Complaint Review: International Profit Associates - Buffalo Grove Illinois

INTERNATIONAL PROFIT ASSOCIATES IPA IPA started in 1991 and opened offices on Milwaukee Avenue in Wheeling, Illinois. IPA had several offices, a few for main offices and another for telemarketing. There was originally three principal owners, Burgess, Morton and Tuillio. All of which met at George S. May. There were other people that were intalliay working for IPA in 1991, some of these were Donna Brewer, Walter Master Frank Fenwick and Bill Ben. Tuillio wanted too much and could not get along with Burgess and Morton so he left and went to start his own business. Over the next year, (1992) Burgess hired certain people to set up Tuillio and arranged for him to be convicted on Federal Charges. Bill Ben became to uncontrollable so he had to go. In the fall of 1992 one of the employees were sent to Omaha to personally fire Ben at the bequest of Burgess and Morton. One of the main reasons that Burgess and Morton did not terminate the relationship with Ben personally was due to there fear that Ben would shoot them. Ben was under suspicion of muder by the police department. Donna Brewer stayed and was never a threat since Brewer allowed Burgess to utilize her American Express card. The same card that went into default and eventuly was paid off long after her account was closed. The company was growing at a rapid pace. From inception of IPA the phioloshipy was to build IPA to put George S. May out of business. The orignal workers mainly had experience and had worked at George S. May in some capacity. In later years it became clear that IPA was worse than George. This mainly is contributed to the fact that Burgess is a w***e and will sacrafice anyone for the almighty dollar. In 1992 The IPA was a cash cow and was reaching the limits of the office space. At the same time Burgess was fighting a lawsuit form the landlords of the current office space for past due rent. Dan Drugan was Director of sales, Ken Sweet was Director of Consulting Services and replaced Ramsdell, ( Valarie Ramsdell is the current Survey Director and the X wife of the former Consulting Services Director Bill Morton and also a sleeping partner of Burgess), Mike Ali was a sales rep and an assitant Director of sales and Walter Master was the only Survey Synex that IPA had while at the Wheeling address. It was the belief of Burgess that only one person ever became a productive analyst out of a training class, but Burgess mandated to have a minimum of 30 40 new analysts hired ever training class, which was every four to five weeks. To support a survey analyst Burgess belives that it takes four salesmen for each anaylyst. So there was a major campaign to higer salespeople and throw them on the street and see what sticks. It is the belief today that 95% of the salesmen hired will not make it, matter of fact it is the belief, ( the proof is in the numbers), that the salesmen only make appriaxiamtly $20,000 a year. Although IPA from inception and through today promoteds that the salesman can make $100,000 a year. In the early years this was a fact. The salesman would sell survey's at the $300, $500, $750, $1000 and $1500. The salesperson would receive approxiamtly 50% of the survey fee once the survey ran. The survey analyst is held to picking up the survey fee and is also held to picking up the fee today. Currently if the survey fee is not picked up at the end o the survey then the analyst is charged back with the survey fee. In 1992 Burgess was so anameried with a young telemarketeer, Dana, (his current wife) that was in her early 20's that he stalked her. He had Dan Drugan speak to her and arrange for a date with Burgess. Burgess was out to dinner one evening before his first date with two individuals. One of them told Burgess that he had asked Dana out for a date and that it would occur before his dater with her. Burgess then began to offer this individual money not to go out with her. Burgess was very open with his sexual escapades with his wife. In closed door meetings he would graphically discribe what the two of them would do. In those days Burgess would degrate women. It was a regular routine that he would offer Jennerfer Postale (Meyer) to have sex with an analyst just as long as that analyst gfo the go. Burgess would describe her alledged inverted nipples and what Jennifer would do to the analyst if he go a go. These descriptions would take place in a group conversation while on speaker telephone. There were times when IPA was strapped for cash and Jeniffer Postal, (Meyer), would write a check out of her personal checking account to IPA in the range of $30,000, knowing that the check was not good and this allowed IPA to cover payroll. This is one of the reasons that IPA had it's bank account closed at LaSalle National Bank. In those days, just like today, as an employee you never knew if you would get paid, if the pay was correct or if your expenses would be covered. On a regular basis Burgess would pick telemarketers, with no prejudice to race, and offer them money for sexual favors. This went on from day one. Burgess did not confine the search for sex to just the telemarketing department, it was when ever a women came intot he office. This would include saleswomen, applicants and employees in differnant departments. Theere was one employee who was a survey analyst from California, L. A. Area, she was striking. Every time there was a meeting with her Burgess made a point to pick her out and made sexual induendo's to her as well as chase after her like a little puppy dog. It got to the point where she could not stand the treatment, either on the telephone or in person that she finally quit. In 1993 or 1994 the company located and moved to new head quarters in Buffalo Grove. Considerably larger than the office space on Milwaukee Avenue. Burgess belived and still belives that he must grow the number of analyst's and the billing rate and that it takes three analysts for each consultant to have work and that regardless of the work produced that each consultant MUST bill a 10 hour day. In the new building the drive was on to build the company. There were more telemarketer's hired, salespeople hired, there were more analyst's hired, which ment more survey Synex's and more consultants which in Burgess's view was more revenue. In one meeting an employee came in and gave Burgess and Morton bank deposit bags so that any client that paid in cash, that cash would never hot the company. At the same meeting a telemarketer sold Morton a handgun, since Morton is a convicted felon he could not purchase a firearm. In those days the company grew to fast and could not meet it expenses. There were times when the telemarketer's pay check's did not clear, there were times when the analysts were asked to not cash there paychecks and there were times when paychecks did not go out. Walter Master would review the expense reports for the analyst, if you were a new anayst and quit that's when Master would conviently lose your expense report and IPA would send you home via the tour of the world. As a former employee you would never receive your expense monies or any commissions earned. Burgess and Morton thought this was a real joke. The company was so cash tight that IPA was using paychex services at the time, payroll came up and Burgess reversed the direct debit for the payroll back to Paychex's for about $200,000. It is assumed that Paychex's eventullay got paid. A system of delaying payroll for IPA was devised by Greg Laurin and Bud Smith, ( who left to start there own consulting company in Texas and Burgess went after them). The payroll was switched to a six to eight week system, the same system they use today, and all the salespeople that were employed at that time were issued 1099's and Burgess kept the taxes deducted. During these years Burgess and Morton depended upon the telemarketing department to supply there durgs for them. At 2:00 p.m. each day during, this time, Burgess and Morton would get into one of there cars and disappear for about 20 minuets. When they returned they were very high. The way they were found out was that one of the Survey Synex's went with Burgess in his car from the old Milwaukee Avenue office to the new office and Burgess offered this Synex some of the pot that he has in his car. Today if Burgess goes on a trip in the limo it is very well know that he will light up marawana cigagretter and start offering it to all in the car. His main supply for the frugs that he and others use is the telemarketing department and inside sales. He buys directly from them. Since day one of the company, Burgess has incentived all employees. One of the incentives is the fact that you would receive a percentage of the revenue from the jobs one the jobs ran 100 hours. At the point when the job approaches 100 hours the Project Director and staff are pulled from the job and all are replaced with new consultants and the job is given a new number, thereby almost no job runs past 100 hours. If an employee quits and is due commission then IPA does not pay that employee since the employee signed an employment contract that says commission are only paid to full time employees, even today they do not pay any employee if he leaves and that employee may have accruded over 8 weeks of commissions. Once the employee quits he assigned the job to the House account or even gives it a new number there by never paying the employee any of the monies due them.