WHOA - Speaker Scam in OC/SD/LA/Worldwide areas!

This post is about another job that I got, found from a Craigslist hiring ad. Nothing glamorous, and being on Craigslist, it was a little suspicious to begin with.

In many ways, this is hilarious to me. Here's my report:

PART I. WOW - The Woes of Work

Came in for an interview Monday morning, and at the end of the interview, they ask when can I start. Heck yah. That's usually how my interviews turn out, so I thought nothing strange of it.

I got started right away, and I actually liked it at first because I thought the guys were pretty cool. In fact, I got along with a few of them. Good guys.

Most of them smoke non-stop though, all day. And I found a few of them to be particularly racist and chauvinistic. None of them can dance or rap either. They look poser-as-shit when they try to sing that "Fucking Problem" song (kinda like THIS HILARIOUS)... I almost punched one of the racist guys cuz there were 2 other Asian dudes there, and the guy kept saying racist ass shit to the other guys. Fuq that shit really, I don't put up with people getting disrespected like that. Those guys shouldn't either, I can't believe they'd just take it like that.

Anyway, I spent the first half of the morning doing some moving labor. With the help of a few day laborers from Home Depot, we unloaded 400 speaker boxes from out of an 18-wheeler, into the warehouse. Then from the warehouse into about 10 rented SUVs. Got a good workout. They can fit about 10 sets of speakers/projectors in the back of each SUV.

Here's the mission statement:

We're selling speakers from out the back of cars

PART II. SCAM I AM

I spent the rest of the day getting trained by the manager, and watching him sell speakers to strangers. He was a pretty cool guy too, but turned out to be the most racist out of all of them. He was very anti-Black. Grew up in Detroit, so I'm guessing he got bullied or some shit as a kid. Here's what I noted about the job from my day with him:

PCH Theatre

—Pushy, low-integrity sales

—Racism

—Shit talking on people who say no (calling them pussies, queers, losers, bitches, etc)

—Excessive tailgating...

—I could probably get good at these sales, but I can use my knowledge and communication abilities for something better than scamming people for cheap speakers. They upsell to get the highest price possible, saying the retail price/MSRP is $3,000, so that unsuspecting buyers think they're getting a bargain when they fork over $150-500.

The terrible thing is, they're targeting people all over the SoCal area! 

My bboy homie bought the speakers! And that's fucked up! Cuz he broke!

They said they "slammed" him. That's how they refer to the people they sell to.

If you don't respect your own customers, that's a big no-no for business.

Important to know:

•If you are from the OC, LA, or SD counties, be aware of these guys! They are also all over the US, Canada, and Australia.

•They try to catch people on the streets and in parking lots near banks, shopping plazas, gas stations and schools.

•They drive around in clean rented SUVs, usually with out-of-state plates.

•They operate primarily in teams of 2 people, but sometimes 1 or 3.

•Girls are hustling these speakers too.

•They only need to sell the speakers for $100 (which they give back to their boss), and anything higher than $100 is theirs to keep, so they will try to get the highest price possible from people.

Here's the same scam happening in Australia, have fun with the accents:

PART III. MY ASS...ESSMENT

They buy cheaply made speakers in bulk, packaged and sent directly from the manufacturer, then sell the speakers on the streets for as much as they can, claiming the sound systems are high-end European speakers engineered in Denmark, retailing around $3,000. We were instructed to peel off the Made In China stickers.

Wiki actually does a great job explaining the scam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam

Some of these guys are making a LOT of money; but a lot of them are arrogant, alpha-male types, the kind that likes to dominate conversations with strangers and assert superiority LOL.

They asked me if I could speak Vietnamese, and when I said I could, they said: "ohhh, you could get people in Westminster!" FAUCK THAT. Like I'd scam my own people. Hell no! That's despicable.

What a sad life. Living phony and lying all day. No wonder they smoke so much. So much conflict.

The truth is, I feel really terrible for even participating a bit in one of the sales. They have a "good guy, bad guy" routine.

I would never have a business like that, because a REAL BUSINESS that operates ETHICALLY and EFFECTIVELY has the potential to do so much good in the world. 

MLM, OR ML-LAME?!

Isn't this how most organizational structures look anyway?

Audio option if you can't read (suggested):

Intro:

~Alright, so most people know, I did MLM. We should just be real clear about it. Multi-level marketing, network marketing, "friendship" marketing, relationship marketing, however you wanna call it, it's a direct way for good/services to be exchanged, no middle-man, no retail store. At its core, it's simple.

~And I'm gonna share my experience because most people are going to be approached with this as a unique job opportunity, many already have, and it's gonna sound tempting working from home, I'll tell you the ups and downs about it.

-----------

MY TOP TAKE-AWAYS:

~First of all, you CAN make money, and it's legit. Cash flow. It works. The question is, if you want to make money this way or not. What I hate are the "tactics" that some network marketers use, and I'll get into that later. If you're driven, got that entrepreneurial drive, then it's a way to succeed. You CAN make money.

~Secondly, It can be pretty fun! I had a lot of good times when I actually had a team; the most fun came from getting together with people and having that face-to-face interaction with people I LIKE, than the marketing opportunity itself. It was fun when we invited new members onboard, or made money together, but I enjoyed going to eat afterward... road trip. Just being around.

~Thirdly, these companies usually have a really good product, which lends to the direct side of the marketing. It's very easy to show someone, "oh you wanna lose weight? I got something that guarantees you'll lose weight." or, "oh you have pimples? I got something for that." People just love that face cream. So as good as these products are, it seems like a lot of groups focus more on recruitment than on customer acquisition. If the product was really good, you should be able to acquire and retain a lot of customers, as opposed to having the majority of customers being retained as distributers themselves.

~So what I didn't like most was the idea of recruitment and prospecting my own friends. It just wasn't fun. It makes sense as a business model, but as a relationship model, it didn't seem very genuine most of the time. "hey. sup. how you doing? cool cool. come to this meeting. hehe."

~Having said that, it was probably my biggest mistake to do MLM, in 2012. I should have just focused my energy on my own plate. Not to say I regret it, cuz I did learn a LOT, and it's good people involved, not all bad, but it's definitely not the best thing for me at my station in life. If I was old, older, and all my friends understood multiple streams of income, and a few hundred wasn't a big deal, then HELL YEAH I'd do it... economically, it makes sense. You're GONNA make money. At least a little. They have a system for it.

~Now a lot of people think, Tom, You'd be great at Network Marketing, you're so positive, uplifting, and high-energy, and can talk in front of people, and you can dance, and all this other shit. Let me tell you then, just because I'm good at OTHER shit doesn't mean I'm automatically good at Network marketing. In fact, from what I've seen, most of the people who are really really good at Network marketing, got to that position because they WEREN'T good at anything else! Doesn't mean it's a free ride either, cuz they had to grind as hard as hell to get on top, just like with anything. Of course I could be good at it too if I wanted to commit all my energy and focus into it, but I do a lot of other shit, so that's not gonna be my best option. Essentially, I was a TERRIBLE network marketer, I stayed up late, I avoided correspondences, my work ethic was inconsistent, I didn't know how to close a sale on people who came to ME expressing interest, but just cuz I couldn't do it doesn't mean it can't be done. Anyone can do it, I've seen the lamest people do it, just cuz there's a system they can learn, and they're probably more disciplined than me. 

~I WOULD do it again... But not now.

MLM tactics:

-"we're making so much money, I'd had for you to miss out."

^FEAR OF LOSS

-"the time to join is NOW, the wave is coming!" "Timing!"

^URGENCY

-"sooo many people are joining, ___ joined, _____ joined, ____ made money."

^JONES EFFECT

-"we don't need you. you need us more than we need you. how long do you wanna stay broke for? you don't have x amount of dollars? how long do you want THAT to be the case?"

^INDIFFERENCE

Okay, so, my formal apologies.

1: To my friends/family that I reached out to, chatted with superficially, in attempts to get you to see it. most of you didn't get to see it. so you probably still don't get it. and most of you probably got annoyed. i encourage you not to judge it until you actually get a good grasp on it, seeing it yourself. or just ask me questions. But to my friends and family who I reach out to, let's actually kick it. Let's get together. Because the only reason I reached out to you is because I LIKE you, I respect you, I could see you as being successful. My intentions are pure.

2: To my direct team. If you were on my team... I let you down. I'm sorry. Giao, Robert, Michelle, Jona, Johnny, Christy, Vivi, Mi, Viv, Brian, Lennon, Kenny, Alex, Michael, Chris, Riverside crew, we had good times! We were doing good for a while, but I got talked out of it, and essentially broke the cohesion we had as a team. It was starting to get shaky, and I wasn't the first one to stop, but when I stopped, the team really fell apart. And it was one of the hardest decisions I had to make, to stop, but I couldn't go on promoting something that I didn't believe in anymore, especially when I saw more people struggling than thriving.

3: To my support team. a lot of you are still in it. thank you for the help, the mentorship, the support. I learned a lot from you all. Judy, Barb, Simon, Helene, Mi, John Wayne, Jae, Ian... everyone except Julian Doan who blocked me on facebook. AHAHAHAHAH.

I've had about 3 attempts at direct/network marketing. Each time I got better, and each time I had fun. I can detail those experiences another time.

If you're driven, even a mistake is a detour on the way to success.

For more info, this guy: http://simplygovind.blogspot.com/2012/10/does-multi-level-marketing-mlm-really.html

And if you do MLM, there's nothing wrong with it, here are good tips for you and your team: http://vincentstlouis.com/mlm-insider/

For the record, MLMs aren't get-rich-quick schemes. It's a get-rich-slow or medium-paced depending on what you're work ethic is. It can work, and residuals are real if you get recurring customers.