Complaint Review: Home Based Success Academy - Nationwide

HBSA contacted me since I was already expressing interest and had me listen to a presentation in which they claimed that they would teach me how to add 20 to 30 people a week to my home based businesses using marketing techniques that were a cut above traditional network marketing. I was under the impression that they would teach me how to find more quality leads who were already really serious about buying the product as opposed just thinking about it like traditional network marketing leads. I decided to sign up since it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity that I could not pass up. I found out later once I got into my educational materials that it was not what as they led it on to be. I was shocked to hear that to target and find the right people would require profiling people using a middleman who has access to a nationalized database, thereby invading and violating their privacy. Almost a form of spying on their buying habits, income, age, health and other demograhic information. And then contact them using sly telemarketing tactics! First of all, I am adamantly opposed to telemarketing in the first place! I expressed my concerns to my mentor and he would have none of it. He did not understand how I felt at all. He also had another educator contact me to talk me into moving forward despites my reservations. I finally got to the point where I had purchased leads and I started calling them. It was worst than I feared! I could tell based on their words and behaviors that they felt threatened and violated wanting to know how I got their information and rightfully so. I will not continue in this program using telemarketing tactics, which I strongly despise with a passion. You cannot be successful in a business if you are doing something that deeply disturbs you! I went back to my mentor and he did not value anything I had to say. He refused to understand where I was coming from. He even alleged that I was living in a dreamworld because I did not feel comfortable using these types of marketing tactics. I then contacted the corporate office explaining to them how I cannot live with myself using this style of marketing and how it makes me miserable and how immoral and unethical it is. He totally disregarded and ignored what I said, even though what I said was legitimate and true! He shifted the blame and responsibility on me saying that it was my problem that telemarketing was unethical to me and said that I would foreit my guarantee and would not refund my money. I am very serious about growing my business, but I will not do it in an unethical, imorral manner. Profiling people, thereby invading and violating their privacy without their knowlege only to disturb them on the phone is wrong! If you want to expand your home based business, do not go to HBSA to expand your knowledge. They do not teach what they claim. They are underhanded, and unethical in their advertising and teachings, since after all, they are telemarketers themselves!

Janet

Manassas, Virginia

U.S.A.