I have a confession to make: I used to try to scam desperate people over the phone. All without selling a thing.
Well . . . that’s not entirely true. I was selling the promise of a job opportunity.
Let me back up. Back in 2010, I was a recent college graduate looking for a job. Thankfully, I had plenty of money saved, so I wasn’t desperate. By December, I found a position on Craigslist for receptionist work with a company called Vector Marketing. I would later find that this vaguely-named company is a subsidiary of Cutco Cutlery, which produces top-of-the-line cookware and utensils.
I remember the demonstration during the interview, which included a pair of scissors that snip pennies in half and knives that glide through whole rope. Curious, I asked why the products weren’t sold in stores. I was told Cutco products aren’t sold in stores, and it’s our job to help sell them. I was shocked to hear that people literally spend thousands of dollars on these kitchen sets. After all, we were in a recession; most people could hardly justify spending a hundred dollars on a knife set from Target.
So, I get the receptionist job in January 2011, and come to find out that I’m the only male receptionist among six girls. Lucky me.
As “receptionists,” we were really recruiting for Vector Marketing. We would go through notebook paper lists of names and telephone numbers, calling everyone on the list five or six times. The people we called were “recommended for a position” with us by the people who made the lists, people who had themselves just been brought into the company. Our goal was to call these friends of so-and-so, who had been “kind enough” to recommend over 200 of their contacts for a job interview. I learned these lists were part of a weekly contest, where new recruits were entered into drawings to win a free iPad, MacBook Pro, or plasma screen TV. And though I never saw a single person win these contests, that didn’t stop us from generating the lists. Many of the people I would speak with would get upset at me, and I can’t say I blame them. After all, what kind of a job is so desperate for employees that they ask someone for telephone numbers of everyone in your phone to fill openings?
We didn’t even have a set number of openings to fill. Every recruit was like a drop in an endless bucket.
What was more interesting still was how we were supposed to do our job: We were given old phones plugged into Magic Jack devices that were shoddily connected into a computer. Half the time I was on the phone I couldn’t hear the person I was calling, and vice versa. We were also given scripts to read, with prompts, and things to say in case people already had jobs, weren’t looking for work, or just weren’t that interested. Many of the people I spoke with would quite often get angry, telling them that I was harassing them by calling so frequently. I would just smile and ask, “Don’t you want a great job with us?” They didn’t particularly care for that. They didn’t care for how frequently we called their friends list either, as many people would call us at the office, telling us that they had lost a bunch of friends because of our incessant phone calls.
Here we were, offering jobs during a recession. And people were turning them down.
The positions offered were for sales representatives, independent contractors who make their own hours. Through leads, you schedule appointments for cookware demonstrations, which on average last an hour. You’re offered $15 per appointment OR a percentage of your sale, whichever is higher. Sounds like a good line of work. It sounds even better when you’re told that you can make money off of people you recruit. That’s called “multi-level marketing” or “pyramid selling.”
What we didn’t tell recruits was that these appointments require quite a bit of effort and work for which you are not paid. You have to schedule appointments, drive to the location of the appointment, do “in home” demonstrations, make sure they get the order, follow-up with your customers, and handle anything else that might come up. Based on what I saw, you’re putting 2 or 3 hours’ worth of work into an appointment. There are also quite a few meetings, off-site events, and other functions the company expects you to attend. They’ll tell you these meetings aren’t mandatory, but just like avoiding a company retreat or denying your boss’s “friend” request on Facebook, you are treated differently for refusing the offer.
As an independent contractor, you’re responsible for getting your own leads and doing your own taxes. Your expenses, such as gas, come directly out of your pocket. It is because of this that many people have gone into debt. And while commission is possible, to earn it you have to peddle overpriced knives to a complete stranger in the middle of a recession.
Knowing all of the facts, I couldn’t think of a single human being who would want the job we were offering over the phone. I kept trying to visualize it. I’m sure there was money to be made here. We just never saw it at the office.
Getting people to actually show up for the interview was tough. Almost all of the people we spoke with were interested. But something changed between the phone call and the interview. We were told our goal was to get 30 percent of the people who agreed to the interview to come in. We were also held responsible for them not showing up, and that it was our fault if they failed to come in. This seemed unfair since there was nothing more that I could do outside of the phone call.
I mean, I guess I could drive to someone’s house and kidnap them.
Just what was this problem anyway that was keeping people from coming in? I found it wasn’t lack of interest. It was the opposite; people were so interested in learning more they turned to Google. Doing a Google search of Vector Marketing, you’ll find it “auto-completes” the search to “Vector Marketing scam.” You’ll find an onslaught of information from unhappy people on message boards, on threads, websites, and practically a whole YouTube film festival of people who have worked for Vector Marketing, claiming it to be a scam. They cited various reasons, including the unprofessionalism of the company as a whole and claiming that they not only didn’t get paid for their work, they actually went into debt working for the company.
You’ll also find just as much content put out there by people who defend Vector Marketing. These people swarm on critics of the company, telling them that “they didn’t know what they were talking about,” “they had no right to trash the company,” etc. Probably like the comments you’ll find at the bottom of this article.
Now, I work very hard to be objective. The fact of the matter was that people at Vector Marketing were really nice to me. The only mass behavior I had seen from my bosses at this point was a collective obsession with the mall store Express.
But something was going on here. This was a really juicy story that seemed to keep evolving. The company wasn’t providing all of the pieces of the puzzle. I started doing research, by pretending to be both a supporter and critic of the company on these social media and sites, all to study the extremity of the reactions of others. I also got my friends involved, saying the usual “We’re gonna take Vector down . . . ” or “We’ve sold Cutco for years, you don’t know what you’re . . . ” posts you would see all over the Internet. My goal here wasn’t to endorse or bad-mouth anyone, only to read the slew of new content provided by the people who would reply. This also generated a great deal of personal messages from people on either side, mainly from some very suspicious people wondering “what my plan was to take Vector down.”
It was at that point I felt less like an aspiring documentary filmmaker, and more like a biologist studying foreign creatures.
I started doing research. I stumbled across a link from the Statesman Journal, a publication from Salem, Ore. Cited in this article:
- The Complaint Station, a website where consumers can post messages with concerns regarding a product or company, has logged more than 2,000 complaints against Vector Marketing and Cutco.
- An online group called Students Against Vector Exploitation, or SAVE, has an online petition against the companies with over 7,000 signatures added since it was posted.
- Vector has settled several wage claims that were filed at the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, although it did not acknowledge any law violation.
- A Marion County court ordered Vector to stop deceptive recruiting practices as a result of a 1994 investigation.
- Most of the complaints refer to recruiting ads, long hours of unpaid training, work pressures and ethical concerns within the firm.
This would explain the criticisms of the company, verifying many of the same complaints I had read previously.
Another article, from MTSU’S Sidelines, cited the following:
- Vector has been sued by the states of Wisconsin and Arizona for deceptive advertising. According to the Washington Post, workers in Wisconsin earned less than $3 a day on average selling cutlery for Vector.
- According to Milissa Reierson, Information Officer with the Tennessee Department of Labor, no complaints have been filed against Vector in the state. Reierson also said the department did not have Vector Marketing listed as an employer in the state.
A third article from Consumer Affairs cited the following:
- The co-founder of SAVE won a case with the New York State Dept. of Labor alleging Vector to have breached the independent contractor/client relationship making her an employee, and Vector has sent her a check to compensate her work during unpaid training. She says “I know others can win, too, it’s just a matter of standing up for your rights.”
- David Tatar, a supervisor with the Wisconsin Consumer Protection Dept. was quoted in 1996 by the Washington Post as saying “that state surveyed 940 Vector recruits in 1992 and found that almost half either earned nothing or lost money working for Vector” and “workers in that state earned less than $3 a day on average selling cutlery for Vector.”
- The Toronto Star wrote an article about fraudulent job advertising in 1994 and wrote that they decided not to run Vector’s ads anymore. Lewis & Clark’s college student newspaper in Oregon wrote an article in 1997 calling the company a “scam” and interviewed a receptionist alleging she was told to deceive students over the phone.
- Complaints against Cutco products also say that they appeared in several articles in such publications as Consumer Reports magazine, leading people to believe they got favorable reviews. Upon further research, issues with rusting and potentially uncomfortable handles are reported.
I was now looking into their practices. Vector Marketing has an incredibly high turnover rate, with people rarely lasting a month before they quit. During these first few weeks, sales representatives are encouraged to sell Cutco products to friends and family. Never mind the fact that it’s a quick sale built on exploiting relationships with your loved ones. Never mind that your friends and family are almost certain to buy products out of pity and guilt because they know you’re desperate for money. You’re told to do this as a form of practice. Assuming that you have no ethical issue with that, can it be considered an effective form of practice if many people never make it past this phase?
My curiosity in “The Case of Vector Marketing” was ever-growing. Within a month, most of the receptionists that were hired in January were let go. I had heard quite a few complaints about people not getting paid for hours they worked, but didn’t have enough information here. Now, there were only two of us in the office.
I did more research. Vector Marketing is very proud of its “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau, so I looked into them. I found that the Better Business Bureau is not a government entity, but rather a nonprofit organization which rates businesses. It has no authority other that its own credibility, which was recently tarnished after a group of L.A. businessman got together and created a fake business to expose the corruption of the B.B.B. This dummy business, named after the terrorist group “Hamas,” paid money and automatically received an “A” rating. It was very clear from this that the B.B.B. could potentially be a “pay-for-play” ratings system, and that people bought their high ratings.
My research also found that Vector Marketing was recruiting on college campuses as “Work for Students,” with flyers like the one pictured left. The flyers redirect to the Work for Students website. So why can’t a company that’s proud of its business of three decades say who they are? We have a Vector Marketing website. Wouldn’t it be easy to just, I don’t know, put them together? Unless you have something to hide, why say that you’re someone else? Also, why were we targeting high school and college students so aggressively? You think you would want someone with sales experience in a sales job. Especially if you acknowledge how high your employee turnover rates are.
Around late spring, I learned that the office was moving from its rat-hole in Antioch to Brentwood. Commuting from the ‘Boro was a pain in the neck already, and with gas prices rising for the summer, I asked if I could work at the temporary office set up in Murfreesboro, then come back in the fall. My request was honored, and I was transferred.
Working in the Murfreesboro office, I further witnessed the company’s aggressive recruitment of high school students. We e-mailed every high school in the Rutherford County area, letting them know of “the wonderful job opportunity to make great summer pay and build character.” This seemed backwards, as the majority of college students to whom we offered jobs weren’t doing too well. So why go after high school graduates, who are less experienced, if you are looking for qualified sales representatives?
It was at this office I was also able to verify another major complaint made by many critics of the company. The people who manage these seasonal offices are often way too young to be in a management position, and make for horrible employers. My boss at the Murfreesboro office, one of the rudest supervisors I have ever had, was no different. She ignored orders given to me by her boss, saying that “this was her office” and she was fit to run it any way she wanted. She also took to exploiting one of her sales representatives by making her do receptionist work. They paid her in “Cutco Bucks,” which is Monopoly money but with less value. The girl didn’t say anything because she wanted to be brought on to do receptionist work full time, and any sort of complaints or criticism, she told me, would jeopardize that.
I was eventually fired for cleaning the office (a whole other story in itself). Once again, I wasn’t desperate for money, so it wasn’t a real loss. But I was upset because I didn’t feel my research was over. So, I did what any sensible person would do: sent an e-mail vaguely threatening her boss at the Nashville office with legal action. Needless to say, I got my job back.
With a new office in Brentwood also came a new team of receptionists as well as a new supervisor. The old one was working on a graduate degree in psychology. Fitting, as she took a great interest in trying to manipulate others.
So, an old employee and fellow MTSU grad came back to manage the receptionists. Now, before her arrival, my concerns about why people weren’t showing up were dismissed. My new supervisor, who was incredibly kind, confirmed my complaints and had said these issues were ones she had tried to address years ago. That was a pleasant change in pace, as I was starting to literally question my thoughts on the whole thing.
It was also at this time that many high school students in the Nashville area were graduating. And our office had turned to a new method of solicitation: sending out thousands of letters to high school students telling them that they had been specifically recommended for a position with us. The letters, which were sent out en masse in the Middle Tennessee area, never stated who recommended the recent graduate, how we got their contact information, why they were recommended, etc. Many people who received letters called us, specifically asking who recommended them. Despite asking this question several times, I was never told. Further questions were raised when one day I got a call from a mother that was both inquisitive and angry. She said that the name used in the letter for her daughter was actually from a fake MySpace profile, which was literally active for an hour because she made her daughter delete it due to inappropriate content. She demanded to speak to my manager.
So how did Vector Marketing’s office get the contact information of thousands of high school students in the Middle Tennessee area? I’m sure the high-schools didn’t give the information out, as that would almost have to be some sort of major breach of ethics. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the information was procured from some sort of third party. I’ve heard of companies buying, selling, and even renting contact information, and since the mother who called said that her daughter’s information came from a social media profile, something fishy was going on.
If Vector was involved in procuring data in such a fashion, this produces another problem: Those lists being collected from recruits (with hundreds of telephone numbers) are potential farms for information. Sure, I was told the lists were thrown away. But the company wasn’t in the business of being honest, and if it’s getting information from weird places, it’s within the realm of likelihood that those telephone numbers could be solicited to other entities for other purposes. And since the “Do Not Call” lists didn’t apply to Vector because we were “offering jobs” instead of making phone sales, this raises another red flag. We have the contact information of people who aren’t looking for work. Maybe even your contact information. And, in theory, we could move your contact information without your knowledge or consent.
I do not have proof of this. Much in the same way that I don’t have proof someone is going to break into my house. That doesn’t stop me from taking precautions. And it shouldn’t stop anyone else from being worried about a desperate kid handing out your number.
The atmosphere began to take a turn from immoral yet humorous to outright exploitation and depression. More and more sales representatives starting asking about my comfy desk job, one in which my hours and paycheck were guaranteed, despite my supervisors hanging it over my head ever week. People were telling me that they were going into debt, and that they didn’t believe that they were getting commission. They wanted stability and a paycheck, which they weren’t getting.
I then realized that these people weren’t stupid; they were desperate. They took the bait for this job because it was the only thing being offered to them. It was about this time that I decided to quit and find another job. I didn’t want to deal with lies and deception of the office.
I simply found it too troubling. Those who know me personally should appreciate the irony in that.
What I find more troubling than the lack of ethics in Vector Marketing’s tactics is the lack of scrutiny offered to them. As the company flies under the social radar, they seem to have no problem sinking to new lows. Once, a young girl at the office went through a church directory, much to the horror I could hear from the people on the other line. Many other reps told those they were calling that they were on a scholarship from Vector, and if “they could just make one more sale,” they could keep their scholarship. Slews of “pity pitches” such as those could probably be found around any office.
But it doesn’t end there. Remember how I talked about those suspicious threads of people on message boards and review sites defending Vector? Well, they’ve upped their game:
http://www.vectormarketingscam.com/
That’s a link to a website from a person claiming to have formerly worked for Vector.
Here’s another one:
http://www.vectormarketingscam.net/
Check those out, if for no other reason than a cheap laugh. You’ll notice that you’ll find no pictures of the author, no name, and nothing to signify any sort of identity. Thank goodness these anonymous people are paying for these websites out of pocket, all to defend such a wonderful company. There’s no way whatsoever, of course, that this could merely be a cheap PR stunt inititated by Vector to optimize their presence on Google. You can probably find a few more of these out there, in some form or fashion.
I share these experiences with you now because I have an obligation to do so as a journalist. I had originally been interested in doing a documentary, but realized that it might be more timely to do an article. I have been sitting on this information for long enough, and people continue to be scammed by these practices.
I have no doubt that someone will try to question my motives with this article. My detractors will claim that I have some sort of vendetta against this company, and that this is one big smear campaign. The fact of the matter is that I’m an objective party who has been both a critic of the company AND a defender on these websites and social media, for the sake of research.
This company poses a serious hazard to our youth because of its penchant for misleading those looking for work and distorting the big picture, either through half-truths or outright lies. So let me share the truth: Vector Marketing targets our youth in a predatory fashion, both promising an exceptional job offer and posing as a threat to their economic safety. It makes them use pity and guilt to sell products to friends and family. The company’s “turn ’em and burn ’em'” philosophy can actually cause its workers to lose friends and accrue debt, all the while obtaining your contact information without your consent or knowledge, thus restarting this twisted “Circle of Life.”
I ask everyone to share this article, especially with your local high schools and colleges. If nothing else, people deserve to avoid having their time wasted with false promises. The conduct of this company has gone unchecked for too long.
To anyone dismissing this as “just one bad company,” I’d like to share that I’ve heard of other companies operating just like this. If that’s the case, then the threat of this behavior could be lurking in any office building.
To those that don’t wish to believe me, this would have to be one elaborate lie. Regardless, I respect skepticism on all sides, as it makes for a healthier perspective. I also respect the desire for one to do their own research. You can fill out an application here:
http://workforstudents.com/home.do
For everyone else, I think the verdict is clear: Vector’s knives may be sharp, but their supervisors and practices are anything but.
A really good article. I worked with Vector for a time and experienced much of the same stuff. I do like some of the product, but the process they go about selling it and recruiting salespeople is just too shady.
Comment July 18, 2013 @ 9:59 pm
really well written article. here was my situation. I was recruited into vector the summer before I went to college. I was born in argentina and my parents brought me here at the age of 10. We lived in Israel for 2 years and left during the gulf war. I left somewhat traumatized (bombins, sirens, gas masks, etc) i became a quiet kid. Also my parents decided to go through a very aggressive divorce, lots of arguing and fighting. So I hated living at my house. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, i decided to go to training. I sat through 3 days of unpaid training about knives. My dad thought it was silly. The only people I felt comfortable calling were friends from my grade school’s parents. I set up 10 appointments. I ended up selling on 14/15 first demos, about $3500. Everyone really loved the knives, many had had them for years. I then sold about $7500 that first summer, earning about $1200. It was cool to buy my first car cash. I continued to sell cutco and my confidence in myself has grown tremendously. Having to meet someone new, build rapport, is now easy for me and i’ve gone from someone who was shy to being comfortable giving a talk in front of 4-500 people. I went on to sell $280,000 of those knives and still have over 800 customers that often purchase yearly. Graduating with honors from DePaul University debt free, and now 14 years later I am still glad I worked there, as it made me a very positive person. I will be sure one day that my kids sell cutco. I will teach them that it isnt about the knives, cutco is merely a vehicle for them to improve personal skills while young. And I will surely teach them that regardless what they read, that to make educated decisions, they must try things out for themselves. Cheers!
Comment July 25, 2013 @ 3:46 pm
Heres as much as I could do. If you want me to handle more, let me know. Again, I await your response to whether or not you’d like an interview.
please refer to the “****” embedded in the below opinion piece for my responses.
have a confession to make: I used to try to scam desperate people over the phone. All without selling a thing.
Well . . . that’s not entirely true. I was selling the promise of a job opportunity.
Let me back up. Back in 2010, I was a recent college graduate looking for a job. Thankfully, I had plenty of money saved, so I wasn’t desperate. By December, I found a position on Craigslist for receptionist work with a company called Vector Marketing. I would later find that this vaguely-named company is a subsidiary of Cutco Cutlery, which produces top-of-the-line cookware and utensils.
I remember the demonstration during the interview, which included a pair of scissors that snip pennies in half and knives that glide through whole rope. Curious, I asked why the products weren’t sold in stores. I was told Cutco products aren’t sold in stores, and it’s our job to help sell them. I was shocked to hear that people literally spend thousands of dollars on these kitchen sets. After all, we were in a recession; most people could hardly justify spending a hundred dollars on a knife set from Target.
So, I get the receptionist job in January 2011, and come to find out that I’m the only male receptionist among six girls. Lucky me.
As “receptionists,” we were really recruiting for Vector Marketing. We would go through notebook paper lists of names and telephone numbers, calling everyone on the list five or six times. The people we called were “recommended for a position” with us by the people who made the lists, people who had themselves just been brought into the company. Our goal was to call these friends of so-and-so, who had been “kind enough” to recommend over 200 of their contacts for a job interview. I learned these lists were part of a weekly contest, where new recruits were entered into drawings to win a free iPad, MacBook Pro, or plasma screen TV.
****So you can verify no one won a contest?
And though I never saw a single person win these contests, that didn’t stop us from generating the lists. Many of the people I would speak with would get upset at me, and I can’t say I blame them. After all, what kind of a job is so desperate for employees that they ask someone for telephone numbers of everyone in your phone to fill openings?
****It is very normal for a company to look for recruits amongst the friends of their workers. People know people like themselves.
We didn’t even have a set number of openings to fill. Every recruit was like a drop in an endless bucket.
What was more interesting still was how we were supposed to do our job: We were given old phones plugged into Magic Jack devices that were shoddily connected into a computer. Half the time I was on the phone I couldn’t hear the person I was calling, and vice versa.
****Did you ever mention this to the manager?
We were also given scripts to read, with prompts, and things to say in case people already had jobs, weren’t looking for work, or just weren’t that interested. Many of the people I spoke with would quite often get angry, telling them that I was harassing them by calling so frequently. I would just smile and ask, “Don’t you want a great job with us?”
****Is that what the script said to say, do you have proof, or was that what you came up with
They didn’t particularly care for that. They didn’t care for how frequently we called their friends list either, as many people would call us at the office, telling us that they had lost a bunch of friends because of our incessant phone calls.
Here we were, offering jobs during a recession. And people were turning them down.
The positions offered were for sales representatives, independent contractors who make their own hours. Through leads, you schedule appointments for cookware demonstrations, which on average last an hour. You’re offered $15 per appointment OR a percentage of your sale, whichever is higher. Sounds like a good line of work. It sounds even better when you’re told that you can make money off of people you recruit. That’s called “multi-level marketing” or “pyramid selling.”
****We are not multi level. Like many companies reps can be paid a bonus when a friend is brought on and makes a sale. We are NOT multi level because there is no downline. Meaning if I refer a friend (person A), and they recruit their friend (person B) I don’t make any money off person B and so on.
What we didn’t tell recruits was that these appointments require quite a bit of effort and work for which you are not paid.
****Yes, just like an athlete is not paid to train, they are paid to play in the game.
You have to schedule appointments, drive to the location of the appointment, do “in home” demonstrations, make sure they get the order, follow-up with your customers, and handle anything else that might come up.
****Following up with customers often results in subsequent sales, which do result in income
Based on what I saw, you’re putting 2 or 3 hours’ worth of work into an appointment. There are also quite a few meetings, off-site events, and other functions the company expects you to attend. They’ll tell you these meetings aren’t mandatory, but just like avoiding a company retreat or denying your boss’s “friend” request on Facebook, you are treated differently for refusing the offer.
****Can you give a specific example of this?
As an independent contractor, you’re responsible for getting your own leads and doing your own taxes. Your expenses, such as gas, come directly out of your pocket. It is because of this that many people have gone into debt. And while commission is possible, to earn it you have to peddle overpriced knives to a complete stranger in the middle of a recession.
****Gas is a tax write off so you do get a break on that at the end of the year. The knives are overpriced if you are a college student. However not to our target clientele. Our average order is $250. Less than the average iphone, ipad, tablet, pair of jordans, xbox system, that millions of college students purchase, all products the DO NOT NEED. So actually I think even you could afford these. Or do you not know any students that own these products. The reps never see complete strangers, they are recommendations of people they knew it the beginning.
Knowing all of the facts, I couldn’t think of a single human being who would want the job we were offering over the phone. I kept trying to visualize it. I’m sure there was money to be made here. We just never saw it at the office.
Getting people to actually show up for the interview was tough. Almost all of the people we spoke with were interested. But something changed between the phone call and the interview. We were told our goal was to get 30 percent of the people who agreed to the interview to come in.
****Articles like these online written by other un-verified sources often cause people to doubt their decisions.
We were also held responsible for them not showing up, and that it was our fault if they failed to come in. This seemed unfair since there was nothing more that I could do outside of the phone call.
I mean, I guess I could drive to someone’s house and kidnap them.
Just what was this problem anyway that was keeping people from coming in? I found it wasn’t lack of interest. It was the opposite; people were so interested in learning more they turned to Google. Doing a Google search of Vector Marketing, you’ll find it “auto-completes” the search to “Vector Marketing scam.” You’ll find an onslaught of information from unhappy people on message boards, on threads, websites, and practically a whole YouTube film festival of people who have worked for Vector Marketing, claiming it to be a scam. They cited various reasons, including the unprofessionalism of the company as a whole and claiming that they not only didn’t get paid for their work, they actually went into debt working for the company.
****Yes youtube and the internet will allow anyone to post anything they want online. Just like when you google catholic church or holocaust scam, websites come up swearing both are such, but I guess others have different opinions.
You’ll also find just as much content put out there by people who defend Vector Marketing. These people swarm on critics of the company, telling them that “they didn’t know what they were talking about,” “they had no right to trash the company,” etc. Probably like the comments you’ll find at the bottom of this article.
Now, I work very hard to be objective. The fact of the matter was that people at Vector Marketing were really nice to me. The only mass behavior I had seen from my bosses at this point was a collective obsession with the mall store Express.
But something was going on here. This was a really juicy story that seemed to keep evolving. The company wasn’t providing all of the pieces of the puzzle. I started doing research, by pretending to be both a supporter and critic of the company on these social media and sites, all to study the extremity of the reactions of others. I also got my friends involved, saying the usual “We’re gonna take Vector down . . . ” or “We’ve sold Cutco for years, you don’t know what you’re . . . ” posts you would see all over the Internet. My goal here wasn’t to endorse or bad-mouth anyone, only to read the slew of new content provided by the people who would reply. This also generated a great deal of personal messages from people on either side, mainly from some very suspicious people wondering “what my plan was to take Vector down.”
It was at that point I felt less like an aspiring documentary filmmaker, and more like a biologist studying foreign creatures.
I started doing research. I stumbled across a link from the Statesman Journal, a publication from Salem, Ore. Cited in this article:
• The Complaint Station, a website where consumers can post messages with concerns regarding a product or company, has logged more than 2,000 complaints against Vector Marketing and Cutco.
• An online group called Students Against Vector Exploitation, or SAVE, has an online petition against the companies with over 7,000 signatures added since it was posted.
• Vector has settled several wage claims that were filed at the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, although it did not acknowledge any law violation.
****Yes many companies rather pay out money so people stop complaining. Just like mcdonalds paid someone a ton of cash bc they spilled coffee on their own lap cus it was too hot. Anyone can sue anyone and often settling out of court can be the best bet.
• A Marion County court ordered Vector to stop deceptive recruiting practices as a result of a 1994 investigation.
• Most of the complaints refer to recruiting ads, long hours of unpaid training, work pressures and ethical concerns within the firm.
This would explain the criticisms of the company, verifying many of the same complaints I had read previously.
Another article, from MTSU’S Sidelines, cited the following:
• Vector has been sued by the states of Wisconsin and Arizona for deceptive advertising. According to the Washington Post, workers in Wisconsin earned less than $3 a day on average selling cutlery for Vector.
• According to Milissa Reierson, Information Officer with the Tennessee Department of Labor, no complaints have been filed against Vector in the state. Reierson also said the department did not have Vector Marketing listed as an employer in the state.
A third article from Consumer Affairs cited the following:
• The co-founder of SAVE won a case with the New York State Dept. of Labor alleging Vector to have breached the independent contractor/client relationship making her an employee, and Vector has sent her a check to compensate her work during unpaid training. She says “I know others can win, too, it’s just a matter of standing up for your rights.”
• David Tatar, a supervisor with the Wisconsin Consumer Protection Dept. was quoted in 1996 by the Washington Post as saying “that state surveyed 940 Vector recruits in 1992 and found that almost half either earned nothing or lost money working for Vector” and “workers in that state earned less than $3 a day on average selling cutlery for Vector.”
• The Toronto Star wrote an article about fraudulent job advertising in 1994 and wrote that they decided not to run Vector’s ads anymore. Lewis & Clark’s college student newspaper in Oregon wrote an article in 1997 calling the company a “scam” and interviewed a receptionist alleging she was told to deceive students over the phone.
• Complaints against Cutco products also say that they appeared in several articles in such publications as Consumer Reports magazine, leading people to believe they got favorable reviews. Upon further research, issues with rusting and potentially uncomfortable handles are reported.
I was now looking into their practices. Vector Marketing has an incredibly high turnover rate, with people rarely lasting a month before they quit. During these first few weeks, sales representatives are encouraged to sell Cutco products to friends and family. Never mind the fact that it’s a quick sale built on exploiting relationships with your loved ones. Never mind that your friends and family are almost certain to buy products out of pity and guilt because they know you’re desperate for money. You’re told to do this as a form of practice. Assuming that you have no ethical issue with that, can it be considered an effective form of practice if many people never make it past this phase?
****Many businesses such as realtors, accountants, loan officers, financial planners, target their own friends and family for their 1st clients, especially if they think their product is good.
My curiosity in “The Case of Vector Marketing” was ever-growing. Within a month, most of the receptionists that were hired in January were let go. I had heard quite a few complaints about people not getting paid for hours they worked, but didn’t have enough information here. Now, there were only two of us in the office.
****What came of this? Were people paid?
I did more research. Vector Marketing is very proud of its “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau, so I looked into them. I found that the Better Business Bureau is not a government entity, but rather a nonprofit organization which rates businesses. It has no authority other that its own credibility, which was recently tarnished after a group of L.A. businessman got together and created a fake business to expose the corruption of the B.B.B. This dummy business, named after the terrorist group “Hamas,” paid money and automatically received an “A” rating. It was very clear from this that the B.B.B. could potentially be a “pay-for-play” ratings system, and that people bought their high ratings.
My research also found that Vector Marketing was recruiting on college campuses as “Work for Students,” with flyers like the one pictured left (from Buck-News.com). The flyers redirect to the Work for Students website. So why can’t a company that’s proud of its business of three decades say who they are? We have a Vector Marketing website. Wouldn’t it be easy to just, I don’t know, put them together? Unless you have something to hide, why say that you’re someone else? Also, why were we targeting high school and college students so aggressively? You think you would want someone with sales experience in a sales job. Especially if you acknowledge how high your employee turnover rates are.
****Many advertisements don’t say the name of the company. The website they go to will clearly state the name of the company on the front page
We don’t care about their sales experience because the product does not require a skilled sales rep to sell it, just a rep with a flexible schedule, energy, and motivation. The product sells itself.
Around late spring, I learned that the office was moving from its rat-hole in Antioch to Brentwood. Commuting from the ‘Boro was a pain in the neck already, and with gas prices rising for the summer, I asked if I could work at the temporary office set up in Murfreesboro, then come back in the fall. My request was honored, and I was transferred.
Working in the Murfreesboro office, I further witnessed the company’s aggressive recruitment of high school students. We e-mailed every high school in the Rutherford County area, letting them know of “the wonderful job opportunity to make great summer pay and build character.” This seemed backwards, as the majority of college students to whom we offered jobs weren’t doing too well. So why go after high school graduates, who are less experienced, if you are looking for qualified sales representatives?
****See above answer
It was at this office I was also able to verify another major complaint made by many critics of the company. The people who manage these seasonal offices are often way too young to be in a management position, and make for horrible employers. My boss at the Murfreesboro office, one of the rudest supervisors I have ever had, was no different. She ignored orders given to me by her boss, saying that “this was her office” and she was fit to run it any way she wanted. She also took to exploiting one of her sales representatives by making her do receptionist work. They paid her in ”Cutco Bucks,” which is Monopoly money but with less value.
****Did they make her do it, or set up a pre- arrangement?
The girl didn’t say anything because she wanted to be brought on to do receptionist work full time, and any sort of complaints or criticism, she told me, would jeopardize that.
****Sounds like guesses to me
I was eventually fired for cleaning the office (a whole other story in itself). Once again, I wasn’t desperate for money, so it wasn’t a real loss. But I was upset because I didn’t feel my research was over. So, I did what any sensible person would do: sent an e-mail vaguely threatening her boss at the Nashville office with legal action. Needless to say, I got my job back.
With a new office in Brentwood also came a new team of receptionists as well as a new supervisor. The old one was working on a graduate degree in psychology. Fitting, as she took a great interest in trying to manipulate others.
****Nice insult- what’s your graduate degree in again?
So, an old employee and fellow MTSU grad came back to manage the receptionists. Now, before her arrival, my concerns about why people weren’t showing up were dismissed. My new supervisor, who was incredibly kind, confirmed my complaints and had said these issues were ones she had tried to address years ago. That was a pleasant change in pace, as I was starting to literally question my thoughts on the whole thing.
It was also at this time that many high school students in the Nashville area were graduating. And our office had turned to a new method of solicitation: sending out thousands of letters to high school students telling them that they had been specifically recommended for a position with us. The letters, which were sent out en masse in the Middle Tennessee area, never stated who recommended the recent graduate, how we got their contact information, why they were recommended, etc. Many people who received letters called us, specifically asking who recommended them. Despite asking this question several times, I was never told. Further questions were raised when one day I got a call from a mother that was both inquisitive and angry. She said that the name used in the letter for her daughter was actually from a fake MySpace profile, which was literally active for an hour because she made her daughter delete it due to inappropriate content. She demanded to speak to my manager.
So how did Vector Marketing’s office get the contact information of thousands of high school students in the Middle Tennessee area? I’m sure the high-schools didn’t give the information out, as that would almost have to be some sort of major breach of ethics. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the information was procured from some sort of third party. I’ve heard of companies buying, selling, and even renting contact information, and since the mother who called said that her daughter’s information came from a social media profile, something fishy was going on.
If Vector was involved in procuring data in such a fashion, this produces another problem: Those lists being collected from recruits (with hundreds of telephone numbers) are potential farms for information. Sure, I was told the lists were thrown away. But the company wasn’t in the business of being honest, and if it’s getting information from weird places, it’s within the realm of likelihood that those telephone numbers could be solicited to other entities for other purposes. And since the “Do Not Call” lists didn’t apply to Vector because we were “offering jobs” instead of making phone sales, this raises another red flag. We have the contact information of people who aren’t looking for work. Maybe even your contact information. And, in theory, we could move your contact information without your knowledge or consent.
****We purchase lists of HS graduates to recruit. These lists are available for anyone to purchase. HS grads make perfect reps bc they are off for the summer, and have a very hard time getting a job sicne they don’t have experience. Do you complain when you get weekly mailings for coupons for your neighborhood you weren’t looking for, or do you just trash it?
I do not have proof of this. Much in the same way that I don’t have proof someone is going to break into my house. That doesn’t stop me from taking precautions. And it shouldn’t stop anyone else from being worried about a desperate kid handing out your number.
The atmosphere began to take a turn from immoral yet humorous to outright exploitation and depression. More and more sales representatives starting asking about my comfy desk job, one in which my hours and paycheck were guaranteed, despite my supervisors hanging it over my head ever week.
****How did this happen exactly?
People were telling me that they were going into debt, and that they didn’t believe that they were getting commission. They wanted stability and a paycheck, which they weren’t getting.
****How many appointments were these “desperate “ reps doing per week?
I then realized that these people weren’t stupid; they were desperate. They took the bait for this job because it was the only thing being offered to them. It was about this time that I decided to quit and find another job. I didn’t want to deal with lies and deception of the office.
I simply found it too troubling. Those who know me personally should appreciate the irony in that.
What I find more troubling than the lack of ethics in Vector Marketing’s tactics is the lack of scrutiny offered to them. As the company flies under the social radar, they seem to have no problem sinking to new lows. Once, a young girl at the office went through a church directory, much to the horror I could hear from the people on the other line. Many other reps told those they were calling that they were on a scholarship from Vector, and if “they could just make one more sale,” they could keep their scholarship. Slews of “pity pitches” such as those could probably be found around any office.
But it doesn’t end there. Remember how I talked about those suspicious threads of people on message boards and review sites defending Vector? Well, they’ve upped their game:
http://www.vectormarketingscam.com/
That’s a link to a website from a person claiming to have formerly worked for Vector.
Here’s another one:
http://www.vectormarketingscam.net/
Check those out, if for no other reason than a cheap laugh. You’ll notice that you’ll find no pictures of the author, no name, and nothing to signify any sort of identity. Thank goodness these anonymous people are paying for these websites out of pocket, all to defend such a wonderful company. There’s no way whatsoever, of course, that this could merely be a cheap PR stunt inititated by Vector to optimize their presence on Google. You can probably find a few more of these out there, in some form or fashion.
I share these experiences with you now because I have an obligation to do so as a journalist. I had originally been interested in doing a documentary, but realized that it might be more timely to do an article. I have been sitting on this information for long enough, and people continue to be scammed by these practices.
****Right. That way, no one can reply if things are not factual
I have no doubt that someone will try to question my motives with this article. My detractors will claim that I have some sort of vendetta against this company, and that this is one big smear campaign. The fact of the matter is that I’m an objective party who has been both a critic of the company AND a defender on these websites and social media, for the sake of research.
This company poses a serious hazard to our youth because of its penchant for misleading those looking for work and distorting the big picture, either through half-truths or outright lies. So let me share the truth: Vector Marketing targets our youth in a predatory fashion, both promising an exceptional job offer and posing as a threat to their economic safety. It makes them use pity and guilt to sell products to friends and family. The company’s “turn ‘em and burn ‘em’” philosophy can actually cause its workers to lose friends and accrue debt, all the while obtaining your contact information without your consent or knowledge, thus restarting this twisted “Circle of Life.”
****Ive been with vector for 14 years.
I ask everyone to share this article, especially with your local high schools and colleges. If nothing else, people deserve to avoid having their time wasted with false promises. The conduct of this company has gone unchecked for too long.
To anyone dismissing this as “just one bad company,” I’d like to share that I’ve heard of other companies operating just like this. If that’s the case, then the threat of this behavior could be lurking in any office building.
To those that don’t wish to believe me, this would have to be one elaborate lie. Regardless, I respect skepticism on all sides, as it makes for a healthier perspective. I also respect the desire for one to do their own research. You can fill out an application here:
http://workforstudents.com/home.do
For everyone else, I think the verdict is clear: Vector’s knives may be sharp, but their supervisors and practices are anything but.
Comment August 4, 2013 @ 10:29 pm
Pennsylvania – October
My web-site :: Wood Bench (http://www.youtube.com)
Comment February 5, 2014 @ 1:56 pm