There are countless fliers and ads like this one in most schools across the country. Typically, they advertise work tailored for a student's schedule at an attractive hourly rate, considerably higher than minimum wage .

Direct link

But in this case, www.workforstudents.com exists only as a direct link to the homepage of Vector Marketing.

Vector Marketing, based in Olean, sells a line of knives and cutlery called Cutco. Cutco is a moderately-priced brand of silverware that is not sold in stores, but by door-to-door salespeople contracted through Vector.

Door-to-door jobs

According to Sarah Andrus , media contact for Vector, the company offers students positions as sales representatives , to engage in “direct selling.”

“Direct selling is generally a non-store, in-home presentation of the product,” said Andrus. “A comparable analogy would be Avon or Tupperware.”

The Web site says “Vector Marketing provides a base pay, varying by location, of $9 to $19 per appointment.” An applicant applies on-line and is contacted shortly by a senior representative in the area.

The fine print

But some critics claim the advertisements don't accurately reflect the amount of money earned when compared with the time invested.

The Complaint Station is a Web site devoted to promoting awareness of what it calls “Vector's fraudulent ways.” The site acts as a forum for people who have dealt with the company in the past, and those considering it for the future.

Those who post there say the advertised hourly rate reflects only time spent at appointments – not the time spent preparing for and traveling to sales pitches. The topic has also been explored in recent articles in the Washington Post and the Seattle Times.

“Our minimum base rate ranges between $11 and $15 per appointment,” said Andrus. “It's up to the rep how many appointments he or she conducts or schedules on any given day or week.”

Andrus said there is no paid training and respondents must put down a $135 fully-refundable deposit .

Team effort

Tyler Hereford, of Clarkson, Mich., spent a summer working for Vector. He made a decent living selling knives and setting up demonstrations, and was promoted from senior sales adviser to management.

Hereford resigned from the company in October of last year, after he “got to know the nasty parts of Vector.” He cited employee manipulation and high pressure tactics as reasons for his departure.

“You would always feel bad if you weren't selling,” Hereford said. “They'd make it seem like it was such a team effort instead of a job that's for you. Also, they used a lot of one-way questions that guide you into answering them right.”

Andrus refuted claims that the company uses unreasonably high pressure tactics to get employees to sell their products.

“We have a very low-key approach,” she said. “That's why we say we ‘show' Cutco products, because the quality of the product sells itself.”

While Hereford was able to support himself working through Vector, he acknowledges that many cannot. He said the $135 deposit is difficult to earn back, and employees aren't reimbursed the cost of attending mandatory meetings – meetings that occasionally became “cult-like, in the sense that we'd start chanting.”

According to Hereford, new recruits provide the most significant and reliable source of income for the company.

“The managers make the highest profit off of them and they're selling to friends and family, so generally they are getting sympathy buys,” he said. “I'd have to say that the average new rep puts about $350 in the managers' pockets.”

Email: patricksawers@buffalo.com