US First Energy Sell Electricity Contracts Scam New York City New York

Summary:

The Lie: Company promises $40,000 salary, claims to be another company, claims to be offering Marketing jobs.

Reality: No salary, no hourly rate, 100% commission that is difficult to obtain, is actually an obscure company using the name of another real company, and the job is door to door sales.

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I had just finished college and I was job hunting when I posted my resume

on career builder. A few days later I received a call supposedly from "SUEZ Energy Resources North America". They claimed to have a job offer in Marketing for me with an annual salary BASE plus Commission of $40,000 a year. Needless to say they had my attention as a young college grad starting out. I returned their call and they set me up for an interview.

{First ripoff sign: You are being called about a job/company you did not apply to; real companies get thousands of applications they do not need to
search for people who are not specific about their career goals} I went to the interview in a very impressive penthouse office on broad/wall street. It was enough to blow anyone away. I was interviewed and later that day offered the job, once again a position in Marketing, but for US First Energy, 'the exclusive marketing agent for SUEZ'.

{MAJOR RIPOFF HINT: This is not the company that claimed to offer the job, I was being told that the job was with the Energy Giant SUEZ, in reality it was a no-name company running a scam using their name as if it were
their own.}

[MAJOR RIPOFF SIGN: NO BACKGROUND CHECKS, SOCIAL SECURITY OR DHS WORK AUTHORIZATION, ID REQUESTED; real companies must verify identification and obtain SSN for IRS reporting and confirm citizenship/immigration status
before hiring anyone, also drug and alcohol testing are common for real businesses.]

I was then told I had to undergo training...via the internet. This took up to 3 hours of my time per day, keeping me from my family and other activities. At no time was I being paid for training time.

{Second Ripoff sign: majority of companies give paid training. This is because of the economic principle of opportunity cost. Time is money.

People must be paid for their time, it could be spent elsewhere in profitable endeavours} The training lasted a week, notes were taken, where they explained their
master plan [scheme] to sell electricity retailing contracts to businesses that qualify.
We were expected to learn notes, complete tests and fax the results. However if you failed the test you were able to take the test until you passed.

{Next Ripoff sign: allowing failure and such low standards indicates a desperate need to recruit}

Finally we were called in to 'classroom' training.

Instead of the penthouse we were in a break room somewhere in the building. It seemed too public...there were people who lived in the building walking in and out of the area, there were no proper chairs/tables set up for the 'class'.
{Next Ripoff hint: Classroom training without a classroom? Also such an area should be restricted from the general public.}

The 'class' consisted of basic introductions and some elaboration of their scheme to sell contracts and make big bucks.

We were told that the next day we would be out in the 'field'.

The next day the reality of the job set in: we would be going door to door to businesses and using a verbatim sales pitch to try to win over customers. It involved walking from 10am to about 5 pm doing door to door sales also we would be required to meet back at the office and perhaps leave at 7:00 pm if we were lucky. In addition at HOME we would have to document prospects and visits.

{Next Ripoff hint: The job description of 'Marketing' position is now all of a sudden a door to door salesman.}

In the next couple days I came to realize that the 'office' was really just a residential penthouse that several 'managers' actually lived and slept in... so the reality is that the business was run out of someone's apartment... which was the next ripoff hint: lack of a professional setting.

Finally the big bomb was dropped: there was no salary...I was being paid $0.00 for working 9-7:30 (also count the time to get ready for work, commute, and also the fatigue from walking all over new york city doing
sales pitches for several hours per day) in addition to the 'homework' we were given {Real jobs pay salaries/hourly rates, except in a few situation such as

brokers or insurance sales...}
We were told we would receive large commissions for our sales to compensate, however what was the catch?
The catch was that a business had to qualify for the contract... so it was even harder to actually land a sale.

Well after if was made clear that there was no compensation, I immediately resigned, only to hear similar stories about other companies from friends....

Brooklyn
Brooklyn, New York
U.S.A.