Complaint Review: Kirby Cleaners - MDM Marketing - Fresno California

I am a former Sales Rep. of this company and everything you have read is absolutely true. The whole concept has been skewed by this company for the greed of the distributor because it does everything it can to get out og paying the Sales Reps their initial salary of $1600.00. Legitimate appointments are challenged because they have one person calling to verify 100's of appointments, which delays the payment to people who have legitimately done their 60 appointments. The so called managers who operate company vehicles are often under the influence of drugs and alcohol even after the company has already had a death resulting from a vehicle accident. The entire process from the job interview all the way to the orientation and training with the promises of huge commissions and lavish prizes. You are persuaded to sell the overpriced machines to your family & friends. When you do sell the machine to your loved ones the company makes huges profits and your left with a measley commission in the range og $25.00 or less. During the process of being hauled 100's of miles from home you do demostrations and do as you are trained to do and build value of the machine only to have it reduced in price by your manager for a price where your commission is zero. In training you are told you do not have to knock on doors because you have canvassers to set the appointments, but if you refuse to knock doors you will not get a chance to do demonstraations therefore no visit and no 60 appointments to receive your $1600.00.

Common sense tells you that most people won't buy a $1500 vacuum. There's no need to spend that much. You can get an adequate machine for one-third of that. Or less. So, how is your daughter supposed to be able to make money by doing that? Plus, it's a commission only position. That means she could spend her gas and her time and end up with nothing to show for it. Not to mention that this girl would be going into people's homes unsupervised. How smart is that? The whole thing just reeks of a scam. Young, desperate kids, out hawking a big-bucks vacuum to people. For small commissions. I wouldn't wish something like that on my enemy, much less my own daughter. As the mother, aren't you supposed to be the one with common sense here? Get her the hell out of that nonsense. Help her find a real job. Leave the vacuum scams to the door-to-door salesmen who want to do that kind of thing. They build these kids up by promising them the moon. But, common sense tells you the job is no picnic. Even if the girl has sales skill, that will still be an uphill battle. Why in the world would any parent let their daughter go through that? That's what I can't understand.

Donna I certainly understand where you're coming from, but you have to moderate it with some common sense. I have served in many positions within the Kirby world and I can tell you this: not all the distributors are the same. It sounds like your daughter fell in with one of the bad ones. Working as a Kirby dealer (like your daughter has chosen to do) is hard work and can pay very well, but she needs to be with the right bunch of people. It's not like you think and you were foolish to throw your Kirby away; it did nothing to you and you wasted a bunch of money. The Kirby company is awesome, yet some distributorships are not. I worked for one of the bad ones and I know what it's like. Encourage your daughter to continue working for herself, not a "job," in the end it will make her smarter and far richer... but to do it smartly. That means to simply go to a better distributor... there's plenty out there to choose from! Or she can find somewhere else to work for herself, but don't put her in real slavery; working for someone for a few bucks an hour. Guaranteed poverty is never better than the opportunity to make a good living. Honestly? Kirby will make your daughter smarter and better at making money and then she can use that to do something more productive. There's plenty out there that rewards hard work better than the Kirby system. That just because it's full of thugs nowadays. Keep her from the thugs, but don't discourage her dreams. She just needs more fertile ground is all. As for the guy above who seems to have had a bad experience with Kirby... rest assured he will die broke and lonely. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I met many like him who didn't want to work and still get paid. It people like him who have slowed our economy, as they sit on their fat asses and don't do any work, and complain that warming a chair just doesn't pay enough. Don't pay attention to lazy people like him who exaggerate every thing or complain about dumb stuff like having to pay for his own lunch... you don't say? Really? Wow! What abuse! I can't believe they didn't buy him lunch! Please... get a grip dude. I know what he's talking about and it's not that bad. If it wasn't for him that's fine... but don't go saying stupid things and making yourself look ignorant! Donna... don't listen to people like that... okay? Do yourself a favor.

I had work for a kirby distributor their nice people when it comes to work your a$$ for them, but when it comes for paid time their hide, they lie,and they hate you!!!. Mom with all your respect take your daughter out of there even if is against her will, she is been brainwash with a lot money stories, trips,contest etc. This is how it works ...the employer or distributor has diferents teamleaders who drive a van full of young kids thinking that they have a real job spending from 10 hours of work up to 15 per day 6 to 7 days a week, telling you first that you will get paid 2000 a month wheter you sell or not , and then tell you that you have to do 60 demos on the whole month plus work monday throu sat. be on the stupid 9:30 am meetings sing an al-qaida song of war and then at 12pm you go to lunch ,paid you own food and then go with the team 1-2 hours away from the office and then go door to door knocking ppls house, which 99.9% they are mad to have a salesperson infront of their house, try to go inside the house to do a 3hour demo and sell a $2000 kirby,plus humiliate yourself begin people that if you don't sell one you will get fired etc.....impossible to meet their requiremts for the $2000 base per month.and if you do sell they don't give the exact commission, that way the distributor has someone that works for them 15 hour a day for almost free getting all the profit of all the sales, and who do u think they only want to hire? young kids with a dream to become rich in a month. I was one of their stupid kids and being a "self contractor" you always have to pay taxes at the end of the year. i been in sales of all kind for 5 years, and kirby distributors are a slavery factory. ask your daughter if it isn't true you go see your self with her. good luck Donna!!!!

I had work for a kirby distributor their nice people when it comes to work your a$$ for them, but when it comes for paid time their hide, they lie,and they hate you!!!. Mom with all your respect take your daughter out of there even if is against her will, she is been brainwash with a lot money stories, trips,contest etc. This is how it works ...the employer or distributor has diferents teamleaders who drive a van full of young kids thinking that they have a real job spending from 10 hours of work up to 15 per day 6 to 7 days a week, telling you first that you will get paid 2000 a month wheter you sell or not , and then tell you that you have to do 60 demos on the whole month plus work monday throu sat. be on the stupid 9:30 am meetings sing an al-qaida song of war and then at 12pm you go to lunch ,paid you own food and then go with the team 1-2 hours away from the office and then go door to door knocking ppls house, which 99.9% they are mad to have a salesperson infront of their house, try to go inside the house to do a 3hour demo and sell a $2000 kirby,plus humiliate yourself begin people that if you don't sell one you will get fired etc.....impossible to meet their requiremts for the $2000 base per month.and if you do sell they don't give the exact commission, that way the distributor has someone that works for them 15 hour a day for almost free getting all the profit of all the sales, and who do u think they only want to hire? young kids with a dream to become rich in a month. I was one of their stupid kids and being a "self contractor" you always have to pay taxes at the end of the year. i been in sales of all kind for 5 years, and kirby distributors are a slavery factory. ask your daughter if it isn't true you go see your self with her. good luck Donna!!!!

I had work for a kirby distributor their nice people when it comes to work your a$$ for them, but when it comes for paid time their hide, they lie,and they hate you!!!. Mom with all your respect take your daughter out of there even if is against her will, she is been brainwash with a lot money stories, trips,contest etc. This is how it works ...the employer or distributor has diferents teamleaders who drive a van full of young kids thinking that they have a real job spending from 10 hours of work up to 15 per day 6 to 7 days a week, telling you first that you will get paid 2000 a month wheter you sell or not , and then tell you that you have to do 60 demos on the whole month plus work monday throu sat. be on the stupid 9:30 am meetings sing an al-qaida song of war and then at 12pm you go to lunch ,paid you own food and then go with the team 1-2 hours away from the office and then go door to door knocking ppls house, which 99.9% they are mad to have a salesperson infront of their house, try to go inside the house to do a 3hour demo and sell a $2000 kirby,plus humiliate yourself begin people that if you don't sell one you will get fired etc.....impossible to meet their requiremts for the $2000 base per month.and if you do sell they don't give the exact commission, that way the distributor has someone that works for them 15 hour a day for almost free getting all the profit of all the sales, and who do u think they only want to hire? young kids with a dream to become rich in a month. I was one of their stupid kids and being a "self contractor" you always have to pay taxes at the end of the year. i been in sales of all kind for 5 years, and kirby distributors are a slavery factory. ask your daughter if it isn't true you go see your self with her. good luck Donna!!!!

I'm just writing in response to a trend I see a lot here. People complain about a "job" or think it's a "scam" when they hear things like "you don't fill out a W2" or "we don't take taxes out of your check". I think people should do more research on what an Independent contractor (or a 1099 position) is. When you go to an interview and they tell you that you're not filling out a W2 that means that you're independently contracted to work and they will take no taxes out, you take care of the taxes yourself. Try a search online for 1099 and you'll come up with a million sites explaining the details of such a position. Once you do that you will realize (as the previous gentleman Dave state) that you can write off many of your expenses and you actually end up paying much less in total taxes as compared to a person who is an employee and paid via a W2.

Have you ever operated a business before? Why would a company want to limit the amount of times a person sees a product? For example if you own a 7-11 why would you only limit your store to being open a few hours a day? Any business's purpose is to make money by selling products or services. When your daughter sells a Kirby vacuum the company makes money and so does she(I would hope). So why would the MDM Company want to limit the number of people whe can see to just 2 in a day? That really doesn't make any sense to me or maybe i'm the one being naive. They have her working 18 hour days? When does she start? I've had Kirby people knock on my door before but it's usally during the afternoon or early evening. Do people really see Kirbys at 11pm at night? If she started work at 9 in the morning an eighteen hour day would have her getting off work at 3 am. People are demostrating Kirbys to customers at 3 am? That doesn't make any sense either. You threw away your Kirby vacuum cleaner? Aren't they like $1500? So you threw away a $1500 dollar vacuum? I'm sure the garbage man is happy. And again that too doesn't make alot of sense. She was promised pay checks rainging from several hundred dollars to $1600? Was she told she was going to get a check with no strings attached? To you work Donna? Do you get paid for nothing? So why would a company pay someone with out any conditions? As I look at every thing your said your daughter has told you it's starting to make some sense to me now. I think your daughter isn't telling you the whole truth. I think "work hours" is the key here. I think maybe she is spending a lot of time outside her work doing other things and not telling you about it. I think maybe she isn't even working as much as she says she is and that's why she doesn't do as many demostrations she needs to do to get $1600. If they take 2-3 hours shouldn't a person be able to do at least 6 in a 18 hour period? Come on Donna, I can understand your instinct to protect your daughter but let's have some common sense here.

Well readers it turns out I had the name of the company wrong in my prior notice and the company isn't based out of Fresno. Also the company my daughter does work for has decided to do right by her after of course I was threatened with a slander suit for my posting. As a mother, I still think my daughter is working too hard and the long hours will be undoubtedly detrimental to her health but as she told me, it is her decision. I only hope I can afford to pay for her medical care considering she receives no health insurance through the company she currently works for. I own a Kirby and my entire family has owned Kirby's through the years. The vaccuum cleaner works. I just don't think it was my dream when I gave birth to my daughter that she would turn out to be a vaccum cleaner salesman. Buy Kirby! Its a great machine!!!!!