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WARNING: LONG, SKIP TO THE BOTTOM IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THE STORY.
So, this is my second time writing this because the first time I wrote it said I wasn't logged in and my entire story disappeared, anyway.
Okay, so my friend “John” calls me about some job opportunity at the company he works at. At this point all I know is: it’s 8am in the morning, I slept at 3, he works at a telemarketing company. So, I refuse to go getting only 5 hours of sleep. However, he keeps calling me and when he stops calling me he is ringing my doorbell, I reluctantly agree because my parents are sleeping and well, he was ringing the doorbell because I wouldn’t let him in and he wouldn’t leave when I finally did.
So after a long drive to Santa Anna we arrive at a building. It looks semi-decent from the outside, the building is nice and shiny and looks like the outer walls are made of tinted glass (I didn’t really pay much attention to it) but it’s in one of those areas where there are warehouses everywhere, so I start to question this company already. So, as we approach the door of the building, John’s boss walks along in a suit and begins talking to my friends and me about various casual things, where we went to school, if we had any other jobs etc. The thing that bothered me, however, was his boss looked no older than 30 years old. But that was the least of my worries I guess.
So as we finish up our conversation, I wasn’t really speaking much because I was so fucking tired. We entered the building which smelled like air freshener, it was a really strong smell despite the size of the tiny plug-in outlet thing. Anyway, there was a line to sign in, I don’t know why as we really didn’t do any interviews, the only thing required to be “hired” is something I’ll talk about later.
So after we sign in, we (friends and I) walk into this auditorium-like room, it was about 50x50ft and there were about 100 people in their already we were almost late because John had to “convince” me to go. So we enter this dark room and we see this video playing on a projector, it looked like an infomercial, but somehow less badly. So this guy named “Tim Herr” (that’s the real name btw), who is supposedly known throughout the company, is talking to us about ACN or American Communications Network.
So after an hour or so of Mr. Tim Herr blabbing we were then brought to John’s “team”. We were brought to what seemed like a legitimate office despite its surroundings. It had a nice meeting table and leather chairs. They seemed very intent on having us hired that day, I think it had something to do with the $500 that we were require to pay for training or customer support for the...uhh…customers for some reason. We didn’t need to show them anything except our money for them to hire us, literally. This seemed very suspicious to me. When I said I needed time to think about it because I was very tired they responded with “what are you worried about?” and “we really need people who are serious about the job”, what the hell is wrong with taking a day or two to make up my decision, I just needed to think about it, jesus. I didn’t really feel comfortable telling them no and staying for the rest of the time because John was my only ride home.
So, anyway, we were sent back to the auditorium-like room, and it still smelled like air freshener. But this time they were speaking to what they thought were people who already committed to the job. They didn’t say anything revelating just some jibberish about what plans they had to sell, they were a telephone company, which made it seem somewhat more legit. Thing is, they kept bringing up VIOP or something like that, which is basically a webcam on your phone so you can see the person you’re talking to, however, the phone they held up as an example seemed to be very cheaply made and seemed like it was made from very cheap plastic. It looks like one of those counterfeit handheld games you would get except in phone form. This was especially suspicious seeing as how they claimed to be a 500 million or billion dollar company, I didn’t really care since we were sitting in what seemed to be a luxury homeless shelter.
I forgot to mention that the people who worked there would cheer and applaud at everything the current speaker was saying very enthusiastically, abnormally you might say, this caused everyone else to cheer and applaud besides me because I didn't feel like standing up to honor some ass and because I felt like I was in the middle of a Nazi rally.
The nail in the coffin came when they said there would be an international training event hosted in Baltimore, Maryland and everyone currently working with ACN at the time seemed to be intent on going as well as adamant on forcing new “employees” to go. They went so far as to say “If you’re not going to Baltimore, you might as well not bother working here”. Attending the event costs $149; I think it was just for that event as well. Oh did I mention that Donald Trump would be the guest speaker because he endorses ACN? That was one of their arguments in fact, they compared paying thousands of dollars for college and not learning from a billionaire and only paying $149 to learn from a billionaire. Even if Mr. Trump were to attend, it was a rather stupid comparison. Anyway, at this point I was ready to leave convinced this was a huge pyramid scheme or at least a scam of some-sort, one of those get rich quick dealies, which was what they were trying to actually portray. In fact, none of them had credentials, most of them worked at minimum wage jobs like Disneyland before and now they are rich as fuck.
So, it’s already two-something in the afternoon I finally got home and I felt horrible, but I was intent on figuring out if this was really a scam, so I did some research. Turns out the Australian branch of the company was on trial for pyramid scheming, according to wiki, and the Canadian was charged with eight violations of “deceptive marketing” according to pyramidscheme.org. Futhermore, I found nothing to link Donald Trump and ACN that were reliable, every site that stated that at all were run by people who worked for ACN. ACN also made a claim that three former attorney generals also worked for the company, I guess to make them seem legitimate, I found nothing on that as well, it may be because we were given no names. I also noticed that on one of the papers they gave me their digital phone service adapter needed to be connected to a broadband modem, I don’t know anything about this but it seems pretty wrong to me.
After finding such material, I phoned all of my friends who were dragged there by John, and John himself, to warn them about how they probably lost $500 (some already paid). But John assured me that those pyramid scheme theories were merely posted by former employees for some reason, as told to him by another member.
So TLers this is where you come in, I am giving John the benefit of a doubt. Please post anything at all that you know about ACN (American Communications Network) and if it is a complete rip off or a legitimate business.
Thanks in advanced.
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Shit like this makes me wanna be a cop and abuse my power.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACN_Inc.
They operetated in Finland sometime ago aswell. First everyone was like "omg omg my mobile bill is 0€ check this out!" They had people "buy rights to sell mobile phone connections" and some of my retard friends even got fooled. I Dont know if the company got banned or not but it kind of disappeared i guess.
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Thanks for the link decaf. I almost forgot, when they were showing us the ranks, the moment I saw ETT I thought EvilTeleTubby. Thought it was kind of ironic because ETT worked for Apple and stuff.
Just kidding <3.
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United Kingdom10597 Posts
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i skipped to the bottom and ended up here..... ?
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On July 29 2006 20:39 NewbSaibot wrote:
i skipped to the bottom and ended up here..... ?
You are still a bit away from the bottom! Keep Scrolling!
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i also went to Santa Ana one like few months ago, one of my friend introduced me into ACN.
First, he asked me if i wanted to make any decent money. Who doesn't want to make money?
so i asked him what it was, but he didn't tell me anything about it, all he told me was it was some kind of telemarketing thing. So i went, it was like at 6 pm, there were about 40 people outside of the building, talking.. Most of them had their suits on, looked really rich, honestly. Most of them looked around age of 20ish. Right after my friend and i got there, we had to write our names down on the signing sheet. So we did, and listened the whole ACN lecture. First, i thought all the things they have said in there was all real, but i still neded time to think about it, because to join ACN, you need to pay 500 dollars for their training. Then, you need to gain " points " to gain higher level position, and to gain points, you need to get more customers, and sell certain amounts of " ACN Modem " , which it cost 89 bucks each, and I had to buy those modems.
It did look a little suspicious, so i came home and did some internet research. I found NOTHING good about ACN, all i saw was people who got ripped off by ACN.
Here is my question.
IF ACN is the 8th fastest growing company IN THE WORLD, why dont we all know about ACN? I never even heard of ACN, and none of my friends knew about it until i told them about it.
ACN says i could make over 20k a month, and told me that if i get enough points, then i will be able to move my position into a higher level. This means, either those people who are in higher position is quitting, or it is just impossible. They are just trying to get you into ACN, nothing else.
I dont recommend ANYONE joining ACN, its such a BS company.
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i only read sizcup post, but im just gonna tell you one thing, if a company that later is gonna employ you asks u for money, its a rip off without any doubt
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a scam
get out of there immediately
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I wouldn't go as far as to say that is a scam, cause it seems to me more like a pyramid scheme company whos desparetly looking for more little pyramids 
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i didn't realize that this was your post until i saw you thanking decaf. shit, this really happened to you? sounds to me like a scam dude. no interviews. no contacts, profiles or forms to fill. they seem to be moving forward too fast.
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I did this for a month, never saw a dime, the only people that were successful were people that took their entire downlines and customers from another failed business called Excel which used the same business model.
In theory this does work, but like all pyramids, it favors people who have prime location and start early, as well as those who have the talent to make the sales.
I would not recommend getting into this. To me, this was basically a month's experience of hanging out in mansions and getting rides in lamborghinis from experienced XTT's and TC's in the company. It was cool, but like I said, I didnt make any money.
This post is as unbiased as I could make it, so proceed at your own risk, but if somebody asked me to do it again, I would say no.
This is not so much a scam as it is a risk on the side of the potential employee. If you're willing to pay the money to get into it, you obviously have to be willing to work until you get something out of it.
This is where things become unfortunate. In order to see your first penny in the company, you have to have over 20 customers, and two employees underneath you with 10 customers of their own. Unless you have serious connections, and tons of people that owe you favors, this will never happen.
If you decide to join ACN, I wish you the best of luck, it has potential, but not very much..... at all.
You can pm me or msn if you have any detailed questions, I'll be glad to help.
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Oh my goodness! You people are the most ignorant human beings on earth. Do you even know what a business is? ACN, just like any legit network marketing company, is a business...NOT a job. It's not some hobby that you get into. It's not a job that you "interview" for. It's a freakin business. Do you know how much it costs to open a McDonald's franchise? About 1 million dollars! KFC? About 750,000 bucks. Network marketing gives the average person a chance to make a fortune starting off with a little cash. Pyramid Schemes do NOT!!! They are the ones who rip people off. There is a difference between the two. If network marketing were so bad, Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world, would not own several network marketing companies such as the Pampered Chef (He owns Berkshire Hathaway which owns everything else). (www.pamperedchef.com) If it were so bad, there wouldn't be thousands and thousands of new people joining legitimate network marketing companies all the time because they are tired of working for someone else. If it were so bad, Donald Trump would not put his freakin name on the line! Whether you like him, or hate him, Donald Trump knows business. Do You? The American education system trains us to be employees...not business owners. Can you see that? You can go to college to get a bachelor's degree in business management, but not business OWNERSHIP! You people should really SELF-educate yourselves before you go bashing something that you do not understand. Besides, formal education will get you a job, but self-education will get you rich.
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Braavos36390 Posts
On September 09 2008 15:12 shaolin wrote:
Oh my goodness! You people are the most ignorant human beings on earth. Do you even know what a business is? ACN, just like any legit network marketing company, is a business...NOT a job. It's not some hobby that you get into. It's not a job that you "interview" for. It's a freakin business. Do you know how much it costs to open a McDonald's franchise? About 1 million dollars! KFC? About 750,000 bucks. Network marketing gives the average person a chance to make a fortune starting off with a little cash. Pyramid Schemes do NOT!!! They are the ones who rip people off. There is a difference between the two. If network marketing were so bad, Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world, would not own several network marketing companies such as the Pampered Chef (He owns Berkshire Hathaway which owns everything else). (www.pamperedchef.com) If it were so bad, there wouldn't be thousands and thousands of new people joining legitimate network marketing companies all the time because they are tired of working for someone else. If it were so bad, Donald Trump would not put his freakin name on the line! Whether you like him, or hate him, Donald Trump knows business. Do You? The American education system trains us to be employees...not business owners. Can you see that? You can go to college to get a bachelor's degree in business management, but not business OWNERSHIP! You people should really SELF-educate yourselves before you go bashing something that you do not understand. Besides, formal education will get you a job, but self-education will get you rich.
ACN and things like it boil down to pyramid schemes.
Don't feel bad, plenty of people have been suckered into them, you're not the only one.
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EPT
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