Employment in WINNE
World Investment News &
Ebiz Guides
Notice of Fraud
Have you been invited to a training and selection process by WINNE?
We, a group of people that participated at the last selection process, have decided to write this blog to warn other candidates and to prevent them from falling into the same trap we did.
WINNE is advertising a position that is not exactly what they are going to offer.
After paying with our own money all our travel expenses for a week in Madrid to participate in the selection process, we felt totally cheated with the salary and working conditions we were offered.
We wrote this blog to share this information with all the potential candidates to help them decide whether it’s worth it or not to spend time and money sending an application to WINNE.
We tried to give accurate information about what you should expect. We don’t want to convince you to accept or refuse the job. That’s your own decision.
The selection process we are talking about was in Madrid in December 14th-18th, 2007.
Characteristics of the job offer
The job offer is being advertised as: “International Project Manager specialized in Sales & Marketing”
You are required to have a very high international and commercial skill and you are offer “an attractive financial package: (fix + commissions + overseas business expenses covered)”.
You will be sent to developing countries for 3 to 6 months-mission to sell ads to be included in reports that are going to be published in Western journals like: US News, The Sun, Le Figaro, ABC.
Phone interview
Once you have sent your application, if you are called for a phone interview, enquiries regarding salary and commissions are simply not answered. If you are interested in the job, you are asked to come to the headquarters in Madrid for a 5-days training and selection process.
No travel, food and accommodation expenses will be covered. Only, in case you are offered the position and you accept it, your travel expenses (but no food and accommodation) will be covered.
Training and selection process
For 5 days you are going to be explained the strategy of the company and your duties. Everything seems very nice and you really want to have the job. On the last day you are told all important things as salary and working conditions. Questions regarding these issues are not answered until the last day of the training.
Economical conditions
It’s a freelance contract. WINNE will pay you for your professional services. You will need to declare your own activity in order to be paid. As you are not an employee, you will not have any kind of benefits, worker status or rights, such as social law and social security.
You are going to be paid for your work a month-salary of $ 1,250.00 during the first 3 months. After that, it will increase to $ 1,600.00. If you stay in the company for at least 1 year, you will receive an extra $ 1,050.00 bonus. Please, notice that this is gross salary. You will have to deduce all the taxes according to your fiscal residence country and social security payments.
You will not have sales commissions for the 3 first months and, after that, they are going to be ridiculously low. Don’t think in more that $ 4,000.00 for the first whole year.
You will have to open a bank account to be paid in dollars and (if you live for instance in the eurozone) you will have to pay the commission to change dollars to euros. You will not be compensated for the depreciation of the dollar.
For your food, you will receive $ 35.00 par day while you are in a mission. If you spend more than that, you will have to pay for it out of your own salary. Oversees accommodation expenses and business expenses are covered.
When you finish a mission you will be working at the Madrid headquarters until you be assigned for a new mission. Accommodation, food, transport and all the expenses you have in Madrid will NOT be covered, and you are not told how many weeks you will have to work in Madrid per year.
You are supposed to provide the equipment to work on during your missions. These are a laptop, printer, digital camera and recorder machine. If, for example, something was stolen by the cleaning lady or hotel staff… well, that’s just too bad for you. Winne will not take any responsibility.
You will have to pay your own healthcare or medical insurance. Do some research to find the price of a medical insurance, when you are going to be travelling out of your home country for 11 months in a year working in developing countries…
No credit card is provided to book hotels, buy plain tickets or car rental. You will be sent all the money in cash and you will be totally responsible for it. If it is stolen, it will be deducted from your salary.
Ethical aspects of the job
Basically the job consists in a cold-door sales, following a very studied strategy to sell overpriced ads in 3rd world countries. We don’t want to tell you whether this is ethically acceptable or not. We just want to mention it because we thing you must know it before you go to the training.
Other useful information about WINNE
Although we were told that World Investment News Inc. was a company registered in Ireland, we couldn’t find it at the Irish Companies Registration Office. Apparently Winne no longer exists in this country.
On the agreement they gave us to sign, World Investment News Inc. identified itself as having registered offices at:
1, rue de la Tour de l'Ille
Geneva, Switzerland
After doing some research, we couldn’t find it at the country and cantonal companies database. It’s not clear to us where the company is actually registered.
Headquarters are located in Spain:
Avda Manoteras 10B, suites 5-7
Madrid, Spain
Tel. +34-917873870
People working in a permanent base at the offices in Spain are employed by:
MTH Multimedia S.L.
CIF B-83875351
Avda Manoteras 10B, suites 5-7
Madrid, Spain
Tel. +34-917873870
