If you are offered a job with them, be aware that it is not a real job. While they used to make you buy their knife set with the promise that you could then sell it to another for a profit, they got so much flack on that fraud that they went to where they'll loan you the first knife set, and you can see if you can sell that. Which since they tell you to hit up your family and friends "first", makes for a small chance of getting that first - and often last - sale. THEN you can buy from them and sell at a profit. They might forget to mention that when you run out of that rich and kind Aunt of yours who paid $450 for what I could get for less than a Benjamin at Walmart, that your sales will be....scant. "Scant" being an exaggeration from the "zero" that it is for most.
Yes, a 1996 expose showed that less than half of their "workers" earned anything at all, and many lost money. Instead of $17 an hour, it was either zero per hour, or going in debt! And - to save someone the trouble of mentioning this - they've "changed" since then. Yep, just ask them. They changed. It's a fascinating media history of Vector, for each decade you can read from reputable sources about how they scammed college students, were caught, sued, lost, and were in trouble. Then "changed" and swore they were just fine! They were bad but "changed" in the eighties. And oopsy, they were bad again and "changed" in the nineties. And, goodness, they were bad again and "changed" in the oughts. And now, bad again. Still changing. In fact, call them, I'm guessing they "changed" just in time to treat you fairly! *rolls eyes*
Now let's say you're the rarity and make the first sale to Aunt Moneybags, well, then you get to buy the second set! So they'll either have no losses - assuming you failed to sell the first one and quit. Or they'll have two guaranteed sales, the first one you made to the family member who pitied you, and the second to YOU because you thought that you could convince a stranger to overpay you as easily as a relative! And when you fail, well, congrats, you've got a knife set!
But...but...the person who offered me this job is my cousin/is my college buddy/is a member of my church! Yeah, that's lousy, it truly is. But this scamming company not only trains them to sell the overpriced goods nearly exclusively to friends and families, they are encouraged to recruit their "down line" the same way. And friend, relative or church member, they're still human. With all the flaws and foibles that we all have.
Including, in their case, a propensity for get-rich-quick schemes and being casual with the truth when it comes to money making opportunities. Just remember, everyone who ever scammed another is someones relative, friend or church buddy.
But this is "He said, she said, they said, the others said", it's all a matter of opinion, right? I mean, why should you believe me? Besides, that other person recruiting is so darn nice, not grumpy and cynical like me, huh? And does anyone really want to believe bad of a relative, friend or such?
Well, don't believe me, then. Certainly not just on my word. Go study and learn for yourself. In other words, do your due diligence.
Ask the person offering you this allegedly $17 per hour job to show you their pay stubs from Vector, Alcas, Cutco or whatever name they're playing under today. Does it show anything that any CPA - or High School consumer economics student - could reasonably believe to be $17 per hour over any reasonable amount of time?
No, it won't. Surprise, you aren't working as their employee, you're an "independent contractor". In other words, you buy from them (or get it loaned), and they sure wish you well in you being able to sell enough of what you bought to make $17 per hour. But you won't. Not even close.
"But Dean, it says on their website that they pay you a commission whether you sell or not!" Glad you read their site. Did you notice that it said "to a qualified potential customer"?
I ran into this when I was a young and ignorant kid in Idaho. Selling Kirby vacuum cleaners on commission. I'm sorry, not sales, I was "demonstrating home maintenance systems", because, as I was told, they "sold themselves". They promised to pay me no matter what, too. So long as I demonstrated it to a "qualified potential customer" a given number of times per week. Which turns out to be someone who is willing to say over the phone to your boss, "Yes, I'm dying to buy this right now!"
At which point your boss goes out and makes the sale! Other than that, you've just demonstrated it to a random person, not qualified, and thus no pay for you. I mean, c'mon, you weren't really expecting anyone to pay you $17 an hour to go visit your friends all week and then call in, "Nope, no sales, but I got in a solid 40 hours "demonstrating", so that'll be $680 please!" (I could get into how you're going to need some tax advice on how to do your SS, UI and other such contributions as an independent contractor, not to mention the special forms, but that would assume you would actually be having money coming in, and so I don't need to bother.)
A part of due diligence is also you doing the "best case math". What if you sell a $450 knife set - how much do you get to keep? $45? I doubt it, but let's pretend it's $45. To make $680 a week (that $17 per hour) you'd have to sell 13 to 14 sets of these nearly $500 sets per week! Really? REALLY? To you, my friend reading this right now, you may think you're a salesman, you may think you're a better salesman than I, you may actually BE a better salesman than I - but you are NOT a "sells SEVEN GRAND worth of knives per week" good salesman!
And what's minimum wage? $8 per hour? So that's $320 per week, and you'd "only" have to sell a bit over seven sets a week for that. "Just" $3,500 worth of knives - assuming that Vector is giving you a ten percent commission, which oh, by the way, they won't be! You starting to see how rock bottom hopeless this is? How much incredible work, skill, luck, dumb relatives and such that you'd have to begin to have to make what you could get at Labor Ready in half the time and twice the honesty?
If you quit in disgust, then Vector has won to the extent of whatever you may have sold to a relative or two. If you plug away, you'll find out later that the easiest way for you to make money is NOT by selling the knives, but by convincing another person to sell knives and you get a piece of that. So if you can trick two buddies or four buddies or six buddies into doing this, and they each have an affectionate Aunt to help them get started, then voila! You've discovered how it works - and why the person trying to get you to do this is REALLY trying to get you to do this!
The sucker you'll have to look for later when you're in it? You're the sucker of the person who's already in it!
What more can be said?
Vector is a scam.
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