Fear Its self (CREEPYPASTAS)

We watch you sleep

People are suing about everything these days. I remember hearing about that direct marketing company Monat getting a class action lawsuit against them because their beauty products were making hair fall out instead of making it look nicer. Kind of a problem when your product does the opposite of what’s supposed to happen. But that’s just it; hair care products are one thing. You can just switch to another brand. But let me tell you to be careful. There are some things that, when you buy them, you can’t get rid of so easily.

I recently got laid off, and being the sort of attention seeker who posts up everything, I let everyone on Facebook know about it. Most of the people who responded were well-wishers, a couple of people offered to get my foot in the door at their company, but most just ignored me. A few days after my post, though, I got a private message from an old high school friend I hadn’t seen in years. He said if I needed money quick, I should do direct market stuff for PanOptics. I’d heard about them before…a local security company who set up a couple of places in my neighborhood. They were relatively new, cashing in on the whole ‘wireless security’ craze, but I didn’t think there was anything else special about what they did. My friend said he had gotten his system put in a little while ago, and that he was really happy with it, and that the installer was looking for new people to help him take care of some of the demand. I asked how I could call, and he said not to worry, he had the guy’s number, he’d tell him to call me and get me a meeting.

A few days later, I got the call, and the installer, Jimmy, said he’d be happy to come ask me some questions, demonstrate how everything worked, and if it all went well, he’d get me on the payroll by the end of the week. I said that would be great, when could he come by, he said in a few hours he’d be free, and that was that. Jimmy came to my door in the middle of the afternoon, and he seemed friendly enough. Big smile, strong handshake, sat down in my kitchen, talked about how being secure in your own home was a great thing. He brought out a big folder filled with pamphlets, all talking about the marvels of a wireless security system and the benefits it offered, plus the 24-hour security crew who would contact me if anything was detected. That was their motto, after all…“We Watch, You Sleep.” It all looked legitimate enough. With that out of the way, Jimmy started the interview. It wasn’t much of one…pretty much all he needed from me was if I had ever sold stuff before (I had), did I have a car (I did), and could I be counted on to up-sell the top line stuff to people (I was a little iffy, but I wasn’t going to turn down a job offer like this). He seemed very happy when I said I was ready to go, and then he showed me how to install the system for people.

Folks, let me tell you…anybody could’ve installed this thing. It pretty much seemed like a racket to go around and charge people to do it, but when I heard how much the first paycheck would be…even before commission…I was hooked. Just call me Master Installer!

Jimmy went to his van and brought in a bunch of boxes of full systems, a lead list, his business card, and told me to get cracking. Well, he did say it nicer than that, but that was the gist.

To test it out before I went and did a bunch of other houses, I pulled out one box and set up a system in my own house. I’d never been too concerned with security, but I will admit it was a snazzy looking set up…it had a kind of retro-80’s feel to it, but the 80’s was still kind of cool to remember anyway, so maybe it would make some of my friends jealous.

Now that I knew what I was doing, I called a couple of places on his lead list (where he got it, I didn’t know, but that was his own business) and found a few that would I bite. I went in, gave a sales pitch, and bingo, in went the system. It was remarkably easy, and when it was done, a lot of people were really happy with the way it looked and worked.

I got four systems done before I began to notice something was a little…odd. First, I called Jimmy’s phone number, but I could never get through…it was always a busy signal. Nobody ever has a busy signal anymore, but I tried writing to his email, wondering when I would be getting paid. I did get a response there, saying he’d be sending me a note shortly, but he didn’t go into any more detail than that.