I am unsure whether to accept this job offer

[The Mad Monk]

Are you kidding me? Buy today's paper, check the want ads, you'll see that exact offer, or something very much like it. The format hasn't changed in twenty years.

[Elok]

Not in any paper around here. Not in my experience, anyway. Certainly nobody pays WaPo fees for rubbish like that. That's standard internet scam right there, right down to the you-must-respond-now nonsense. Bad sales jobs follow an entirely different pattern.

[Fake Boris]

Is $14.85/hour all that great?

What has the US become?

[The Mad Monk]

Well of course it's not going to be in the WP, how many high school dropouts read the WP?

[loinburger]

I actually responded to one of these things when I was a student (it was in the school paper instead of email spam), where basically I'd sell mortgages to people, working on commission. My first (unpaid) training session was to accompany a seasoned scam artist to a home visit. The family we were visiting had two kids, a husband who had been unemployed for nine months, a wife who didn't work, a $400,000 house, and over $60,000 in credit card debt, so the guy I was shadowing promised that if the people took out another loan then everything would be better. He also offered some sound financial advice as to how to avoid going deeper into debt, such as "maybe switch to generic cola."

[Elok]

OB, minimum wage is $7.25. Twice that isn't great, but for a general-labor (read: basically unskilled) job that offers paid OTJ training to boot, nuh-uh.

Well of course it's not going to be in the WP, how many high school dropouts read the WP?

You said today's paper, but fine, I don't think they pay to put it in a podunk paper like the Easton Star-Democrat either. My point is, this is plainly a scam, not a hidden sales job. I've responded to (but not actually bitten) plenty of both, and there are distinct differences to their approach. The crap-sales jobs don't make you jump through pointless hurdles like going to a website to fill in information for "security purposes" (which doesn't even make sense). There's no reason for a skeezy sales job to give even the most minuscule fraction of a **** about my resume. They hard-sell you the job the way they want you to sell, by making personal contact and steamrolling you into it: "okay, so you'll be working X selling X to X and here's how you do it..."

[Elok]

I actually responded to one of these things when I was a student (it was in the school paper instead of email spam), where basically I'd sell mortgages to people, working on commission. My first (unpaid) training session was to accompany a seasoned scam artist to a home visit. The family we were visiting had two kids, a husband who had been unemployed for nine months, a wife who didn't work, a $400,000 house, and over $60,000 in credit card debt, so the guy I was shadowing promised that if the people took out another loan then everything would be better. He also offered some sound financial advice as to how to avoid going deeper into debt, such as "maybe switch to generic cola."

Excellent! On the plus side, you at least didn't have to pay for training, and I know you had to learn something.

[loinburger]

I have been drinking generic cola ever since

I was lucky to learn that it was a fake/evil job in time to get a legitimate summer job

[The Mad Monk]

I actually responded to one of these things when I was a student (it was in the school paper instead of email spam), where basically I'd sell mortgages to people, working on commission. My first (unpaid) training session was to accompany a seasoned scam artist to a home visit. The family we were visiting had two kids, a husband who had been unemployed for nine months, a wife who didn't work, a $400,000 house, and over $60,000 in credit card debt, so the guy I was shadowing promised that if the people took out another loan then everything would be better. He also offered some sound financial advice as to how to avoid going deeper into debt, such as "maybe switch to generic cola."

That sounds very much like the life insurance job. I walked on that on the second day.

[Elok]

I just got an identical job offer from a different address telling me to click on a different site. I hope sandrab@netboxmail.info enjoys the exciting penis enlargement offers she'll no doubt receive from my posting her address here.

[Sava]

I say take the job. Be sure to give them your bank information and social security number.

[DriXnaK]

I thought your background was in writing or something? Why are you applying for telemarketing jobs?

[Elok]

I'm not. Writing doesn't pay bills, so I'm applying for whatever jobs are available to a person of my limited skillset in the present POS economy. The ad mentioned is a scam offer of a type very common on CL, meant to attract people with my limited skills (only dumber). You reply for a job offer that sounds reasonable enough, and they send you a wave of BS offers trying to get you to, say, go through their credit-report service as a "pre-hiring precaution." There are a number of variants, but they all set off red flags from the very first e-mail. I only posted this one because it's a perfect storm of stupid.

[Tupac Shakur]

*Laughs at Slowwie taking this seriously*

Don't be so hard on Sloww. The man has a reading and/or learning disability.

[Tupac Shakur]

Is $14.85/hour all that great?

What has the US become?

The world's leading economy.