Complaint Review: Kirby Home Cleaning Systems - Minnetonka Minnesota

Kirby Home Cleaning Systems uses all types of deception to lure in employees.  To start with, they try to hide what exactly it is by slapping some vague name on their office.  They have been known as Preferred Systems Inc. in the past, and the one that I went in to had moved to a new office about 10 miles away from the first office with the name Platinum Distributing.  I responded to an ad that I saw on the web for "Customer Service Reps."  It advertised a monthly salary of $2280 with training provided.  I sent my resume, and I got called in for an interview.  The office was filled with prospective employees waiting for an interview.  The man that interviewed me spoke so fast that he could have been an auctioneer.  He was very vague as to what the job exactly was about, but he promised me that it was not a sales job.  When I asked about the training, he said that it was a month long, company paid program.  I was offered the job the next day, when he verified that I had over 3 years of customer service experience.

I arrived on the next Wednesday to begin the training.  Nine others were chosen to partake in the classes that were led by the same man that interviewed us.  This is when we found out that the actually company was Kirby.  We were told that the company would set up all of our appointments for the demonstrations.  We were promised that 4 times a year all of the employees were taken on an all expense paid vacation.  The next one would be at the end of January to St. Lucie, Florida at the Club Med Resort.  We were still promised the $2280 monthly salary as long as you did 60 demonstrations in a month.  I thought that would be fine with the company making the arrangements from their office for each of the demos.  It became evident though that the weekly pay that I had been promised in the interview would not be seen until the end of a month.  If you made sales you could make more, and would get that bonus paid weekly.  We spent the rest of the week learning how to use the Sentria, and how to do the in home demos.  On that Friday, we filled out much of the paperwork for starting most any new job.  We were made to sign a paper that stated that we did the training on a "volunteer basis."  This made it known that we were not going to be paid for the training that only lasted that week, not the month of pay that I was told about in the interview.
They checked out a Sentria to each of us at the end of Friday.  We were told to find people to try to practice the demos on over the weekend.  This was called "Practice Weekend."  I ran four demos that weekend, and tried to work out the kinks in operating the machine and doing the demo.  We were supposed to bring in as many referrals as we could get, but the referrals needed to be couples that we homeowners.  Any referrals that you brought in would be given out to you alone for demos.  The next week, we each brought in our referrals on Monday.  Since they had to set up these referrals for appointments, until then there were not any appointments set up for us.  It was made clear that if you did not get in 60 demos in the month, you would not get paid.  We also were informed that the "vacation" that was promised was only for those who sold 15 by the end of the month.   With no appointments set up for us on Monday, us new trainees were all bunched into a van and made to go door to door to find someone that would let you into their home to do a demo.  With training and all, we had already lost 6 days of the month to do our 60 demos.  So much for doing appointments that were "set up by the office."  With a week gone and the broken promise that the appointments were set up in advance for us, I turned in my vaccuum.  I was not going to do that for a whole month and then not get paid because they did not set up enough appointments to do 60 demos.

Watch out for these tactics!  They do not care who they might scam!  There were people of other ethnicity in my training class.  What a bad picture of America that they must have got from that experience!  They try to hide behind another company name to draw people in.  They are really vague about what exactly the position will be, but it is not sales. HA!  They make all kinds of false promises.  In these days when people are hurting for jobs, many of us may be drawn in as we go through some tough times.  That is how they can continue to bring in new people.  They know that jobs are scarce, and good pay is hard to find.  Until the economy recovers, they will continue to find unsuspecting, hard-working people to be their prey.  BE Cautious!  Get out when you discover that it is Kirby!  I have read some of these other reports and they sound so familiar to what I just went through.  Do not work for or support Kirby products in any way!