Complaint Review: Sparta Marketing - PrimeTyme

The short of this posting is that Sparta Marketing and Prime Tyme and whatever other BS name they call themselves are a pyramid scam. Do NOT buy into it! Don't even bother replying to their postings (there are a lot of them).

The long story:
I had replied to a job posting on careerbuilder for an entry level marketing position at a company called Prime Tyme Marketing. The lady on the phone seemed very nice and scheduled me for an interview appointment the next day. When I arrived at the building, there was no company called Prime Tyme but a company called Sparta Marketing. The receptionist informed me that "They share an office" which was BS.

While waiting in the sketchy reception area, the five other people in the waiting room who were there before me seemed very agitated. I found out that they had been there for at least 45 minutes just waiting. Also, the receptionist was making constant phone calls to career builder applicants while facebooking (unprofessional but not unusual) and sending them to offices all over south FL.

During my wait, I was searching for info on Sparta on my blackberry and came across Ripoff report #435229 which tipped me off to the scam.

After I had been there about 20 minutes, the first applicant was called in. She was in the interview room for no more than five minutes before leaving in a disappointed manner. The next name to be called was mine which I found odd because: a) there were people who had been waiting longer than me and b) the person calling me in was not the person who I had scheduled the appointment with (I scheduled with Jessica Bischoff, the Receptionist is Diana and the person who "interviewed me" was Patrick).

When I went in for the "interview" we started off with the usual stuff, a bit about you, why are you looking for a job, etc. Patrick proceeded to tell me about the company how "They were the premier direct and sports marketer," spitting out names like the Florida Panthers and DirecTV. I said, "That sounds great." He then pulled out a crappy looking business card for a company called C & C Auto Glass.

He said, "This is our newest acquisition. They came to us and their business was in the toilet and we raised their sales by 110% and we liked the company so much that we bought them," and he chuckled. He told me that the position he had me for was to go out and "direct market" aka "sell" windshields. He said they had a management training program and that once completed it, "I could be in his position and look for people to work under me." PYRAMID SCHEME

I told him that I was here for the Prime Tyme job which, from the website had to do with interactive marketing installations, not selling windshields. He said that was another one of his companies but he wanted me for windshields. I said I wasn't interested in that position and it wasn't what I had responded to. He said, "Everyone starts in the same place. We want you to coach a team. You have to know how to play all the positions if you want to be coach."

I asked, "So at what point in this process would I transition from windshields to the interactive marketing installations I was originally interested in?" He couldn't give me an answer other than that I'd have to work my way up through the process. I asked again, "What part of the process takes me from windshield sales to interactive marketing?" Again, he danced around the question.

This led me to believe that there was NO CONNECTION between Prime Tyme and Sparta Marketing other than that they were using Prime Tyme as bait.

I even asked, "If you do sports marketing and direct marketing for these big companies, how does selling windshields lead to that?" NO GOOD ANSWER.

Ok, so now I knew that this was BS, but I wanted to find out more info as to how they operate. So I inquired about pay.

Salary? "No, commission. But we expect you to sell 3 to 5 windshields a day."

So how do I find my clients? "We want you to go around town and find people with chipped windshields and offer to fix it for them for free. We file it with their insurance and they get a free windshield." (sounds like a scam to me)

So I'm basically cold calling people and walking around looking for busted windshields on my own time and dime? "Yeah, but eventually through our management trainee program you could manage you own team of "marketers" aka windshield salesmen."

At that point, I'd had enough. I expressed my disgust with the fact that they had duped me into coming in for an interview for a position that had nothing to do with what they wanted. If they had posted "Windshield Salesman Needed For Pyramid Scheme" that would have been an accurate, honest description. Instead, they bait unknowing job seekers, many of us who've been out of work for a while due to this poor economy, into coming in and pitching us a scam.

So if you see a Sparta, Prime Tyme or any other ad that had you come in for an interview immediately for a marketing job. BE WARNED. It's a scam.

CaveatEmptor
Wellington, Florida
U.S.A.