odd time signatures - Latest Comments in Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Dan — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:47:30 -0000

Very interesting. I sold for Firstline Security back in 2003. I was not exactly their "best soldier" and echo a lot of the questions/incongruencies that you raise here. Just poking around today and saw your post.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Mike Someone — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:02:57 -0000

I THINK THAT SOMEONE is most likely a guy named MIKE Proudfit. I can see him saying that kind of stuff about jake, even after jake made him a butt load of money the last 5 years.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

karoli — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:54:01 -0000

To all:

I generally remove comments that are personal attacks on others. I am going to leave "someone's" comment simply because it has had a response that would appear out of context without the original comment posted.

However, it's worth remembering that while the Firstline outcome is horrible, it was inevitable and shouldn't be pinned on people who worked there and believed in what they were doing. I'm sure Jake sold those accounts because he was a good salesman who believed what he'd been told, and also believed he was helping others in their success.

To me, this is the real ugly in luring students to sell systems unter the subterfuge of a reality show. It changes the filters everyone views their actions through, masking the pyramid under a pie in the sky.

Firstline's business model was headed for failure because it presumed that many solid contracts would be sold, and that they would then resell those contracts to a third party, re-infusing the company with cash to begin recruiting anew. The pyramid collapsed when the contracts couldn't be sold, and the ones who are paying are the customers and the students, particularly those who were recruited at this time last year, asked to recruit their friends, sent into territories that were already saturated, and ultimately ended the summer owing Firstline money instead of making any.

At any rate, feel free to comment, but do keep it free of personal attacks on others. I will delete those.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

bret hadily — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:24:49 -0000

Jake was my manager in 2005, he is a great guy and taught me to sell with integrity, I think he is an amazing leader and whoever wrote that about him needs to call me! 801-243-7352.

I respect him

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

PIMP — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:05:08 -0000

Jake Dahl is right, SOMEONE is wrong! Jake can sell more people than anyone I have ever met! There ain't nothin' thats gonna hold him down. I hope APX gave him a big sign on bonus cuz Jake is worth every penny. Watch for Jake to be an APX TOP SELLER IN 2008!

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Jake Dahl — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:36:15 -0000

I am sad and feel bad for what was written about me today on this website. I am not perfect by anymeans and make alot of mistakes. But let me say this, out of the 202 accounts that where installed I have 9 open tickets and have personally paid over 2000.00 for customers that felt mislead. I currently have 192 good accounts the last time I looked.

I was a very loyal employee and worked very hard to build Firstline. Infact I never once looked at other companies until all my reps where leaving me because of the rumors issues of the company. Thy day Apx came to my home with the sole purpose to bring me on I told them no way, I am to loyal and love the people I worked with. Later that day I had one of my best friends Tomio Huffman call me and tell me he had quit. It scared me that all the top guys in the company where not satisfied with things and alot where quiting the industry. This is what convinced me to leave to APX.

whoever SOMEONE is that wrote the comment above. I am sorry you feel that way and hope you can forgive me for whatever I have done, but let me say this. I have my integrity and do my best to be moral in all I do. I switched out 40% of my accounts this year. FYI.

Firstline was a great company with great leaders. Its very sad what happened. I would love to see anyone run a company that size. I also do not believe The owners meant or planned anything like this to ever happen. And personally I forgive them for any problems they made.

I hurts that someone thinks I am shady and am the reason why Firstline went down and had so many issues. I love selling alarms, I love training people and hope to do it the rest of my career.

To whoever reads this message- a negative attitude will never bring you success it only tears down. And if I have wronged you I am sorry!

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:33:19 -0000

When and how will we get paid and why do owners end up with 14 million each?

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Someone — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:54:41 -0000

It is funny that Jake Dahl says there "is a lot of negative spin on the indusrty" because of him, and all the shady people under him, Firstline is in the mess that they are in. Jake Dahl brags about selling 200 accounts a year but in reality he is extremely dishonest in the way he does it. If your home is Protected with ADT, Jake works for ADT, if you are with ACME, Jake works for ACME etc. Because of Jake's "leadership" ADT filed a lawsuit against Firstline. Now of Jake's 200 accounts that he did about 40 are good. Nice job Jake!!! I remember a training I went to last year and all Jake talked about was respect. He kept saying "respect me I deserve your respect", really? ok? 40 Good accounts Jake that is what first year reps do. You are no better than first year reps and you have been doing this for 5 years. Thanks to dishonest people like Jake Dahl companies have to suffer. It talks about honesty if Firstlines mission statement but Jake cares more about $$$ than what is best for the company that pays him. Oh well. Watch out APX Jake Dahl is on your side.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Someone — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:53:41 -0000

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

FirstlineisBankrupt — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:14:06 -0000

"HIGHLY IMPORTANCE NOTICE: Firstline Employees: As many of you may have heard, several of Firstline’s largest creditors have taken informal and formal legal actions that have resulted in Firstline’s inability to sell customer accounts and generate operating revenue to pay its ongoing expenses. As recent as this Wednesday, Jan 23rd, Firstline was required by court-order to hold all funds generated by the sale of customer accounts pending a final hearing for appointment of a receiver for the company. Firstline has diligently endeavored to resolve the issues raised by its creditors so that accounts could be sold and expenses paid, but has been unable to do so. After considering the wide array of circumstances—including what is in the best interests of employees—Firstline has determined that it is necessary to seek federal bankruptcy protection under chapter 11. Firstline is confident that reorganization under chapter 11 will provide the best result for payment of employees and will further provide the ability to move forward as a company and continue to operate. The short-term ramifications of filing chapter 11 are unpleasant. Until Firstline obtains permission from the bankruptcy court, it cannot pay any debts that were owed as of the date of filing. This means that Firstline will be unable to meet its payroll obligations to you today. The good news is, however, that the money owed to you as current wages (with certain limitations including a $10,000 cap) will be treated as a priority claim in the bankruptcy to be paid ahead of general unsecured creditors. Additionally, all wages earned after the bankruptcy filing are treated as administrative expenses in the case and are also required to be paid ahead of all general unsecured creditors. This means those of you we seek help in rebuilding will have secured pay moving forward. Firstline’s immediate order of business in the bankruptcy will be to seek permission to pay priority wage claims early so that the burden on you will be lessened. This process may, however, can take several weeks to accomplish. To facilitate reorganization, it is unfortunately necessary for Firstline to temporarily reduce its excellent staff to a group of core rebuilders who will begin the task of stablizing and rebuilding the business. The personnel on the attached list are those that we feel are necessary to accomplish this objective. To those not on the list, please understand that you are valued and appreciated and that we deeply regret circumstances that have led us to the point that we must reduce our staff. We credit the successes of the company to everyone, and we hope that you understand that we will do everything that we can to rebuild, rehire, and, most importantly, to pay you in full for the excellent services you have provided. Please encourage the rebuilding team as they are all of our hopes for a brighter future and immediate potential for future jobs, future pay etc. Please await further information via email and mail. We implore your support and patience. There is a quote from Mother Teresa that says: ―What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight – BUILD ANYWAY! People are unreasonable, illogical, and self centered – LOVE THEM ANYWAY!‖ Firstline Security, Inc"

From the man himself. Feel free to distribute as you'd like, there is no information above that is not a matter of public record.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Brandon — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:18:06 -0000

Firstline is a huge scam. I live in an area where a bunch of "Firstline guys" live and they are all shady! Between them and Living Scriptures it just continues to give Mormons a bad name!

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Updates — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:37:13 -0000

The service department managers have officially called us to let us know we are jobless and Firstline Security has filed for bankruptcy. It was fun while it lasted I loved everyone there. Good bye to Firstline and everyone who worked there.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Firstline...FUBAR — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:38:36 -0000

The sad thing about this company this past week is that I am finding that many of the rumors that were going around are in fact true. Why can't management grow some balls and tell the employees the straight up truth? Why can't the owners face their own employees and tell us what the hell is going on. I am tired of hearing crap passed down through management. Its sad that the owners can't even stand up for their own company and make their workers do all the dirty work while they profit from it. Thanks to lies and cowards I am now looking for another job. Thanks fuckedupline!

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Firstlie Security — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:19:01 -0000

Firstline security sent all of the customer care representatives home today with no paycheck for the past two weeks. The only information disclosed was that Firstline is in court at this very moment disputing a claim that will give them money to pay the employees. We were told that "hopefully" by monday we'll have our paychecks. They said they are 75% sure of it. Firstline bankrupt? I think so. All of the service departments were downsized to two people each department earlier this week. Firstline always lies to customers and I guess same treatment was to be expected for employees as well. Everyone is out looking for new jobs, even the managers are packed up and sending resumes to new employers.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

karoli — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:55:37 -0000

swingshift,

The scenario you describe makes a ton of sense. It's the first one that gives some legs to the rumors posted here and I'll keep watching for some news about it. You'd think that if checks are bouncing and payments aren't made to folks who worked all summer long for nothing there will be some press play somewhere about it.

BTW, there are two facebook groups around this if you're not already aware -- here and here.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

hater — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:34:21 -0000

Firstline is Bankrupt at this point, the only 2 offices that will be opened are california, and utah , Which now is merging with Pinnicale. Both shady companys, Firstline is now refusing checks to Empolyees as the 2 owners take off with 14 million a peice after fileing bankrupt over 3 weeks ago, not telling anyone that there will be no checks 3 weeks from now, Everyone is in the dark. No one knows the real truth

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

swingshift — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:30:15 -0000

Karoli,

Firstline is in a very bad dilemma. From my understanding, Firstline is a contract dealer. Like you said, they usually sell to established companies. However, both Pinnacle and Firstline used a monitoring company called SAI this year. This is their biggest problem. SAI has hired to monitor and manage and bill the accounts. SAI basically fucked everything up. They charged customers multiple times per month (I had one of my customers get charged 5x in August), dropped monitoring on accounts, had software failures resulting in houses not being connected to "the grid," and many other things.

Because of this instability, many of Firstline's investors withdrew their investments. ADT usually invests (by purchasing these contracts) millions of dollars in Firstline. However, this year, ADT recognized all the problems and withdrew their bid on buying the contracts. So Firstline is stuck with all these contracts and is unable to sell them off and make a ROI. This is why they are going bankrupt and having to merge with Pinnacle.

Another reason is because what I said above. I, along with 30-50 other salesmen have jumped ship to another company (NOT Pinnacle). 2 whole divisions (Papa's and Taggart's I think) are now skeletons. They have no returning workforce. They are essentially having to start at the ground again, thus the NEED to merge with Pinnacle just to make sales this next season.

ask me more
-swingshift

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

karoli — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:20:26 -0000

To Upgrade Scheduled Out: They don't have to mail them until 1/31, so watch for it to arrive in early February.

I still can't find anything confirming that there's a merger or a bankruptcy. If they follow what they've done in past years, they'll be selling the contracts to someone like ADT or Pinnacle and starting again with the current recruiting season. No bankruptcy, just a nice clean slate with no past obligations. Of course, in the current economy they might have trouble finding buyers for those contracts.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

What is going on? — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:33:54 -0000

So can anyone answer the question, is Firstline Security going bankrupt or merging?

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Upgrade Scheduled Out — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:10:34 -0000

So, shouldn't we be getting our tax info from Firstline soon??

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Hater — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:56:56 -0000

I currently just quit my fristline job in the Service deparment because of the black male and underground shit that was been active this last few week.They have kept us employees in the dark about FRISTLINE GOING BANKRUPT. After several months of the of working at fristline , i quit, Relizing that i did not enjoy lying to customers to save a company i did not agree with. The hardest part was to disagree with someon when they were completely right. Fristline is full of Unprofessional, dirty nosed liers.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

swingshift — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:53:17 -0000

so I am a returning rep (last year was my first) and have a good deal of info. I worked out in So Cal this summer and it was fucking hot all summer long. Overall, I feel I was underpaid, but had the promise of a big backend (ended up being negative). I got a free cruise, some fres stuff from contests and all, but still feel underpaid.

As for Firstline merging/bankrupt, I have heard all that stuff too. I can't point to concrete evidence but I have talked to a lot of managers. One manager (Huffman I think) was given his backend check a few weeks ago of $25,000 and it promptly bounced. Firstline won't give him his money. Basically, about half the managers and reps have fled Firstline to other companies. Firstline is fucked. 2 of there divisions are almost entirely empty. I'm in the crowd that's swinging to other security companies for next year. I just gotta say, APX is a million times more organized and efficient than Firstline. Their pay is $400+/account even for first year reps.

I can answer many more questions if you ask em...

swingshift

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Grunt Boy — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:18:35 -0000

Oh I know that the owners are not hurting for money, but as far as their character is concerned... that's another story. That's why I feel bad for them; they have cut so many corners and lied so much that they have become something that they might not even know they are.

Now I was under the impression that FL didn't join with Pinnacle, in fact they now going to have to just downsize a bunch because Pinnacle didn't take FL's customers. Oh well...

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Upgrade Scheduled Out — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:02:57 -0000

Strange how before I signed up for the "Director of Advertising" for Firstline Security/GE, I could find nothing negative on Google about the company... and now that I've gone through the process and am passed the denial of the shadiness of this company, I find all kinds of negative things online! PS, I was part of an office this summer that moved three times, three different cities, three different states... We "left" one state because we were told our licenses were "not in proper order."

There should be an advertising director Union. Too much that the hardworking/honest college students get screwed out of by upper management/owners.

Re: Firstline Security and The Prodigy: The Unreal Lure of Reality

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:16:36 -0000

hey grunt boy dont feel bad for the owners bro there livin this up.these guys are already millionaires. who cares about them. Although i do feel bad about current employees. and karoli its not a rumor its true i dont have any thing to show you but its very true that they have merged with pinnacle.