The American dream: a fulfilling career that rewards your skills and effort.

But for far too many hopeful applicants, this dream curdles into a frustrating nightmare. Unethical businesses, often shrouded in the cloak of anonymity provided by Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), exploit loopholes and prey on the very qualities that make us strong candidates – our well-meaning nature, our eagerness to contribute, and our commitment to hard work.

This underhanded approach isn’t limited to a single industry. The Pen is Mightier Content Creators LLC and Best Choice Roofing LLC may sound like harmless enough businesses on their surface.

But peek beneath the thin veneer, and you’ll see just how they are able to keep profits among a tight-knit clique of managers and shady practices, while utilizing a philosophy of “hire fast, fire faster,” which results in their own financial enrichment at the expense of unpaid employees and applicants.

The Workforce LLC Labyrinth: How Shady Businesses Exploit Job Seekers

From B2B content mills to roofing companies and marketing firms, some LLCs have perfected the art of cutting corners at the expense of hardworking individuals.

College graduates, veterans transitioning to civilian life or even disabled veterans, and marketing professionals – can all become unwitting pawns in a rigged game. These companies profit from the very people genuinely seeking honest work, stealing their time, skills, and effort.

But, job seekers, you’re not the only ones who’ve been wronged by companies like these. Fraud eventually has a way of revealing itself in other facets. For instance, there’s a very good reason why people in the general community are skeptical of roofing companies, before, during, or after a major storm.

Put simply, many roofing companies will maneuver unsuspecting homeowners into a perilous financial situation that results from them filing an insurance claim for wind damage, and then they don’t get approved but are still expected to repair their roof- or lose their insurance and their home!

The LLC, a Limited Liability Company, offers entrepreneurs a welcome shield against personal liability. But for some, it becomes a smokescreen for unscrupulous business practices. This, unfortunately, leaves a trail of exploited job seekers in its wake.

Let’s delve into some common schemes used by these LLCs to cut corners at the expense of hardworking individuals.

The Digital Marketing Agency Content Mill Mirage

B2B content mills often lure in hopeful writers and editors with promises of freelance work. The initial test assignments, however, turn into unpaid labor. These companies exploit the applicant’s eagerness by requesting substantial writing samples – essentially getting free content creation.

Once submitted, the “applicant” is ghosted, never to hear back.

The Pen is Mightier Content Creators LLC Review

The Pen is Mightier Content Creators LLC puts out an ad on Indeed or on other popular hiring websites advertising to attract applicants, then give applicants a writing assignment.

The writing assignment is certainly not difficult by any means, considering the referenced articles they provide you with. You’re even asked to do it for the geographical location in which you reside.

You return with the assignment complete, they gladly accept it, “Thank you for knocking that out for us,” and you never hear from them again.

However, with only tiny edits, they’ll be able to take that assignment or its variant, especially considering it’s been produced by 100s, if not 1,000s of hungry college graduates and digital marketing professionals looking for legitimate work, and quickly spin that into useable content for their own clients.

These folks at The Pen is Mighter are not unique. They steal articles written by English-speaking Americans and re-use them, eliminating a huge labor cost by offering a free work assignment.

You cannot tell me that military veterans with college degrees who’ve owned their own businesses and written books will write a basic article about “distracted drivers in Wilmington” any worse than an already-profitable, legal practice’s website. You also cannot tell me that if good writing didn’t matter, then they wouldn’t just outsource this to Asia, as many digital marketing agencies often do.

But that’s the key, hidden premise behind operations at “The Pen is Mightier” and their fellow travelers in today’s digital B2B economy: that good English not only doesn’t matter, but it’s free for them, even as they repurpose and profit off of the labor hours of the educated (with large student loan debts), devoid of any payment to its actual producers.

That’s a lot of labor hours over 2,000 applicants across the nation, if each article takes one or two hours. Considering all of those applicants produce something useful, they could easily be saving 5-figures a month on labor.

As a business owner with only 4 or 5 managers at a single location, making an extra $3,000 – 5,000 a month is not a bad, recurring, and expected bonus, especially when it’s baked into the process already. And it also ensures a culture of nepotism and theft.

The Commission-Only Roofing Company Job

In the roofing industry, many LLCs exploit a similar tactic, especially in storm-prone areas with a local college.

They target new hires, especially veterans known for their strong work ethic. After a short training period, the new employee is thrown headfirst into projects. However, the catch lies in the fine print of their contracts – a lengthy contingency period.

Additionally, since many roofing managers have not served in the armed forces themselves and value material wealth and money more than doing the right thing, a potential conflict is often inevitable as they find personal reasons to dislike someone different than they are.

Best Choice Roofing LLC’s Big Rip-Off

None is more notorious for this than Best Choice Roofing, headquartered in Tennessee, but carefully managed and liability-managed through a network of interstate LLCs, like Best Choice Roofing North Carolina LLC.

The company fires the employee right before this period ends, effectively stealing their completed work without any compensation. This ensures the company pockets most of the profits while the salesperson gets nothing, essentially working for free.

This also ensures that managers stick together neptotistically, often only hiring and working closely with people are very much like them culturally, share a similar ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), behavioral pattern, and set of greedy and deceptive ethics.

Much of the time, these managers behave in an unprofessional way themselves, vaping openly at meetings in a confined space, lying on internal paperwork to cheat the company out of free merchandise, and even abusing the manager/staff relationship with tenant/landlord relationships outside of work or taking advantage of new hires by failing to pay them for “splits” that occur during non-insurance customer house knocks.

And that’s when they’re not taking part in “splits” with non-manager, subordinate staff who are then pressured to do all of the ground work to ensure those “splits” go to deal, while the manager can now spend their time in the office or riding with more subordinates for more splits.

Viewed another way, this is the reason many former employees have accused Best Choice Roofing of being a pyramid scheme whereby the managers get paid a split in addition to their normal manager pay and commission, while unloading the work and time requirements of insurance adjustor meetings and photo shoots for contracting the job.

So, even if a worker manages to hang in there, unpaid, for the first three months as an employee, there are almost guaranteed obstacles that will be difficult to navigate, as Best Choice Roofing rewards greed and duplicity more than competence, especially when it comes to leadership.

It’s why they’re comfortable firing franchise owners at their corporate annual HQ meeting for not spinning the “Best Choice Roofing Wheel of Punishment,” regardless if it’s actually hazing and would be discriminatory against people with disabilities (as an example, having to sit in what’s known as “the Frog Pond” which maybe require unusual dexterity not normally found on the job itself to enter a small space) for nothing more than a humiliation ritual.

How about having to drink an entire can of juice from a can of green beans? Some folks, especially the Best Choice Roofing managers who work 60 – 70 hours a week because they are materialism-motivated but flaunt their own physical morbid obesity as some guilty trophy of honor, probably could not expect to live much longer after having to consume so much sodium in one sitting.

It is also nearly impossible to find an easily accessible way to contact human resources for Best Choice Roofing by just using Google Search as a a public visitor or even a staff member. It’s also due to is not-so-clever use of corprorate business structure and LLCs. used to shield and reduce business and labor risk incrementally across state and federal lines.

They also demand employees sign a non-compete agreement, the type which was recently ruled null and void by the Federal Trade Commission.

When Marketing Meets Bait-and-Switch LLC Hiring Practices

Marketing and sales positions are another breeding ground for LLC exploitation or bait-and-switch tactics. Here, the job applicant is offered a menial, low-paying and highly generalized “marketing assistant” position, then quickly switched to a different position once they follow up with the hiring manager.

But, ironically enough, it invoves a nice combination of the willingness of both roofing companies and managers to downplay, degrade, and devalue digital marketing while at the same time attempting to profit from those who professionally do exactly that work.

That brings us to the unironically named, Patriot Roofing LLC.

This is a company where a female manager sends you a message that says they’ll pass your info on to the owner, a female, but then immediately degrades the initial position for which you applied, as well as your professional and career history in performing that work, either for a company or your own business.

I have never worked for a company where the hiring manager was also the copywriter, so that is definitely a sign that this company is more focused on luring in potential people with a marketing background, then switching them over to a physical job like “project specalist,” which involves the ability to climb a ladder.

It’s also how Window Ninjas of Wilmington, NC operates to lure in unsuspecting young professionals. Once you show up to the initial “interview,” you’re corralled into a small room with 20 other applicants. All for the one digital marketing assistant job listed on Indeed.com, too?

Or what about companies like Southern Premier Roofing in Wilmington, NC, who doesn’t even have their own office, but use co-working space for interviewing applicants that isn’t even ADA compliant?

And you’ll also find a lot of the managers in these operations have out-of-state phone numbers too, even after having been in the local area for years. Yet they’re in no hurry to settle in.

The Common Thread: Exploiting Goodwill

These LLCs prey on a common thread: the goodwill and desperation of job seekers. College graduates, veterans transitioning to civilian life, and marketing/sales professionals – all enter the job market with a strong work ethic and a desire to contribute.

These shady businesses capitalize on this by creating a facade of legitimate opportunity. They use the leverage of potentially hiring someone to get applicants to do things they might otherwise disagree to, were applicants in a more powerful bargaining position.

How to Protect Yourself from Unscrupulous Hiring Practices

Here are some tips to avoid falling victim to these LLC scams:

• Research the company thoroughly: Look for online reviews, check their website for legitimacy, and verify their LLC registration.
• Beware of unpaid test assignments: If a company asks for substantial work upfront without compensation, it’s a red flag.
• Scrutinize contracts carefully: Don’t sign anything without fully understanding the terms, especially regarding pay and termination clauses.
• Trust your gut: If something feels off, it probably is. Don’t be afraid to walk away from an opportunity that seems too good to be true.

By being aware of these tactics and taking precautions, job seekers can protect themselves from unscrupulous LLCs. Remember, your skills and experience are valuable. Don’t let them be exploited by companies looking for a quick profit.

Conclusion

Perhaps it’s also advantageous to bad business when you seek help from your local congressman or the EEOC to file a complaint and the Federal website doesn’t even work, or the local EEOC office has no appointments available to discuss your concern, indefinitely.

It speaks volumes to where everything’s headed. Lots of people willing to steal from others. Lots of government agencies that can’t or won’t help Americans, while still getting paid themselves or sending money to foreign countries.

Let’s not forget, a healthy society thrives on collaboration.

Imagine a future where labor, capital, and management operate with a shared vision of fairness and opportunity. Think curious web visitors and readers like yourself, armed with this knowledge, becoming informed advocates for ethical business practices.

Together, we can build a high-trust society – a community where everyone gets a fair shot. This isn’t just about individual well-being; it’s about fostering a sustainable foundation for our first-world civilization, one that benefits not just ourselves, but generations to come.