Eric Wolfram's List of Known Deceptions: Cydcor

Cydcor Practices Deception -- 11/07/02 -- 11:30pm

http://cydcor.com

The charges
For wasting people's time, for getting their hopes up, for being a white collar multi-level marketing cult, and most of all, for acts of deception -- Cydcor is on my list. This information was updated as of December 2005.

The Proof
I went to an interview in San Francisco, and they said it was an interview for a job in management. They then asked me to spend a day being a door to door salesman without pay -- canvasing -- which is not something I go to interviews to do. I wish they would have said that in their job posting so I could have avoided the whole experience. I found the whole thing cloaked in deception and I wanted to warn others. When I looked, I found that others had similar or other greivences with Cydcor and Cydcor's parent company. So I linked to some of that information -- to help others as I wish I had been helped before my interview.

The interview was at 2:30pm and there were 8 people waiting for their interview when I arrived. Then the interviewer took us two at a time -- which is strange. Have you ever been to an interview with another applicant in the same room? The lady who interviewed us, and her boss behind her, spun a tale about how Cydcor was a big growing company and how they needed to train managers and how they wanted us to become those managers. They also told us were moving up in the company and how they wanted us to move up too. At the end of the quick lecture, she told us she's interviewing 24 people that day and that she will call 4 of us back for a round II interview. The whole interview took 14 minutes. I received her call this evening, and she said, "you're in luck...show up for round II at 9am..." The person I had interviewed with was called back too. In fact, I suspect everyone was called back -- not just 4 out of 24.

So I did some searches on the internet and found some interesting pieces of information about Cydcor: A report from a disillusioned Cydcor Employee he had a strangely similar interview experience. I'm always the last to know, but I also found information about how Cydcor, a division of DSMax, is already an infamous multi-level marketing cult. I also found an example of a zealous and typically innocent (naive, blind) Cydcor employee drone the day she starts, Aug. 18th, (check out the blog archive for August 14th, She deleted the blog entries of September 22, 2002 and October 26, 2002 because of the the comments others had posted to her saying Cydcor sucks, or that it is otherwise a rotten, evil, scam or a fraudulent, misleading rip off. But here's where she says she quit Cydcor on Nov. 19th 2002.

Needless to say, I'm not going in for their round II interview, otherwise known as the Cydcor "death of a salesman" march, or if I do, it will only be for writing fodder -- stuff to write about -- and because of my curiosity in our grand gullible human nature.

During from the Fall of 2002 and to the spring of 2003, I received many of emails because I put up this page. Here's one from a Cydcor Employee who waited 5 weeks for his first pay check. Here's a letter from a Cydcor "leader". Some Cydcor employees, still in the depths of their delusions, have written me and tell me that it was only the California office that is causing the troubles. But then I receive letters from people in other offices who have had problems. Here's an open letter from a formor Cydcor employee. Here is a letter that I received for someone who read this page. I understand from a Cydcor employee in Feb. 2003, that the CEO of Cydcor has seen this page, and he told her that they are "addressing the issue." However, here's an an email that I received in April 2003 that confirms that cydcor still practices the same deceptive interview techniques. So, unfortunately, it appears they're addressing the issue by doing business under differnet names.

Because lately, many other people have reported to me that they have encountered cydcor subsidaries doing business under the following names: Aurora Marketing Group, The Advertisment Group, DSMax, Crescent International, SC Marketing Group in Louisville, KY; JSTARR Advertising, Platinum Marketing ("they are in the process of changing there name to Madison Marketing"), Emprise, Arsene-Lee Advertising Group, International Marketing Strategies, MJ Promotional Group/Trinity Advertising, both part of grantonmarketing.com -- granton marketing/dsmax has three other divisions in massachusetts: JSJ & Associates, the Kaizen Group, and MPMD, Inc -- Gemini Communications in Austin, Texas, Playermakerpromo.com, Lear Marketing Group and Black Diamond Solutions are parts of cydcor.com in Columbus, OH., "R3 Enterprises" winter park, FL, niko-laos in tampa, fl., Niko-Laos in Tampa, FL., Northside Marketing, Quantum Marketing Group, Strictly Advertising, Inc. (Miami, FL), Wentworth Marketing in Denver, "Compass Global Network" in Dallas TX, "Greco Marketing" in San Francisco, CA., The Yasny Group in Irvine CA, Westward Innovations of Phoeniz, AZ., MJ Promotional Group of Cincinnati, OH, Jenlyn Consulting in Houston TX. Marketing Sessions (chicago area), SASMarketing Group (also chicago area), DeFrancesco Aquisitions, Inc. located in Pittsburgh, PA., The Advertising Group, Inc in SF CA, Gen X Promotions Cincinnati, Ohio "(the writer thinks there's also subsidary called Bravo Promotions, but they may be out of Indianapolis)", D.B. Consulting, J.S. & Associates, Darr Innovations, Top Flight Enterprises located in Pittsburgh, PA., Top Flight Enterprises located in Pittsburgh, PA., Aspirations, Inc. in Virginia Beach, VA., Hilltop Solutions, Inc., located in San Diego., The Everest Group, or Cambridge Communications (also Premier Marketing Concepts from Melville NY). Atlantic Consulting located in East Rutherford, NJ. Wincor, Inc., Seattle, WA (actually there office is in Renton), Woodlynn Advertising, Inc. in Houston TX, The Everest Group, Inc. DUNN HILL ENTERPRISES, Yenkro Enterprises, Inc. Greco Marketing, DeFrancesco Acquisitions, Direct Link Marketing, COR Concepts, JM Concepts,and Triple Crown Marketing ect., 5 Point Marketing, Elite promotional Group

People have said the following groups are also Cydcor, The Advertising Group or DSMax groups. (added December 2005): MC MARKETING SOLUTIONS out of Pittsburgh, PA, Advertising Endeavors out of Baltimore, Maxson Marketing out of Vancouver; 1 Reality Enterprises and Revolution Marketing in Onterio; Blue Link Marketing and Victory Promotions in Chicago; Arbordahl & Associates in the Chicago area; Infinite Marketing Solutions, Kodo Marketing Initiatives, and Sea to Sky Marketing Group located in the Vancouver area of Bristh Columbia, Canada; Niko-Laos, now called RDK and Associates out of Miami, FL; Image Imports from Nashua New Hampshire; Malloy International and The Marketing Firm in Chicago; Cydcor Puerto Rico http://www.cydcor-puertorico.com ; Johnson Marketing Insights" (http://jminsights.com/home.htm); DeFrancesco Aquisitions, Inc., listed as in Pittsburgh, PA, is now located in Pennsauken, NJ and run by Dave DeFrancesco; Dynamic Marketing Concepts in Atlanta; Protege Marketing Group and Marketing Concepts from Houston TX; Kaleb-Lee and Associates out of Jacksonville FL; Aurora Marketing Group; Innovage; Macon Marketing Group and Bam Solutions out of Portland, Oregon; Wiz Pro Marketing to Esquire Marketing Concepts Winter Park, FL; Westward Innovations; Power Point Marketing; Pereira Marketing Group from white plains NY; Thornwell Inc. in Charlotte, NC; Arsene-Lee Advertising group SF, CA; Verdigris Marketing Group, Inc. and Rocky Mountain Marketing in Kansas City, Missouri; 360 Solutions (Columbus, OH) Kinetic Solutions (Columbus, OH) Pier Innovations (Milwaukee, WI) Langdon Promotional Group (Milwaukee, WI) Elite Business Concepts (Milwaukee, WI) Victory Promotions (Chicago, IL) Arbordahl & Associates (Niles, IL); Kings Ridge Inc. in Richmond Va; Wentworth marketing Atlanta, GA; Momentum Marketing; The Ad Group (TAG) http://www.tagcal.com/

Cydcor subsidaries are likely to have offices all over America with different names. Let me know if you find one that is not on this list by putting the name of the company followed by the location on it's own line in your email, I'll see that it will eventually get on this page.

One person wrote me and said, "I looked up the company at the Better Business Buero, and found that Cydcor refused to send their info to the better business bureau. I find that a little shady." Me too. Since then, in Nov. 2005, someone told me that JStarr and Cydcor are both listed and have a AA rating...maybe someone reading this will contact the bbb and give them reason to lower that rating...

Not convinced? Read this comprehensive explanation of what's going on with Cydcor, Ds-max and their 1000's of affiliate companies

Still not convinced? Read these other testimonials from more people who wrote to me.

What You Can Do
(By linking to this page, you will increase the likelihood that it will be found in a Google Search. It's easy to link to this page, just copy the text below onto your home web page):

<a href="http://wolfram.org/scam/cydcor.html">Cydcor Story of Deception Scam Fraud and Multi-level tomfoolery</a>

How Cydcor can get off my list
Cydcor can get off this list by giving back all the time they took from the people who went to their interview. I don't expect they can do that -- or have the gumption -- so this page will probably be here at least as long as URLs are supported on the Internet, which I expect to be for a very long time.


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