Complaint Review: Thorne Investment Group

I answered an advertisement run by this liquidation company, seeking wholesale sales representatives. Their business was buying liquidated stock of every type or obtaining close out stock etc and selling it on to Stores at a mark up of 20% ( so I was told, yeah right).

I was told that earnings of up to 70 k per annum were realistic with application and effort. Not being shy of a challenge and having an excellent track record in sales I accepted the position offered to me. This was a work from home position and the hours were from 08:00 AM until 05:00 PM, five days a week. This company payed a base salary of $9.00 per hour however they only paid that for four days and demanded that sales people worked a 5 day week. With the promise of commission paid at 2% for sales over $20.000. I understand that if I had sold goods to the value of 15 or 17 Thousand dollars, I may not be paid commission. 

In terms of support, I saw very little. I received no training information at all. No operations manual or instruction on company procedures. I received no contract of employment. No terms and conditions of employment, in fact nothing as to how work and order processing was to be conducted which later came as no surprise. As I discovered, not only had one to secure sales but also I had to deal with the logistic's in respect of shipping etc. 

The upshot of this whole mess was that I was not making anything like the money I was told I would make which was probably due to the fact that they screwed up on giving me the correct information on procedure from the very start. They forgot to advise me of a simple little but essential element in the sales process. The manager in question one Dennis Rahilly chose to blame me for this problem. As if I should have known better or that I had intentionally decided to ignore this simple detail which he had forgotten to tell me about. I was new to the company and am not a mind reader. He then proceeded to abuse me and stated that I was being dishonest. While all this was going on, I had secured a sale well in excess of the $20.000 target for commission payment. At that time I sent him an email drawing attention to the fact that I had received no procedural information whatsoever from him or the company in any form. Of course, he then shut me out of my email account and terminated me. Now, I was not with this company for very long at all.

Contrary to MN statute 181.13, they were required to pay me within 24 hours of my demand for payment. In the end I had to engage with the Minnesota Department of Industry and Labor to get paid what I was owed by way of salary. Further to that, I was kept waiting for over a month as I recall to receive my commission for the sale I had made. Upon contacting my manager to ask that payment be made to me, he barred my number from his phone. I then phoned the owner of Thorne Investment Group Ltd, Rick Throne, who was enormously abusive and foul mouthed in the course of telling me that my commission check had been cut. I was then made wait weeks for this payment.

In conclusion, I got paid through exerting continual pressure through the offices of the Minnesota Department of Industry and Labor and the efforts of the staff there for which I am grateful. I have my doubts that I would have been paid without their intervention. If you want to work or deal with these people that's your choice, but I have now shared my opinion and experience with you so I shall leave that decision up to you.