Direct Quote Printers- new MLM Pyramid scam

I recently had a very interesting discussion with the owner of a company called Direct Quote Printing, who was looking for a marketing manager. While I do have resumes posted online a couple of places and do accept some consulting work in the marketing field; I am very selective what types of companies I work with, and this is NOT it. There is no way I would be the head of marketing for a company whose sole purpose seems to be to run a scam. He stated that he is a reputable, professional magazine printer located in Sarasota, Florida. I myself am located right outside of Tampa. The scary thing is that he is trying to run this promotion as a nationwide MLM program, and is attempting to aggressively advertise for reps nationally using Craigslist. Unfortunately for him, I heard that a little birdie is now flagging all of his ads for sales reps….. how sad.

The program seems to follow the usual MLM pyramid scam. You are expected to pay $149 for supplies, which are business card samples. I was assured that this was fully refundable. (If you look at the opportunities section of the site; it is refundable for exactly 48 hours and only under certain unspecified conditions). You are then expected to go door to door trying to direct sell these business cards to businesses. The problems with this program are as follows:

1. There are no examples available of his work, outside of these samples you must purchase to view. For all anyone knows, the “custom designs” could be a staff of illegal immigrants hand writing the info in very poor English using crayons.
2. The products are way over priced compared to competitor’s products, and are unlikely to sell even if they are top notch.
3. Anyone who really needs a business card is already aware they need them, and is probably already ordering them elsewhere. Nobody is going to be suddenly floored by the revelation that they desperately need a business card from a door to door salesman.
4. This website looks like it was slapped together in 2 hours by my 7 year old son. For someone who has “Custom design” experience, they are sure not showcasing their capabilities. They have not even bothered to design a company logo for this site, which is a stock template from Website tonight and has no pictures or product examples.
5. This guy wants to hire as many sales people as possible, which will flood the market with a ton of people selling a product that few people (if any) will want to buy.
6. From the way it sounds, most of your commission is expected to come from recruiting new people, which makes this an illegal pyramid scam. He claims it is because you will receive a portion of their sales; but since I don’t see much potential for sales it is likely your sole purpose will be to sucker the $149 out of others for the supply kit of “Custom designed” business cards.

When I got finished laughing at this guy, I decided that I would be more than happy to market him. Unfortunately for him, I will be doing so by placing him on my Ework411 Scamwatch list as a suspected Pyramid scam. This is the cheesy Direct Quote Printing website. Would you hire these people for custom design work? LMAO

Interesting side note- I did a reverse lookup on this phone number, but it was not published. So I Googled it, and did come up with some results. Here is one where this same number is listed as a professional handyman and contractor service: $Sav-a-lot Handyman. Apparently that has not been going well for them because I also found a bunch of active auctions for tools being sold on various classified programs from the same number, which does lead me to think it is the same people and not a case of the number having been re-assigned. Also, the same name Elle appears on both ads for tools for sale, and ads for printing work in classifieds. Maybe if their money gets tight and they can't afford to pay you; you could ask to be paid with used sanders and paint sprayers, and start your own handyman service? I also found this article in the Herald Tribune which states (towards the bottom) that they are a fictitious business: Transactions, foreclosures, etc Charming list to be on, hmmm? I see no evidence anywhere that leads me to think this is a professional printing company in any way.

NOTE- While I strongly suspect the DQ Printers program is a classic example of a Pyramid scam due to the reasons above; I have no legal proof or evidence that it is a scam and am only stating my personal opinion on this matter. Do not base any decision to use or not use the program strictly on this review; conduct your own research and arrive at your own conclusions.