BEWARE of D.V.A aka Diva Enterprises.Antoinette finally got her own office so beware.
I was scammed out of my money, personal belongings, and time.It starts when you answer an ad in the Las Vegas Review Journal, with an ad that says "We need friendly, youthful minded for fast paced fun office, No experience neccecary, Mgmt opportunity 40k a year" and theres several ads, but the wording is slightly different in some of them. They have you come in for an interview on Mon and tell you to bring a notepad and pen. When you come in, they bring you into a rundown room with a writing board on the wall, and theres about 30 or so folding chairs. After 20min of waiting, Damon will usually come in (unless she has Moss, Antoinette, or Chantell come in) He will give a speech with pointers of how to get the job, like to be attentive, take good notes, ect... Hester Hernandez will then come in and give a pitch about how she doesnt care about resumes, criminal records, race, gender, lack of experience, and so on, "because everyone needs a chance". She will claim that you will be in your own office in 2-4 weeks time but usually no longer than 6 weeks, and that she studied respritory therepy at Harvard University and was always broke, and the lies will just keep going from there. Then after her speech she will say that she will now choose the people who she is going to accept and will call 3 to 5 people at a time making sure to separate them. When they get to the front they will tell you to come in the next day. When you show up the next day, everyone from day1 is there exept the people who already figured out its a scam. She will then give another speech, talk about larry hahn, scentura creations, all the money she makes, and promises you the same. She does something called FFAR (family, friends, aquaintences, relatives) thats where she gives you a list of knock-off perfume's without the merchandise, wanting you to sell these items to your family & friends for $25 a bottle, and the person that sells the most will recieve a bonus. She says this exercise is to "weed out the flakes" when you are ready to leave she will give you a time frame to call her later that same evening to tell her how many items you've sold, to see if you won the contest. On wed when you come in alot of the people who were there the day before arent there, except some new faces that werent there the first two days. These new people come in hyper, and introducing themselves to everyone, this day in her office is called "training day". They set all the "FNP's"(friendly new people) in groups with at least one "Old Dog"(someone who has been there for a week or more) those are all the new faces you may notice. They keep all the FNP's from talking to each other so that they wont "blow out"(want to leave) Hester will give another small speech and tell you that this is another test to weed out more flakes, as well as also saying that what you will be doing for training day is not what you are really there for, its just so you can train your own people when you get your own office. They start calling people into her private office one by one, while one of her people is keeping everyone elses attention. When you go into her office she tells you what a great job you've done with FFAR and gives you money ( $5 for every bottle you sold for FFAR) because the bottles are really only $20 instead of the $25 she had you charge your family & friends, so you will learn how to make money when you peddle the perfume on the streets of las vegas, she calls it a "hustle" (overcharging for the perfume). After every one gets done recieving the money, they bring out boxes of perfume and team everyone up to go out to sell her merchandise. The fist stop when going out on training day is usually a fast food restaruant to eat, after thats done, they will pull in to every drive way, parking lot, and places of buisness, to have you sell the merchandise, their favorite places are walmart shopping centers, gas stations, grocery store parking lots, ect... until someone that works at these places of buisness kicks them out, and threatens to call the police, for soliciting. When you come back they do chants and give appraises for the FNP's who sold at least one bottle.on thursday they have you go out again and do the same thing as the day before (if you even go back) friday again the same thing, but they throw another task your way. Hester comes in telling everyone what a great job they've done that week, and to keep it up, so they can "ring the bell" on saturday(FNP's at least 7 bottles between fri & sat--Old Dogs at least 12 bottles) When you come in on saturday all the people who sold the goal amount get to ring the bell, and then sends all the FNP's home while the old dogs go soliciting perfume. The following monday all the FNP's become Old Dogs and have to go out and keep selling perfume ( meanwhile never getting piad other than a few extra dollars you make when overcharging people to whom you've sold bottles of perfume on the street) On tuesday before a new arrival of eger people show up to get a job, all the old & new old dogs hide out, in another office waiting for damon to get done with his speech, so they can go in and introduce themselves & keep the new FNP's from talking to each other. After hester gives her speech to all the new FNP's she has all of the old dogs walk down with the FNP's so they wont commiserate with each other & "blow each other out" This cycle of people continues through the weeks. The longer you are there, the more things arent what they seem. They make you stay out late hours of the night into morning until you sell the goal amount of bottles, drive your own vehicle with other people crammed into them not recieving any income or gas money & then taking everyone home at the end of the night even if they all live in very different parts of town, and thats if everyone sold there goal amount, because if you dont hester will have someone call you for her or at times she will call personaly (if she's not busy shopping at cristian dior or gambeling the money you made for her) and threaten to fire you so you dont get your office, and make the kind of money she does. After 2-3 weeks of being there, you will indure verbal abuse, still no pay out, more fake promises, theft, getting arrested for soliciting, wearing your vehicle thin, lies, having people turn on you, more verbal abuse not only by hester but old dogs as well, and it goes on and on. She will try to keep you going by telling you that she's looking for an office to put you in, so you can make the same 6 figure a year income like her, and have all the things other people dream of. I was there for 4 months trying to make a dream come true but instead got cought up in a nightmare. I finally left DVA after all the verbal abuse became unbearrable, I couldnt afford to feed myself, still no office even after I did a 50club(selling at least 50 bottles in a week) No paycheck, almost getting raped because I was forced to stay out and sell my bottles til I sold them all, using my personal vehicle til it broke down, seeing and hearing about purse snatching, stealing wallets from drunk guys at bars, ect... and she kept those people around, some of the people involved in these thefts are still there or might even have their own office. By the way I sold 8 FFAR bottles to my mother, since she wanted to make me happy, because I was stupid enough to believe hester hernandez and the fake opportunity she promised, and never recieved the merchandise or my money back. When I went back to try to claim the merchandise they kept playing games with me and telling me that they didnt owe me anything, or to come back another day, this went on for months so I finally gave up. My mother kept asking about those bottles of perfume, up until one month before she died of cancer. The only reason this woman is still ripping people off is because when the better buisness bureu shows up beacause of a ripp off claim, they only stick around for her speech she gives on a monday, as well as the very careful words she uses so it doesnt sound like a scam. The only reason I know this information is because I heard it right out of the horses mouth herself, she has a great attorney that helps prevent her from getting cought. The only way to stop this woman is for someone from the better buisness bureu to go in undercover and stay that way for a couple of months, but that will never happen. The scary thing is that she's not the only office scam in las vegas, her prevoious assistant antoinette has now opened up a new location in vegas, and theres more in other states. Hester hernandez's brother also has an office scam. Also there is one similar to it but has nothing to do with hester hernandez, his name is billy, and he places his ads in the paper with "FREE BEER" as the headline, but at least his perfumes are real.I hope my story will help someone that is considering joining scentura creations,hester hernandez and her circus, or free beer billy.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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