Finding a job while you’re in college isn’t easy. Finding a good job while you’re in college is impossible.
Vector Marketing LLC has an answer though — they’re the guys who put those ‘”flexible hours, student work” fliers all over campus.
They want to pay you and all of your friends oodles of cash to walk around and sell knives door to door, and that’s not on the flier. But that’s the gist of it.
If it seems too good to be true, that’s because it is.
Vector isn’t what it purports to be. Not even close.
Vector is a New York-based distributor of high-quality cutlery. They’ve had a branch in Baton Rouge for a while now, and I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with several of their many former employees.
Except “employees” isn’t quite the right word: The folks who go to work for Vector are considered independent contractors in its “multi-level marketing business model.”
If you’ve never heard that term before, I wouldn’t be surprised. It isn’t on the fliers either.
Vector’s model is both completely legal and utterly diabolical. Baton Rouge resident and former Baton Rouge Community College student Latif Abuhajah, one of Vector’s former knife peddlers, described Vector as deceptive.
“You go in, they pump you up in this seminar-type thing and tell everyone how they’re about to go into business for themselves,” Abuhajah said. “They ask you questions, they’re super friendly. Then they take everyone aside.”
That’s when it got weird. They asked Abuhajah to make a list of all his friends and family, with their phone numbers.
That’s also when they informed him he would have to fork over more than $100 to buy his “demo” set of knives.
Oh, and it wasn’t $16 an hour the way they had explained it in his initial interview. It was $16 per appointment — which, they said, normally took about an hour.
“I never had an appointment that was less than an hour-and-a-half or two hours,” Abuhajah said. “They say it’s all about being a good salesman. They don’t profit off of sales — they profit off the suckers who come in looking for a job.”
Abuhajah was quite vehement in his sentiment. He also explained how Vector management wasn’t very forthcoming with his pay, along with how they didn’t explain to him that he made either $16 per appointment or commission off of his sales — not both.
Jack Langston, also a Baton Rouge resident and former Vector employee, disagreed with Abuhajah. He felt Vector was a great company, but said most people weren’t cut out to work there. He said the advertising had to be misleading, or else the company would never find any employees.
“Of course it is [misleading]. It has to be,” he said. “Vector’s like a funnel: the company has to lure in a lot of people to find the one or two good salesmen out there. The ads are definitely bait.”
Langston explained that there was nothing wrong with the company in principle, and that if a contractor worked hard enough he could earn a decent living.
“Look. Those fliers seem too good to be true, and that’s what they are,” Langston said. “They’re deliberately meant to draw in people, and 99 percent of them can’t hack it.”
Vector Marketing is not an illegal enterprise — it’s a dishonest and manipulative one.
With things the way they are, a lot of students can’t afford to waste their time and money on a venture that isn’t going to pay off.
A lot of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck and struggling to make rent every month. We can’t afford to be preyed upon by the likes of Vector. Don’t be fooled by this sham, nor the others like it.
If it seems to good to be true, it is.
Nicholas Pierce is a 22-year old history junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on twitter @TDR_ nabdulpierc.
 
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Contact Nicholas Pierce at [email protected]