After I posted about the Eldest’s situation last night, my friend Liz Ditz picked up on it and dug very deep. She’s updating it periodically as she finds more information.
Read Liz’ post first, then come back to this one. Her post has many great links to media, news and consumer feedback about this. Mine is intended to debunk the GoFirstline.com website, which is one of the recruiting tools they use for college students. It is a site I spent much time on back in April when he first chose to spend his summer working toward being “the prodigy”. (jeeeez, what a lying sack of s**t these people are).
Starting with their “opportunity” page, where they outline the top 10 reasons to work for them in “summer sales” (a euphemism for indentured servitude), debunked, one at a time:
Lie #1: The claim that “working with hundreds of potential customers” will give students “invaluable skills and real world experience“.
Reality: The only experience gained is in the art of deception. The students are trained to make a scripted sales presentation of a ‘future product’ by telling customers they’re getting all of the hardware free if they’ll just allow the Firstline sign in their front yard. Sounds pretty good, right? And the system is soooo much better than what they already have because they can control everything from their cell phone. They can be thousands of miles away and know who is entering and/or exiting their home with this system. The only “real world skill” they’re taught by the company is how to deceive potential customers by playing on their fear and waving technology around like a magic wand, for the low, low fee of $45/month, minimum.
Lie #2: The claim that “This job, like no other, will jump start your career.” Make the call on this lie after reading Liz’ post and related links. They are not licensed in many of the states they’re marketing in, they are sending kids out door to door in neighborhoods that are…well, less than desirable, they are associating those kids’ good and unblemished name with a company and product built on the foundation of lies and deception. I’d say the only jumpstarting of careers here would be to the biggest liars. Oh, and the students are expected to use their own resources to sell the product, most notably, their own cell phones.
Lies #3 & #4: When the heavy financial burden is eliminated, you can focus on your studies, social life and in the end you come you get even more out of your college experience. and Most students end up paying their tuition with student loans that can follow them for years.
I combined these because they play on the same theme – this idea that working for Frontline(Freudian slip) FirstLine for one summer could generate enough income for students to pay for their education and free them from student loans. This is an especially ugly lie, because it preys on the students most in need of real financial assistance to get through school — the ones who are not receiving help from parents, who are working part-time jobs to pay for their living expenses and tuition, and who are barely making ends meet.
Reality: For 10+ weeks, they are clumped together in a “team” with a “manager” and dropped into neighborhoods where they’re expected to sell at least one unit per day to meet their quotas. To make the kind of money they promise here, these kids would have to sell upwards of 4-5 per day on a door-to-door basis. Selling means having a customer buy the service and get past the 3-day free look without terminating the agreement.
LIe #5: You will have the opportunity to expand your horizons by working in cities across the US.
Reality: Ask yourself this question: If you were a student and wanted to travel to cities across the US, would you choose Fresno, Clovis, and Hayward in July? What exactly would be the purpose of travel to those cities? You don’t get a choice — you’re dropped where they drop you and screw you if it’s a crummy territory. With apologies to residents of Fresno — I wouldn’t choose it as my top travel destination.
Lie #6: Work hard at Firstline and you will enjoy awesome weekly incentives.
Reality: Not exactly. Noobs are brought in on a $250/week draw, but they have to give back $150/week to cover their housing expenses, so they have $100/week to live on until they start selling the systems. At the time they start making sales, they get approximately $250 per sale on a contract worth $1500. Those incentives don’t kick in unless you’re selling lots and lots more than that, and actually CLOSING them, which is something that doesn’t get done by the kids selling. As soon as they have an interested customer they call them into the central office (presumably in Utah) for the close.
Lie #7: If you prove yourself this summer you will be invited to attend special training meetings, go on the Firstline Cruise, and maybe even be invited to attend our tropical retreat.
Reality: There are weekly and daily “pump-you-up” meetings conducted by regional managers intended to keep flagging enthusiasm from waning entirely because they drop these kids onto the streets for 10 hours per day, six days per week with the full expectation that they will walk from door to door knocking and making sales. The only time there’s been any sort of ’special training’ was when the EVP flew in and shut down their Fresno operation, relocating them mid-week and at night to Northern California. Sounds more like fleeing the local authorities than it does any kind of ’special training’.
Lie #8: Being part of Firstline’s management team allows you to hone your leadership skills while enjoying a great salary, car allowance, and other perks.
Reality: They are expected to use their own cell phones to close the sales. This has cost my kid $1800 for one month’s usage. His ‘regional manager’ was just switched from salaried employee to contract employee, forget about those magical management bonuses. Despite promises in the beginning of stock incentives and other possibilities, nothing has materialized and nothing has been mentioned. However, he hasn’t been paid for the past two weeks, either.
Lie #9, and it’s a whopper: We focus on continuous learning, personal development, and provide the tools to help you achieve your goals. (From the “opportunity” page)
Reality: They are not given business cards, brochures, or anything that might actually associate them with the company other than contracts and shirts with logos. Why? My personal belief is that they are unlicensed for direct sales in many of the states in which they’re having the students direct sell. If they had actual sales material, they’d have to include a license number which they do not have. By having no written material and putting their logo on the sales reps as a form of identification, they circumvent the direct sales requirements of individual areas. This is a theory: I haven’t got enough facts to prove it. Yet.
Lie #10: Your earning potential is unlimited.
I saved this one for last because it is the most blatant lie of all. Of COURSE it’s limited. It’s limited by time, placement, and the product itself. These kids are being asked to sell air. The emperor has no clothes here. They’re basically out there to ask people to ‘allow the installation of this great new product’, get them to agree to ‘display the sign in their front yard’, and pay ‘a nominal maintenance fee’. AND (this is the real kicker), they’re expected to actually go into the home to evaluate installation points for the sensors.
Think about the utter improbability of that. Here’s a guy making a sales pitch with a foundation of fear — you could be robbed, you could be raped, you could be terrorized in your own home. After that, would YOU let them come inside YOUR home to ‘evaluate it for security access points’ and then agree to a 3-year contract at $45.00 per month? Making a statement/promise of unlimited income is somewhat akin to promising lifelong happiness…it’s a pipe dream and one that’s especially ugly in light of what they really expect these kids to do.
Worst of all, they manipulate these students by suggesting that they will only succeed if they have an “I WILL NOT QUIT” attitude. That means that even when their instincts are sending off bells and whistles, they are expected to ignore those good instincts and ethics because to acknowledge them would brand them as ‘quitters’, something that none of us wish to be.
I just had a two-hour conversation tonight with the Eldest. The first hour was spent reassuring him that he wasn’t an idiot; that he had been LIED TO, and when one is evaluating lies, it’s impossible to make sound judgments because there are no facts. When I did the research on this back in April, there were no complaints to find — there wasn’t even a NAMED COMPANY, because it was all marketed through “The Prodigy” promise of a shot at reality TV.
If you want to see the extent of the lies, check out their Partners Page. I did. Honeywell, GE, Dish Network, ADT. All large, successful, well-branded companies. And they emphasize the GE relationship above all. Why? I believe it’s because GE is the parent of NBC, giving legitimacy to the claim that the so-called reality show is legit. The truth is, Firstline is a reseller of Honeywell, ADT, Dish Network and GE services. That’s the complete extent of the so-called ‘partnership’. Instead of eliminating the middleman as they claim, they ARE the middleman.
If you are a student contemplating this as a summer gig: Run, don’t walk to your nearest Starbucks and fill out an application there, where they actually give benefits to part-timers and operate above-board and legitimately. Anything other than this, which is a scam and a lie.
If you are a student who has been involved in this so-called reality show scam, I’d like to hear from you. I found Michael J’s blog tonight — he and some others left this week. Interesting that both he and the Eldest used the term “sold my soul” in relation to their work with this company. Here’s my retort: You didn’t sell your souls, they were stolen for awhile by liars and thieves. The day you walked away was the day you got them back.
The Eldest is on his way home. We’ll sort things out together when he arrives tomorrow. For now I’m pulling down the photo I have up of him on the “about” page to protect his identity until this is all sorted out down the line.
Update: Holy crap, they are licensed in California and the agent for service of legal process in this state is right here in Camarillo. Good lord.
Tags: firstline, the prodigy, student scams, college students, sales, deceptive marketing
