Source Marketing Direct is a company formed by brainwashed ,"self employed" and desperate people. I am not exaggerating and I put the term "self employed" in inverted commas for a specific reason that I will clarify later on. I can't make those people stop hiring naive and unexpert unemployed, but I can still share my experience as a warning to everyone who has received an offer for an interview from them.

My adventure begun when I was invited to an interview in their office in Waterloo. They promise you can earn 350 quids each week, but they don't tell you it's a commission based job which means that if you don't sell their product, you will not see a pence. They will keep talking about how easy it is to progress and become a manager in less than one year, but they don't tell you that they force you to work every single day of the week for more than 12 hours. They say you are self employed, (meaning that you are your own boss and you do not depend on anyone), but the managers make you go to work even when you're ill (They said I wasn't "allowed to be ill". I thought they were joking, but the manager called me in his office saying that it's my duty to go work even if I am ill).

A typical work day started in their office, in a small room in which more than 50 people practiced their pitch with their team leaders. "Practicing the pitch" and "learning marketing strategies" meant learning how to steal money from people and harassing them on the streets with annoying questions. The training lasted 2 hours (from 7.30am until 9.30am), but they expected you to go there as early as you can for no reason since the office was empty before 7.00 (I had to wake up at 5 every morning to get there on time). At 9.30 the manager sent the teams on the field (underground stations, markets, busy streets) and they expected you to spend more than 8 hours standing on your feet with a little or no break at all harassing people and trying to confuse them with all your talking. Your main aim is to collect as much money as possible by the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you do it. I saw people confusing old ladies, taking advantage of lonely and depressed people just to make them signing up for some useless recipe boxes. At the end of your shift on the field, they expect you to come back in the office to show off to the manager how many people you fooled. Then, after a lecture about what you need to improve held by the manager himself (regarded as God in that filthy office), you could go home and get ready for the next day.

What disgusted me the most was the way employers are treated by the manager and how they treat themselves. They are all brainwashed, heartless, desperate and deceitful people who will regard you as a machine to make money and nothing else. The manager doesn't have any kind of respect for his employers, except when they make money, and in that office there is no other subject for conversation apart from work and scamming people.

In addition, I worked for a whole month, more than 12 hours each day, spent 300 quids in transport and do you know what I received back? Absolutely nothing. I worked completely for free, despite I made my sales, despite I went to that training every day. I didn't even receive any gratitude neither from my manager nor from my team leader.

I made the best decision to leave this place. I highly recommed to not work there, it's a huge scam.

I applied for a job doing some sort of retail based work, I received a call almost immediately from a friendly sounding receptionist asking for my to come in for my interview.

However you get to the interview and it isn't entirely what you anticipated.I discovered with these sort of scams there is usually a three day interview process, day one will be a brief few questions where you meet a 'high flyer' (someone in management) and they ask you when you're available to start. As a young, somewhat understandably naive person, you say immediately. They then offer you a job and you come in for an 'observation day' the next day, during which you shadow another 'high flyer' (who'd be flying a tad lower than the man/woman who interviewed you initially) and spend the day doing street sales for some [unrelated] company followed by an interview at the end of the day from another member of management who tells you that you've done really well and can start the following day.

You are only paid commission and have to get as many sign ups as you possibly can. They also stress a route to management and say that you will earn a practically unlimited amount of money upon receiving the title of 'manager'/'regional manager'. You're also self employed, but have to work long, grueling hours and commit to spending 7 days a week working for these companies.
I am really really interested to speak to people who have worked for these companies and try to gather some information about if the people who work there have actually earned the lucrative amounts they claim to have (in excess of £1,000.00 a week). Something doesn't add up about them.

I want to see if anyone has had any experiences similar? I am doing a project into this and appreciate all the help I can get. If you can drop me an email if you've worked for a company like this or even the one mentioned then please let me know. We can work together to expose these scams.

Thanks

I know this thread is somewhat old but if anyone happens to read this and has had similar experiences to those mentioned above, get in contact with me at: [email protected] I really want to hear stories direct from you guys. I'm doing a project and am looking at this sort of thing and want to find out more. Let me know