I am not a college student; I work for a university full-time, but I am not averse to earning a little extra money over the nearly two weeks we have off for the holidays (not to mention evenings and weekends if needed).
There are ads around campus for Semester Break Work.com (notice the URL is Work for Students.com). You’re supposed to fill out a form on the website and they’ll contact you. They say you don’t have to be a student (“all ages”) and that they’re paying $17.25 an hour.
Is this telemarketing? Is it… evil? What am I supposed to answer to the question “Do you enjoy working with people?” I’d be inclined to answer “Sure!” and leave it at that, but I’m guessing this is an opportunity to give them a short but Sampiro or Eve kind of creative, witty answer so that they can see that I can articulate beyond the
i want a job pls giv me alot of money kthxbye
sort of response they might get.
So… have you seen this before? What might I expect?
It is Vector Marketing, well known as a direct marketer of Cutco cutlery (knives). They will claim it is not a sales position; you will only be “demonstrating” the knives. You will have to invest in a $100+ set of knives as your demo kit and then you have to try to sell them to your family and friends. The “$17.25 an hour” is their version of how much commission you will make if you sell a set of knives at every presentation, or whatever justification they may make for that amount.
They also may claim they have “delivery” positions for excellent pay rates; you deliver only those items that you have sold at a commission. Your pay depends on your sales.
The knives are generally considered decent quality, but no better than you can buy at a store for significantly less money.
There is actual merchandise for sale, and if you sell it you probably will eventually get paid (make sure to keep painstaking notes), so whether it’s “evil” is debatable. In my opinion, it is evil.
There are a couple of threads here, or Google “Vector Marketing scam” for more.