section of the newspaper or website that you found them in and complain that they should have to list under "business opportunities." Newspapers take these complaints very seriously and you can stop them from wasting more people's time as they wasted yours.

PAST DS-MAXers: Encourage the special interest section of local newspapers to do an expose on the cult-like nature of DS-Max offices (we all know what they are like). If you used to be in Quantum, encourage news stations to do a hidden camera "catch them in the act" report like the one that caught Elite Marketing in Pennsylvania taking donations.

Finally, I would like to close by issuing a blanket apolgy to everyone who may have been hurt by me during my time as an independent distributor with the Quantum distribution subsidiary of DS-Max. May you find the peace and happiness that I have found whether it be within or without DS-Max. If it is wisely outside of DS-Max, may you also find peace in taking action to stop these people from destroying the youth of America with their unrealisitic, "get-rich-quick" pyramid disguised as employment.

Elite Marketing, the pittsburgh channel News 4 story links (with video): (URLs removed by ripoffreport.com) and
Pennsylvania state press release:

Eliza
Haywood, Texas
U.S.A.

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