Complaint Review: Cobra Group (BlueMoon Corporation-John O'Brien)

My report is one that is painfull to write as I feel that I was manipulated and ripped of by way of empty career promises as well as monies that I earned that suddenly "weren't mine and check with who you like cause i DON'T CARE", and almost a year after the events occured I am stil affected by it! The following is my account of how I was ultimately ripped off and slandered by these people and contains both my opinions and acurate depictions of what happened.

I worked for the Cobra Group PLC by way of BlueMoon Corporation in Dublin which is run by John O'Brien. Cobra is split into umperella 'independant' companies so that it only has to get involved when it suits Cobra, monetarily, to do so. John's company was part of the 13 Promotions group which is run by his brother Barry and is based in Leeds.

I, as everyone else, started at the bottom of the ladder as a 'merchandiser' and was shown a system of progression and success that seemenly anyone could achieve through hard work and the following of "The System" and eventually open and run a business/office of out own where our job would be to pass on this "amazing oppertunity" to everyone else.

I began knocking on doors and had to first learn how to sell, in this case convince people to sign up to various charities for a monthly direct debit, and then once proficient in this I had to interview other potential candidates and convince and teach them to do the same.

We worked from 9am to about 10.30pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 8pm Saturday, then were expected and encouraged to forget all personal commitments, friends, family etc and spend Sunday with the people from your team to make sure that they were still convinced to turn up for more door knocking long hours and low commission only pay on Monday morning.

Every day the Owner, John O'Brien in BlueMoon, would give a long winded and generally boring speech trying to tell us that we had to go out and knock doors in all kinds of weather (snow and a wid chill of -13 decrees celcius was my particular favourite) and if we moaned or complained we were just negative idiots who weren't determined enough to run our own businesses and that we should get out of his office. He did it so everyoe else could too... Or so he told us.

It took me 16 weeks to get to a level of Assistant Owner in the office, which was pretty good as the other Assistant Owner took 18 months to get there. At this stage the A.O. recieves 20% of what the office makes per week once their crew/team hits a certain pre-determined target. Now this money is yours to do with as you wish and is held in trust in a company account for you. Once you save a certain amount you can open an office of your.....

Or so we were told, but as it turned out after I left I was told "tough s**t, I haden't reached the amount to open my office" so the job wasn't done and John was going to keep my money. A little over 2,000 in fact. He told me to chase this up what ever way I wanted and he didn't care.

Now, before this happened, John convinced my girlfriend to leave her job and come work as his administrator to prepare for the opening of my office where she would work with me. This seemed like a good idea as due to my working about 80 hours a week, this would be a chance to see each other.

As soon as she began working for him he started treating her terribly in the office, barking orders and then dissappearing for the day, only to return and repremand her for not having things done, even when these were all things that he had to go through with her and authorise. Such as wages money orders and the office accounts and also was known to say things like "when you are finished that report I'll bend you over the desk and show you a real man.." Sexual Harrasement anyone??????!!!!!!!!!

He then accused her of taking interview forms and giving them to me to build my team and fired her without giving her a chance to make her (very straightforward and tight) case.

He then began to remove any help from my team and every other team in the office in favour of his drinking buddy's team and refused to help or guide anyone else. He started to see the money in his own bank account and spent his "motivational meetings" bragging about how much money he had.

I brought my girlfriend and her family to the Cobra Group Rally in Dublin last Jan (03) and he then fired me as he hadn't wanted me to bring her to the rally, which was not his rally and he had no control or say over who could or would go...

I was then to move to another office and in my opinion, his fear of my getting promoted up to my own office with someone else making him look like a fool, made him decide to run meetings in his office saying that I had commited fraud, was attempting to saboutage other peoples advancement within the office and that I was a lyer and a cheat of the highest order.

As if taking my 2,000 away wasn't enough, he had to try to put down my name by way of defimation of character and slander and then, suddenly, my bond dissapeared through monumenlat cancelations of customer's charity direct debits. Imagine that... 20% of the miniscule fees you get is held back just on the off chance that someone might cancel their generous charitable contribution, and funny, anyone who left miraculously had massive amounts of cancelations meaning that John O'Brien and BlueMoon Corporation claimed they didn't have to pay out anyone's cash that should have been sitting there....Dodgy or what!!?!!

I then sent a letter of complaint detailing all these events and more, such as John allowing someone in the office, an illegal immigrant with no work permit none the less, to commit fraud which had been verified by 2 other people, to remain in the office as she made some decent daily sales meaning cash in his pocket.. I sent this letter to Chris Niarchos and Mike Blaine, Chairman and CEO of the Cobra Group and Vice President respectively.

Mike called me and said that he would try to talk to John and would try to get me back into another office. He obviously knew that there was some serious stuff that he didn't want to get out so told me that he woudl do this on the condition that if I came back in I would never mention these events again and would be nice as pie to John and Barry O'Brien, pretending that nothing ever happened...

I said that I wanted my name cleared as Slander was a huge offence and after the immense levels of hard work I put in I deserved to get my 2,000 that John was refusing to give out.

He said he would get back to me the next week and hasn't gotten back to me yet...almost 2 months later...

As I mentioned earlier, Cobra seem to only get involved if it means lining their own pockets, and even when they know that one of their member offices is going hugely wrong and even doing illegal things, they will still try to cover it up by destroying the smaller guy!

I am shocked and appauled by this and would advise anyone considering a career within the Cobra Group to think again, as it will more than likely be the shortest career of your life in which they will convince you to be totally obsessed with success within the group, even to the point of huge financial ruin, loss of friends, loved ones and anything else that is outside this back-stabbing, seedy, dodgy world of scheeming Direct Sales.

I believe it is now the responsability of every upstanding individual to steer people away from the RIP-OFF that is the Cobra Group and stop this scandal!c

Niall
Co.Meath
Ireland