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Be VERY careful you’re not getting roped into an MLM pitch

This happened to me years ago when I was in my first year of college for IT, Systems Admin and Network Admin (I'm doing much better now and have advanced pretty far in my career): I lived in a VERY expensive city in Ontario Canada (Toronto), so my meager student loans wouldn't last me in the off months, I had to try and scramble to find some part time work so I could continue to pay my rent. Well, I get a phone call from someone saying they're from the company “Primarica”, saying they found my resume on a well known job seeker site and if I was interested in an interview for a job opportunity. I told them yes, and they gave me a time and place to be and hung up. Something to note here: My resume was VERY geared to IT. Basic IT like help desk, computer…


This happened to me years ago when I was in my first year of college for IT, Systems Admin and Network Admin (I'm doing much better now and have advanced pretty far in my career):

I lived in a VERY expensive city in Ontario Canada (Toronto), so my meager student loans wouldn't last me in the off months, I had to try and scramble to find some part time work so I could continue to pay my rent. Well, I get a phone call from someone saying they're from the company “Primarica”, saying they found my resume on a well known job seeker site and if I was interested in an interview for a job opportunity. I told them yes, and they gave me a time and place to be and hung up.

Something to note here: My resume was VERY geared to IT. Basic IT like help desk, computer repair, etc, so I fully expected that they were looking for a generic IT guy, but something in my mind didn't sit right. I started googling the company name and MLM popped up EVERYWHERE! So this was red flag number 1. Even with this knowledge I was thinking “Don't most MLM pitches happen at someone's home? Not an office building? (Where they directed me to go to the interview) Maybe they're looking for an IT guy for their offices?” Basically telling myself I couldn't afford to NOT go.

So I did…Paid $6 total of money that I really couldn't spend to take public transit 40 minutes away to some industrial district. This is where red flag number 2 popped up. There was at LEAST 20 people there waiting for an “Interview”. This is where I should have walked out, but I had already spent the money on transit and figured I'd see it out. Red flag 3 came up and honestly made me fully realize it was a waste of time; the “Group” interview. The only reason I stayed is because they had some snacks laid out and I was DAMNED if I was leaving without gorging myself on as many of them as I could.

I sat through their ridiculous presentation about how “YOU CAN MAKE 6 FIGURES EASY!!” and “WORK FOR YOURSELF, HELPING PEOPLE WITH THEIR FINANCES!”. Typical MLM bullshit. At the end they brought people back one at a time to talk to them to gauge their interest. When it was my turn I outright asked them why the hell the picked my IT geared resume for what amounted to a financial advice salesman. They told it was because “Oh you just seemed like a fantastic fit and that you would easily succeed here!” I told them they wasted my time, walked out of the office, pocketed a bunch more snacks and left.

Moral of the story: Never second guess your instincts. I should have just told them to fuck off after I found out what their “Company” did, but sadly…I wasted an entire day and $6 to learn a hard lesson.

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