Chic Enterprises aka Atlantic Coastline Impressions rip-off baltimore Maryland
dirk merrit is the president of chic enterprises he is the biggest,or one of the biggest crook's in the u.s. I started this hell with them in the summer of 2002 I went in as an fnp,which is a friendly new person. after your first week they tell you if you sell 50 bottles of perfume you will be promoted to a trainer, and this promotion is done on saturday.
they pump you up on friday to go out and do 21 clubs which is selling 21 bottles in one day and the minimum on friday is 10 and if you do 10 you get extra special surprises, so you know your pumped up thinking your gonna get these extra special surprises, and when saturday morning comes you get one dounut from krispy kreme. and this goes on every satuday because every saturday is promotion day.
so sunday comes around and they send you on road crew which to the naked ear doesn't sound so bad but in reality all week long they make all of trainers who have only been their a week, tell their new people about road crew, now remeber that most of these trainers have only been their a week them selves. so you be began to wonder hey! this is the same crap that my trainer told me last week( can we say multi level or better yet a pyramid).
so sunday all the new people are pumped up to go on road crew because dirk,louise,and Tito put these cash bonuses up but in order to get these bonuses you have to hit this outrageous number of sales that dirk knows nobody is going to hit, but think as a new person you don't know that these numbers are not achievable so if dirk sends out 10 crews and on each crew it has 4to5 people and they all do a minimum of 10 a day for 3 days on the road that is 1,500 bottles in 3 days, don't forget at this point its only wed the middle of the week and you work 7 days a week.
you do the math on about 2,000 bottles a week times 20 to 35 dollars a bottle profit for dirk and guess what nobody hit that extra money number so you don't get paid that week and guess where all the money go to dirk and this johnny guy. they tell you that your not in the sales business you are in the people business. which in fact if you don't move a certain amount of bottles in a week you don't get promoted, so you tell me if your in the sales field or not?
I was there for about 6 months went on every road crew, drove my car every week, made a total of about 500 dollars all the way threw, I know for a fact that me and my partner brought in about 30,000 to this company on fridays alone I would hend dirk over 500-600 dollars and their would be 25 others who would do the same and yeah you should make field profit but you feel so pressured to get the sale so you can get promted so you can get to your own office you will even take shorts and add money so when go settle-up with the devil oh I mean dirk, you have all his money so you won't get fierd.
I made it all the way to my office and did not make a dime I got kicked out of my house, I lost my wife, and my car got repoed. I guess at this point I opened my eyes but my point about all of this is someone somewhere has to stop these monsters.
this man is making 16 to 20k A week off of hard working people he degrade them selves walking around walmart,target and market parking lots and at the end of the day all you have is this wet dream of a hope that you might get your own company.
If you are reading this use common sense why would dirk or any other office owner in your town want to create compition around he or she so you can take money out of thier pocket.
Den
baltimore, Maryland
U.S.A.
6 Updates & Rebuttals
Steve
Baltimore,Maryland,
U.S.A.
ACI/ Chic Enterprises can't do it all!!
#7UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, September 22, 2004
I have to admit that I too was a part of this organization, I say this because for the most part this is the most organized company that I have seen yet. First and most importantly I will tell you that the idea of owning a company is what everyone that doesn't have that much education wants, so when they do the interviewing they tend to look for people that aren't too smart but are very enthusiastic. If they asked to many questions durring thier first interview then they would not be back for hte second one. Reason being is that it only takes one bad apple to ruin the basket. If there are tweny to thirty trainees starting on a monday, while the "sales people" are on a road crew. Dirk and Chris can relativly figure that each person would sell ten to twenty bottles each durring the first three days before field training on Wed. Now even if the two thirds of the starting class gets "weeded out" they are still in a good position for total sales that week. If you have that one person that asks too much and gets everyone thinking that this is a scam and they all quit on monday evening then Dirk and Chris are out of 200 to 300 sales that week. and with an average profit of 10.50 per bottle sold..well you do the math.
Moving on through the process, as you start to get promotions and more responsibilities you learn that you attitude has dramatically gotten better and since your confidence is now up, they hit you with the fact that if you plan to get a paycheck,(which is written as a volume rebate to avoid having to deduct or pay taxes since you sign on as an independent contractor...BTW even the secratary is payed that way)then you have to sell at least forty bottles in a week and the more you sell the more you can make since you are looking at about $3 a bottle rebate. When I was in training I did do over a hundred bottles in a week...twice (which is know as a 100 club and rewarded with a $5 dollar per bottle rebate) and countless amounts of 21 clubs (21 bottles in a day) and more. I have also made it into the weekly news letter put out by World Perfume Inc. as a top manager more time then I can count and after a year I did get into my own office. They tell you that if you do this, they will give you this. That is a big misconception since you aren't told upfront that they discourage one person opening a distribution center by them selves with the opening incentives tat you have earned through the sales you made on road crew and they also don't tell you that the person that you open with is also heavily going to hinder you in your company unless they go out and sell every day with you also. If you do decide to take this position as a manager trainee, then my advice would be to stay as a manager trainee and enjoy the pay and freedoms of working out doors and travelinmg on the weekends. Just remember that when you are in training, YOU ARE THE SALES PEOPLE. This isn't to scare anyone to or from this place, but it is to give you some info on how they work. If you choose to stay with them then don't go into it with any misconceptions and remember that you will be working hard to make Dirk, Louise, and Chris a lot of money while yours will be minimal. Even after you get your office you will be making them money.
Jimmy
Baltimore,Maryland,
U.S.A.
Haha Your Funny
#7UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, July 22, 2004
Yes i must agree, i do not understand how Dirk Merrit and Atlantic Coastline employees can wake up every morning knowing what they are. An act in which you must have no conscience at all. What you are you ask? A bunch of fakes and hopefully these reports will get out and we can help future people learn about these companys who make there money off of the hardworking middle class people of America.To be honest id rather be poor and aware then rich and greedy with no morals whatsoever. Dirks hummer(who would have guessed) is fueled by the sweat of hardworking people who indeed are working for an empty promise. ugh i am disgusted.
Jimmy
Baltimore,Maryland,
U.S.A.
Haha Your Funny
#7UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, July 22, 2004
Yes i must agree, i do not understand how Dirk Merrit and Atlantic Coastline employees can wake up every morning knowing what they are. An act in which you must have no conscience at all. What you are you ask? A bunch of fakes and hopefully these reports will get out and we can help future people learn about these companys who make there money off of the hardworking middle class people of America.To be honest id rather be poor and aware then rich and greedy with no morals whatsoever. Dirks hummer(who would have guessed) is fueled by the sweat of hardworking people who indeed are working for an empty promise. ugh i am disgusted.
Rob
Towson,Maryland,
U.S.A.
Didn't want to believe a company could work like this, but it IS true.
#7Consumer Comment
Tue, July 13, 2004
A friend of mine recently recieved an offer at this company at this exact location. They came to me with news of getting a job making $35,000/year as a base salary and bonuses on top of that. I was really happy for them. I did some research into the company just to see what they were all about since I haven't heard of them before. This article was the ONLY information I could find about them on the web.
I read it in utter shock and disbelief. The lack of ethics displayed by this company is unbelievable. I never thought this article could have been true. However, as I recently found out through my friend, the day came when they were to get paid, and just as the original complaint in this report stated, no money. Her group even surpassed the goal, and no "bonus" was paid.
Another thing I thought was interesting is that they never had the employees fill out any tax forms. How many company's hire you and "forget" that? So basically, my friend and the other trainees in her training "class" didn't even make it a week because these people are infact criminals.
They were also given a list of what perfume was in stock so they could fill orders right away. So I actually ordered one, because hey, it's not a bad deal right? WRONG. Half the list of instock items wasn't even instock at all. It had to be ordered. Needless to say none of the trainees handed in any of the money collected, simply based on the fact that someone in the class had printed out this report and actually took it in and brought it out when they refused to pay the bonus out. Everything began to unfold step by step just as this report described. I just wanted to verify this, since it is obvious that it was most likely the owner that replied to this report, basing it mostly on a personal attack towards the author. I just wanted to backup the author of the article and go out on a limb saying that he probably has more moral character then the Owner of this, for lack of a better word, unethical company.
Current Employee
Baltimore,Maryland,
U.S.A.
Are you serious??
#7UPDATE Employee
Tue, July 06, 2004
You've got to be kidding me! First of all, this Den character got let go by he company for stealng company money and inventory. He sure didn't mention that, now did he. So anyone who reads this and even considers putting one ouce of credibility into his babbling, incoherent story is just as bad, if not worse, than him. What kind of credentials do you have to have to put your opinion on the internet? The answer is ZERO!
ANY weakling can type ANYTHING they want on a computer screen, even if it's the farthest thing from a fact. Although, the funny thing is that a couple things he talks about are actually true. Saturday is promotion day (imagine that, you actually get recognized for working hard). And the company does provide donuts and bagels for the morning meeting - so what (how many bosses do you know that bring in breakfast for their staff?). But most of this is pointless rambling where he contradicts himself.
He talks about a "wet dream of a hope that you might get your own office." But the paragraph before he said he DID get into his own office. He also said his car got repoed, but one paragraph up he states he drove his car every week. Which one is it? Also, he says the company makes $20-35 PROFIT per bottle.
That's funny, the turn price to the company ranges between $20-35 per bottle. So that must mean the cost to our supply company is $0. Wow, that is a hell of an opportunity. Who wouldn't do this with his math. This guy is so mixed up that if you really read through it, it doesn't really say anything that bad about the company. The people who are reading are just assuming the worst because it's on this website. But again, ANYONE can write ANYTHING they want.
Do a search on Walmart, or IBM, or Taco Bell, or any other company and you will find many, many complaints and substantially worse stories than this. And these are supposedly "reputable companies." Bottomline is this, if you want to be successful, listen to and follow successful people only.
Why would you ever make a career decision based on what a washed up thief claimed to have happened 2 years ago. If you are an honest, hardworker with a good attitude you will succeed with this company, if you are not then you won't.
Bryan
Baltimore,Maryland,
U.S.A.
description sounded great but at the same time very fake
#7UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, May 05, 2004
I cant thank you enough. Last month i called an ad in the pennysaver. The job sounded great but when i got there i saw it was a designer fragance distributor. I knew something had to be up but i figured id give it a whirl. The description sounded great but at the same time very fake. They made it seem as if they hardly ever hired and you where very special and so on and so on. I am only 18 years old but i knew something is up when they would not answer certain questions. Anyway I was hired and asked to pay 20 bucks because certain people do not show up for there first day or some crap. I hesitated and said i would come back tomorrow. I went home and did some research and found your ad, and id like to say i cannot thank you enough for posting this and saving my time.