Complaint Review: Paradigm Promotions - Houston Texas

As a recent college graduate, I sent a few dozen resumes to various employers including Paradigm Promotions (not knowing anything about them). Thier vague job description appeared after typing 'entry level' into the Monster/com search engine. Being how I am a recent graduate and therefore looking for entry-level, I submitted my resume and got a response the next day. When I walked into the office for my initial job interview, the stereo was loudly playing 104 KRBE (The Top-40 station for teenagers) next to the door and the desk girl began to speak to me. I had to ask her to repeat everything she said because I could not hear a single word she spoke because the stereo was so loud. I waited with the other applicants for about 10 minutes when a man asked to to join him in his office for the interview. It lasted no longer than five minutes max and he asked me to come back the next day for a 'field outing.'

When I came back the next day, I was met by two very young guys. I got into one of the guy's cars and we drove 45 minutes out to North Houston where we stopped at a gas station. As people would drive up to pump gas, our job was to sell car wax to them. Thier logic was that if people owned a car and had to pump gas, they must be car enthusiast who would be eager to purchase this 'exclusive' and 'never before offered' car wax used exclusively by Nascar for $25. Without going into detail I can find a few faults with thier logic. It was a quality, but overpriced product that Paradigm purchased for $10.

The salespeople made several promises to me about making hundreds of thousands of dollars within three years and how I would soon own my own business if I decided to join them. Didn't they realize that 80% of all small businesses fail within the first five years? Paradigm did not require any education whatsover. High school dropouts were encouraged to apply. A very dirty young man on a bicycle rode up to us at the gas station and asked if we were hiring. The employee who took me on the field outing responded "well, if he asked for an interview, we HAVE to give him an interview!' - doesn't sound very selective. Although we were selling car wax to people at the gas station, I was told that this was a Marketing position, not a Sales position because the car wax was not available in stores. Actually it was at one point, but did not sell because it was overpriced and was taken off store shelves.

If you accept a position with Paradigm Promotions, you will be selling random stuff to people at gas stations, Wal-Mart parking lots, and other high-traffic areas and will be paid by commission only. There will be days that you work a full 8 hours (plus driving time and time spend at the end of the day at the office) and will make $20 or less. The employees I was with made roughly $100 a piece that day for themselves and both were overjoyed about how good and uncommon their day was.

You will be required to find a new Houston location every day and will not work from an office, which means you will put a lot of mileage on your car. Although this is not door-to-door residential selling, it is very, very similar (job description read 'no door-to-door selling'). You will be promised to own your own business and somehow make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Somehow I do not believe that. You will make your money by collecting a small portion of the comissions earned by future salespeople who work for your business who will in turn create their own businesses (as they explained to to me). If you were to diagram this, it would look suspicioulsly like a pyramid.

I would compare taking this job to spending your life savings on one and only one 'penny stock' - stock that sells for less than a dollar and is very plentiful and very, very risky and therefore must promise a high yield. Although there is a slim chance it will make you rich, there is a 99% chance that it will become worthless over the next three to five years. You will be jeopardizing your time, effort, and opportunities to find more legitimate work elsewhere.

Steve

Houston, Texas
U.S.A.