Complaint Review: Port City Innovations

Port City Innovations claims to be Knoxville's "premier sales and marketing firm".

I first saw Port City Innovations job listings on the BetterKnoxvilleJobs.com website. I have seen so many of their job listings. They always seem to have something available and for months I have often wondered why/how.

In all of their job listings they say that they will accept people from all different types of backgrounds - pretty much anyone can apply. That they will "train" the right candidate. However, in their job listings they don't really tell you exactly what you will be doing. They just try to sugar coat everything. Also, they give their job listings "fancy" titles to make you think you will be doing something important. Ha. In the faq section of their website they claim you can become a manager in less than a year. Sounds too good to be true and I'm sure it is. Speaking of their website, it is an absolute joke. I should have known by their website that it was nothing but a scam.

Anyway, before I knew what I know now, I decided to go ahead and give them a try. I sent them my resume on a Saturday and told them I would be interested in any design or clerical jobs within their company. On Monday they called me right back and set up an appointment for Wednesday for a completely different job. I was supposed to be meeting with Scott Grady, the head honcho of the "operation". The secretary then gave me a little bit of information about the marketing/junior consultant position. She told me I would be working on contracts with Quill. Quill is an office supply company however I already knew what Quill was because I had ordered supplies from them before at a previous job.

So after the phone conversation was over, I decided to google "quill marketing" because I wanted to get a better idea of the type of work I would be doing before my interview. And wow. I sure found out. As soon as I typed that in, google showed that several people had searched for "quill marketing scam" previously. Great.

As soon as I googled that, I got several websites that said how there are marketing companies like Port City popping up in numerous cities. These websites gave information about salesmen going door to door trying to sell office products for Quill. Many of them being very rude, even going into buildings which state NO SOLICITING.

I then decided to google "Port City Innovations Scam" which led me to the Rip-Off Report website. I had found another Knoxville job seekers report against this company and their inner workings. You can read his report here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/419/RipOff0419409.htm (Thanks Radeonator2048). I am so glad I found his report. I currently live an hour from Knoxville and I would have been livid if I had drove an hour to an nonsense interview.

From what it seems, this company does not really tell you exactly what you will be doing. You don't find out until your first day of "work" when you are conned into going door-to-door selling office products. Apparently Port City does not even pay you. You get COMMISSION ONLY and have to use your own car, gas, without reimbursement.

Port City Innovations is nothing but a SCAM and MLM. I even warned the president of betterknoxvillejobs.com about this company and how they are using people. Of course I did not receive an e-mail back. In fact, I checked this morning to see if they are still posting their jobs on their website and sure enough they are. However I know exactly why. Betterknoxvillejobs.com gets paid $150 per job listing so why would they refrain from allowing them to post? They get paid for it so it's nothing to them. As I see it, they are just as bad as Port City Innovations but I guess that is a complaint for another day.

I think it is really sad that this company is using people like this especially in today's economy. I am so thankful there are websites like Rip-off report. It really saved me some grief that is for sure. No telling how many people have wasted their gas and time on companies like this one.

Melissa
Oneida, Tennessee
U.S.A.