Drawing my Ire

I've been thinking about a company I used to work for, which will remain nameless for the time being, mainly because working there reminded me a lot of the Vin Diesel movie, "Boiler Room," and I'm afraid of them coming after me.

It was my first job out of college. The company provides regional business directories online. It's a lot like the YellowPages, with the added the value of "personalized listings." Somehow they managed to partner with a respected business publication to power their business directory listings, which boggles my mind from the perspective I had working on the inside.

To be fair I only worked there for a week. Four days to be precise. I quit during my lunch hour on a Thursday. I left to take a walk and never came back. I'll tell you why I quit. The people working there were unethical.

I consider myself pretty good at sales. So I was struggling with being unable to close a single deal all week. Part of it was I didn't see the value of their service. It's hard to convince someone to give you $1,000 when you don't think it's worth $50. I sat next to a girl that had been working at the company since it started and I asked her how she had so many successful sales.

"I just lie to the clients about the return they can expect on their investment," she said.

That was why I quit. There was a lot of shady dealings going on. Every day clients would call up complaining about the "value" the service provided - lack of value to be more accurate. The company had a brilliant model to deal with these complaining clients, they would extend their service. So now instead of a 12 month listing, they would get 15! Wow, what a deal! What a shitty company. I'm so glad I left.

The only question that remains - should I blow the whistle on them? I see a few reporters have writen about them here or there. They still have clients listing on their Web site. To be fair it's been a few years and they could have reformed, but from the people I met working there, I highly doubt it. What say you readers?