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Canadian Property Stars Spring Masters property maintenance, aeration, no wages, cheat, scam Ottawa, Nationwide
I have to write this ripoff report in order to let more people know about the infamous scam company named Canadian Property Stars (AKA: Spring Masters) and I hope people wont fall into this stupid trap after reading this report. I am a new comer, so please forgive my poor English. I decide to write in English because doing so will reach more people who are or will be involved in this company. For safety purpose, Im not going to disclose the specific locations and names of education institutions and people names. Also, this scam company cheat people nation wide, so it is meaningless to address specific locations. I am going to present this report to you in the following three sections: Personal Experience, My Thinking and Reasoning, and Advice.
Personal Experience
Advertisement
I believe many people who live in Canada must know Spring Masters (SM for short thereafter), which does incredibly aggressive advertisement in the whole country. Actually, this company changed its name not long ago and it is called Canadian Property Stars now (CPS for short thereafter). Im a new comer who have been here for almost one year. For my experience, I saw business cards in bus stop shelters, flyers with detachable slips on almost everywhere: lamp stands, information boards in campus, even large ads stuck inside the glass walls of bus shelter. Most importantly, on those flyers, words read quite promising: $100-$500 cash daily!. This is so tempting, people just cant help to raise their hands to get one of the slips and call the company to see whats going on. All in one word, this company puts huge amount of money to do advertisement during spring and summer season. Flyers are really everywhere, people just cant avoid seeing them.
For me, I didnt do the calling or web searching. Because of the aggressive advertisement approach, my personal feeling is that this kind of company cannot be trusted. However, one day, CPS went to University to hold an information session. All kinds of flyers, banners, staff with smile and enthusiasm, are so promising that I think this might really be a good chance to earn some cash. The info session said that if we want to have a try, we can go to their job fair on a later date.
Job Fair
I think I can give it a try to go to their job fair to know more about the job. So I went to a warehouse where the company was holding its job fair. The warehouse was dark and filthy, with a strong smell of lacquer and gasoline. The warehouse was very shabby, with about 60 to 70 aeration machines on one side and about 40 chairs on the other side. About 40 people came. Most of them looked like high school and college students. Almost all of them are visible minorities (no racism intended, just listing the fact). A man with abnormal enthusiasm was speaking on the platform, non-stop. He was doing presentation about the company and spent about almost one hour in talking how happy the workers are with their cash. In the Power Point slides, there were lots of employees testimonials about how they earn considerable amount of cash (the worst day is around $100) and how satisfied they were. The testimonials were so repetitive that they were actually brainwashing the audience.
Up to this point, I still had no idea what products or services exactly the company makes or provides, nor the exact jobs the company wants to hire. After more than one hour of boasting, two staff came and distribute some paper to us. The presenter said that these are the contracts, and if we dont sign them right now, the training session cannot continue, because of the protection of companys confidentiality blablablah.
I went through the whole contract carefully. We will not be the CPSs employees. Instead, we are independent contractors of the company. No insurance, no benefits, no minimum wages, no nothing, all you will earn is commission. Not coming to work or not fulfilling the daily hours are regarded as contract violation and the company will fine you $100. Daily equipment rental fee is $10 payable to the company. However, the contract lasts only one day long. I guess thats why many guys wrote their SIN# down and signed their name (including me) without hesitation. Moreover, I saw there was a father with his son and they both seemed to be quite convinced by the propaganda and signed the contract. Well then, I thought to myself: this is only one day, just give it a try. Even if the job sucks, I wont lose much for just one day.
Without any interview, all guys were automatically hired. After collected contracts signed, the presenter continued bullshitting. Now that he talked about the work, the pay, the complicated calculation of commission and some jargon cannot be understood anyway. CPS wants us to do core aeration service for home owners. We are going to do door-to-door sales and do the aeration and charge home owners money and you earn 32% commission of the bill you charge. You are supposed to do everything while the company does nothing, except waiting for money to come in.
The job fair or training session or whatever, lasted more than 3 hours and ended at around 9:30 pm. Only after I signed the damned contract and listened to what the presenter said did I realize that I fell into a trap of scam. If I dont make it, CPS will file a $100 fine to CRA. I dont know if it is true, but I cannot run any risk to harm my personal file. This means I have to go on the specific date I agreed to work for CPS.
Work
On that date I agreed in the contract, CPS required me to arrive before 8:15 AM. If you are late, CPS will have a reason to fine you, $100 maybe. Anyway I arrived on time, and saw some towed vans came. We spent about 2 hours listening the same guy continued bullshitting. I saw many young white guys wearing CPS T-shirts. None of them were in that job fair I attended. They said they were returning workers and had some experience and were quite motivated to earn crazy cash. I doubt, and later in My Thinking and Reasoning section, Im going to show you my conclusion about these young white guys. One of them were recognized as a famous hard worker who ranked top 1 or 5 whatever. He and some other guys showed us how to do the sales. Not even a minute was spared to train us how to operate the aeration machine. We were given some flags and flyers for distribution. Eight people went into a van, which was very broken. None of us buckle up seatbelts, which were impossible.
The route manager drove for about 40 minutes and dropped each of us off in different neighbourhood. When he dropped me off, he simply went over steps of operating the machine and expected me to learn everything in just one minute. After he setting up the machine for me and letting me run it, he drove away. Thats it, he let me earn money as soon as possible.
Now I was supposed to knock doors and sell the aeration service. I tried several along the street, every home owner said that they had already aerated their lawns. They pointed to the lawns, and true: dirts were spreading on grass. I inspected the lawns along the street and all were aerated. I tried my luck on another street. Some home owners said not this time, immediately after they saw my T-shirt and the aeration machine. I came across with an old man and he said CPS guys are so annoying that they just come again and again and they wont leave the neighbourhood in peace.
How am I going to sell aeration service if all the lawns have already been aerated, plus CPS has a so bad reputation?? Since Im an independent contractor, wouldnt it be easier for me to carry my own aeration machine and wear my own T-shirt and sell my own aeration service door-to-door? Anyway, CPS does not provide any decent training, no minimum wages, charges machine rental fees and has stinky reputation.
The route manager gave me pre-booked orders so that I wouldnt leave the day with $-10. I admit Im just an ordinary guy, not doing gym regularly and Im just not strong. After I finished aeration I was exhausted. The Ryan aeration machine weights 250 pounds. Thats almost twice of my weight. Moreover, the aeration machine is totally a joke. It died from time to time as a result of lack of maintenance.
I was supposed to work from 11 AM to 8 PM. I kept pushing the damned machine along streets like an idiot and knocked doors. No place for food, no place for toilet. You are supposed to knock doors and beg home owners to allow you to use their bathrooms. Sometimes you even beg them for food and drink if you run out of them, since you cant go very far to buy food with that damned heavy machine. I ate my sandwiches in a bus stop shelter like a beggar, and went into thickets to pee like a homeless man. The route manager was sitting in his van and drove around the neighbourhood to keep an eye on you.
After a whole day of walking and door knocking, the route manager drove us back. Other guys seemed so energetic and they asked each other how many lawns or steps youve done (thats one of the jargon they use, simply for how many lawns). Some of them got 7, some of them got 2 or 1. They seemed to be so excited and committed to this job. After the commission calculation (32% before tax sales minus $10 machine rental fee), I got $10 for a whole damned long day. Yes, $10 for 12 hours. Some people seemed to be very happy with what they got, while others did not speak at all. But almost all of them renew their contract for another day. I feel sad for them.
My Thinking and Reasoning
Name Changed from Spring Masters to Canadian Property Stars
CPS certainly put huge effort in advertising and protecting reputation. If you search SM or CPS in Youtube, almost all results you get are their propaganda and endless testimonials. If you search in Google, you will find many complaints and negative reviews about this company, and I learn from the reviews that SMs reputation had been so bad that they had to change their name to CPS in recent years. Since you cant cheat the same person twice, youd better change your name and all the brand images related, so that you can cheat people again.
Protecting Reputation
Many complaints are about workers being ripped off by CPS and CPS provide low quality property maintenance service. However, CPS has a group of people who are especially dealing with those on-line complaints by posting rebuttal replies or threads, as if they were happy workers who do more testimonials of how happy and how much they earn. My guess is all the positive CPS videos you can find on internet are done by CPS staff. Those rebuttals and support votes are done by CPS staff. You might see different names on them, but actually they are all done by CPS staff (the tone, format, style, length of paragraphs are very alike). They keep scanning everyday to find if there is any new complaints or negative reviews that might hurt the companys reputation. If they find any, they start to do the whole testimonials again and again and again. This kind of propaganda is so pervasive that sometimes it can even fool some people to believe in them.
Disguised Shills, actually CPS Staff
Judging from the speakings and behaviour of those successful young white guys I met in the morning, I guess they are the shills recruited by CPS to fool others. Yes, they are part of the companys propaganda strategy. Also, each team is assigned 1 to 3 of this kind of shills who are fake subcontractors while pretend to work very hard and say they earn a lot. In doing so, CPS create an illusion that some of the subcontractors can earn very much, and that the reason why you cant earn so much is that you are not hard working enough. Then, there will always be poor souls who just believe in this big joke, being ripped off by CPS day after day. The whole thing is just a joke, like a huge bubble, which needs a lot more people and money to maintain so that the bubble wont break. However, this is only my guess, but I think it makes sense for this kind of company.
Advice
To immigrants and all those who are desperate for money:
DO NOT fall into CPSs trap, never ever. There are scams all over the world, and Canada is not an exception. DO NOT believe in the advertisements that make easy promise of earnings. THERE IS NO EASY CASH IN THE WORLD AND YOU DESERVE A BETTER AND DECENT JOB.
To all Canadians:
SM and CPS existed in Canada for more than a decade. Personally I feel shamed for Canada for having such a big scam nation wide for such a long time and no one did anything about it. Please, eliminate this scam by telling more people about the truth; by not using their service; by not attending their info session and training session; by throwing the flyers into garbage bins immediately when you see them. No home owners want to be annoyed and their lawns to be ruined. No workers want to be ripped off for a whole day and get only ridiculously little money. No parents want their kids to be brainwashed and dragged the machine whole day long like idiots. No property maintenance companies want to compete with such an unethical business.
If you read this report, please dont fall into this trap ever, and please forward it, or copy and paste it, or tell your friends to get them away from this scam. CPS is a shame for Canada.
4 Updates & Rebuttals
anonymous
Calgary,Alabama,
Busted
#5General Comment
Wed, June 26, 2013
"I work in the Vancouver B.C. location. been there for two weeks now. I didnt believe that it was a real job. ill be honest, they had tried to recruit me for two years now. but i always said no because its a scam. this time i went for it, i was unemployed at the time after moving a few provinces over. Anyways, the way they described the pay and everything was kinda confusing at the hiring fair, but ill go over it to make sure everyone understands it"
If this guy is really a new employee, why is he the one explaining the contract to people? Obviously this is a manager pretending to be a new employee who loves the job. I've had a great time reading complaints about this ridiculous company but the replies are even funnier. They try to condescend to people who don't like putting in 15 hour days for peanuts, despite the fact that only a moron would do such a thing for more than a day. They thank them for their input, followed by things like: "many of our employees (I thought they were independent contractors?) like hard work and challenging themselves." That's nice and all, but said employees should make real money. You can go challenge yourself and work very hard in the oilfield. You know what else will happen? You'll make real money. The more realistic replies from employees claim to make between $100 and $200 a day. That's nothing for a 13-16 hour day. But could you imagine making $20 or $50 (which seems to be the average) in such a long day?
You can easilly make $400-$500 a day in the oilfield with no previous experience. And there's no 'sorry you didn't get any sales. Maybe you'll actually make 20 bucks tomorrow.' This company is a joke.
SunDay
Awesome.
#5UPDATE EX-employee responds
Sun, March 24, 2013
Good job. BC seems to be really kicking. In toronto, it's still snow all over. Though I'm sure stuff is happening regardless. Try to squeeze as much as you can out of march/april. Personally, I preferred not to even mention other services in april, since they take so long to explain, unless everyone's at work, or the lawn really really really needs something. In May, things get tougher since 85% of all lawns are already aerated. Then aeration more becomes as a side thing and you'll learn how to sell driveway sealings and other services.
At least that's how it was in Toronto, its possible that things are little different in BC. But I'm glad you're making money.
If there really "was" an error of extra 50, consider returning it or confirming that the manager did not do it on purpose? Later on, you'll be handling a lot of cash, trust is a pretty major part of the work.
I remember managers used to run the craziest competitions back when I was working. Like, we often picked up an occasional sandwich or some whatever plate of food off the customers. We would take pictures of the food we were offered and the most outlandish one won.
Pagani0zonda
two weeks in
#5UPDATE Employee
Sun, March 24, 2013
I work in the Vancouver B.C. location. been there for two weeks now. I didnt believe that it was a real job. ill be honest, they had tried to recruit me for two years now. but i always said no because its a scam. this time i went for it, i was unemployed at the time after moving a few provinces over. Anyways, the way they described the pay and everything was kinda confusing at the hiring fair, but ill go over it to make sure everyone understands it. you go out everyday (or what days you want (pick and choose) from 8 am till dark) and knock on peoples doors with a three hundred pound machine. but the machine does pull itself, it will pull you if the gas is on enough. you dont need to be very phisically fit. k the pay, you get to price the yards you sell (door to door) and you make 32% commision. so to make it simple, today i sold 725$ even, after 12% taxes. I sold 11 lawns (two pre-booked) so 725x0.32=232$$. they take 10$ off every day for machine rentals. because you are a sub-contractor, you are self employed therefore must supply your own equipment. since were not going to go out and buy a 3000$ aerator we can rent it from them for 10$ a day. much more worth it, so today i made 232-10=222$. my take home today was $222 in cash. they can pay you cash because you are self employed contractors. like contractors building a house they get a cheque or cash everytime the work is completed. when you work a day for cps you complete your work when you get back to the shop and you get your cash. its not illigal! i have self contracted in construction before i know it works. yea a lot of people dont make very much money. but they go to a door, knock and the home owner says "no its to wet". to be good at this job you need to know how to get around rejection like that. heres a quick conversation i had today at a door that i sold for 95$+tax. me-hi there how are you today, i work for a national company called cps. im in your neighborhood today because so many of your neighbors have called us in to do there spring aeration. have you ever aerated before? homeowner - yea every year i rent a machine. me- well thats amazing, i love people that do it themselves, im guessing you go to home hardware. homeowner-yes. me- thats awesome, we actually have a discount for people that had rented last year that matches the price you paid in rental, and you get to keep your saturday to yourself. our standard rate for a front lawn is 50$ but you have a larger front lawn so id say 70$ and the back lawn is about the same size so ill put it at 70 as well. but because weve done so many of your neighbors were giving half off back yards so thats just 35$! and because you rented the machine last year i can take another 10$ off actually making it cheaper than the rental!! ill get started in the front?.....BOOM 95$! im good with talking to people, you work with cps for more than 5 days and you will be to! on a three minute conversation and 20 minutes of aerating i made 30.40$ please tell me another job that you can make 30$ in under half an hour. yes there are bad days, when theyve all had it done, or theyre with other companies that do it, but those days i make 75$ thats a bad day. but i make sure to make sure over 300$ the following day to make up for it. it does happen! the only scam ive seen so far is us scamming the manager because he accidentally handed me an extra 50$ at bonuses the other night. OH. thats a part of the pay i missed, the bonus! every day 50 people pay the 10$ rental fee for the machine. so where does that 500$ go? back into bonuses for the top 5 sellers of the day. if you took home the most money that day, you also make 200$ cash just for being awesome, second place 150, third 100, 4th and 5th 50$. so you do have to be good at the job to make upwards of 600$ but i promise you there has not been a day yet that i havent seen someone make over 500$. it happens! you just have to stick with it, not give up, not be lazy, and keep going. so please dont listen to the people saying its a scam, its not!! there just lazy, they want a job they can make that much money without doing a lot of work or talking to people. those people wont get far in life. ive saved 2600$ in the past 11 days. is it hard? yes if you work every single day. is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!!
SunDay
Oh Noes! The young white guys are here!
#5UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, March 19, 2013
I am one of the people who sometimes posts rebuttals on most of this stuff. I worked for the company for two years, then when I got my career I quit the company and am now working my own profession. So, I worked for these guys for two years and I now have been away from them for two more years. I owe them no loyalty, there is no payment for my words, or anything of any of that kind.
Alright. That said, here's some of my own thoughts, opinions, and commentary.
First and foremost. While I understand that the author does not mean to be racist, but he ... kinda is. Considering how many times he used 'the white guys' term. The blog is very oriented towards immigrants and prejudices in a kind of an amusing way. Either way ... I'm a white guy. Though I'm also an immigrant, so I dont really know where I fit.
If you read the contract, it says that if you quit in the middle of the day, during which you agreed to work, you get fined 100 CAD. What you are omitting to say, is that you either get fined or you dont work anymore. Nobody sends any fines to CRA, that is ... ridiculous. Also ... you write down your sin there? It's possible, I guess. But I dont remember ever doing that. I might be misremembering
It's very simple. The job is very hard and the filter for employment is zilch. Everyone who comes to the job fair is hired. Or so it appears ... in reality, there is a very simple filter. 85% of people who try out their first day ... quit. Nobody fines them for that, they're gone. Only way for the company to really fine anybody is when a long standing worker calls the day done and leaves, without even bothering to bring the aerator back to the company and 'then' expects to be working next day anyway. This actually happened! And the manager had to drive around the neighbourhood, looking for where the dude left the machine.
If such thing happens and they actually give him a machine to work another day, there is an expectation that whatever he makes that day, he is losing out on a hundred. In reality, most people who quit are not fined. They're gone. It's people value the work, but did not care or plan enough and walked out on the day, but value the job enough to actually pay the fine and keep working. There are never "negative" days. That's bullshit. Either the author misunderstands, or he is misaligning the truth in a very intentional way.
I cannot say for sure, why they changed from Spring Masters to Property stars. The change happened after I left. I did ask that question at some point since I know ... a good amount of people who work for them still and nobody really knows the answer. Is it to avoid the bad name of Springmasters? I doubt it ... everyone who knows Springmasters, know they are CPS. The most reasonable explanation was some kinda legal thing, after the company grew from ontario based to national. But I cant say I know for sure.
It is possible to earn good money in the company. It's not easy. Sooome people say it's not for everyone? Buuut everyone is stretchy term. When I began, I've made crap. Like ... not even a hundred, the first week, I was making 40-70 bucks. But I stuck with it and I learned the ropes, and I learned the tricks. My english improved. Aaand ... you know. I made good money afterwards. Sometimes I had shitty days, sometimes I had very good days. I'm not one of the Stars, who makes 500 dollars a frigging day, but I made good money.
Oh, and on the note about how heavy the machine is and how tiresome it is. I've known a 19 year old girl who is about ... 160 cm tops, like a head above the aeration machine ... beating me on a regular basis in amount of money earned per day and amount of sales made. And I frigging trained her too! As in, when she first came in, I was the one who helped her work out some of her sales tactics, pitches, little tricks, and so on. Then she owned me on a repeated, annoying, basis and made fun of me for that.
The job is not for everyone. But it has nothing to do with physical ability. I mean physical ability helps! And the first month, you'll be falling on the bed, asleep before your head hits the pillow. Your entire body will be burning and aching, you will be exhausted. But none of that is important.
English of course matters. If your english is "extremely" bad. I would advice trying your luck during driveway sealing season. During aeration you work alone. During driveway sealing, you work in teams of two or three. But english does not matter to an incredible amount. My english was pretty meh when I began. But you're basically talking to people your entire day. Your english will improve.
The main thing is attitude. And this is the part which gives some grounds to the author's claims how there is a building of white guys that spend their days, scouring the internet for blogs like these and give rebuttals that are almost identical. Yarrr! Almost all rebuttals will talk about hard work and attitude.
You know ... you gotta be smiling, awesome!!!, cheerful, energetic. It's all in your head. If there is a task before you and you think that is it too complicated and hard and unworthy of performing. You've failed already. If there is a task before you, and you laugh at it, you think of various solutions and things needing to be done to perform it, you think of how you will brag to your friends about besting the task, how much income you rake in by doing it. Well ... let's just say you have a very solid chance of succeeding.
It's all about hard work and attitude. Go to ... any ... single ... sales seminar of 'any' company. Like ... aaany frigging company. They will tell you the same thing. And ... some of them will not be white guys working for CPS. Maybe ... possible ... who knows ...
I must say that this blog is not really ... truthful. I'm actually kinda curious. He does not sound entirely bitter, but he's hitting and misleading truths in very skillful manner to paint a bad picture. Maybe a competitor, or ... a guy with a grudge and a good control of english language. There are a lot of people who have a grudge against CPS. Few of them are clients, I must say! But a lot of them are employees. Most of them ... are the people who were employed for like 1-3 days only. Aaand some people who were for example caught stealing and fired. That also happens. Sell a service for 90 CAD, write down 70, keep a 20. It happens. They get found out, they get fired, they get bitter.
In conclusion. The job is not for everyone. But you are never going to get the full picture of it from internet. Go and work there. Not for one day. Because unless you're sexier then Alba herself, or melt the hearts of lonely housewives with your shiny smile, you might ... do crappy your first day. You might do crappy your first week. Buuut ... all those guys who make top 10, top 5, 1st place and earn bonuses? They were in your shoes. I was definitely in those shoes and let's just say, I felt pretty comfortable in top 5 to 1 place after awhile.
I stuck with it, I improved myself, I did good. I am personally glad that I had the experience of working for that company. The things I learned there, I employ still and will be employing them until I retire. Maybe afterwards too. The greatest sales pitch is convincing your wife that the headache she's having is actually a byproduct of not enough lovemaking, not other way around. And a sport mindset oriented sales company really really teaches you to sell and keep your spirits high to do it.