tricking my employer with a new offer ?!!

A company gave me an offer for double my current sallary, but the offer is not real, the job is commision based only, however they register the contracts with gov as sallary jobs in order to avoid the looking like sales people and not like investement advisors ( i call them sales people since they said after 2 days of training i can be seeing clients, and i will be gived scripts to memorize).

I can take this offer with my CFA Level III pass and try to negociate a better pay. Is it a bad idea in general to take an offer to a current employer ? Do you think my current employer would pick up the phone and try to verify ( and possibly be told that it is commision based) ?

did you read the ethics section in the CFA?

That’s one shady sounding company

and thats why i want to stick to my job^

Ethics violation or not, this is just bad game theory. I would advise against doing this because you haven’t materially improved your situation in a lot of outcomes. Remember that negotiating from a position of strength means that they are in a better position if they choose to negotiate with you, whereas you are ambivalent about the outcome of negotiations because you have a strong BATNA. Right now, I don’t see that being the case:

Outcome 1: You reveal offer, they don’t check it out, they match all or some of the higher salary.

Outcome 2: You reveal offer, they don’t check, but they tell you they won’t/can’t match.

Outcome 3: You reveal offer, they check it out, they fire you. You now either need to take your commission job or find a new one entirely. (worst case)

Outcome 4: You reveal offer, they check it out, they don’t fire you, but they have lost loads of respect for you for trying this stunt. Probably have done irreparable harm to your reputation.

Outcome one is the best-case scenario. Outcome 2 isn’t all bad, as you’ve gained some information about your employer and can probably make better informed career decisions. Outcomes 3&4 are terrible. These two scenarios are bad enough that I’d argue they negate whatever possible gains you might get under the first two outcomes.

This actually worked in my favour, although it didn’t involve a bluff as you outlined. I was deciding between 3 job offers, and played the two lower-salaried ones against the highest one to get a better deal. I got a renegotiated offer and went with one of them.

I later found out that the highest-salaried job was fake.

Based on what I’ve experienced on both sides of hiring, frankly I don’t think they’ll check anything. But as Supersadface says, what if you get Outcome 2, i.e. they tell you they can’t match it? Do you just go back being business as usual? Surely then they know you were bluffing.

Never blackmail your employer with an alternate opportunity from another firm unless you are prepared to hear “sounds great, good luck at the new place” and walk away with no regrets.

Even if you do get a counteroffer from your employer to keep you, you are now on a list of “people who might walk away at any minute,” and your employer will start to think about contingency plans for your disappearence. Sometimes these contingency plans can start to look even more attractive than the plan of keeping you on at all, and then you’re history.

How was the offer “fake”? Help me understand what a fake offer means…I"m curious. Thanks.

I agree with bchad, regardless of the reaction you get, it triggers a warning flag in your current situation.

If you are a money making super star, then you have nothing to worry about. But if you are relatively easy to replace and your work is not so critical, your overall net outcome situations isn’t worth it to attempt

I’m also curious.

You’re dead if they call your bluff. I realized the best time to negotiate is when you have an amazing offer from somewhere else, a place and job you were dreaming for. For some reason, it’s then that your current employer decides to pay up making your decision so much harder. Leave for a dream job or stay put at almost double the salary.

It was a fake company set up by a con. He duped a whole load of people to actually quit their Goldman-type jobs to join him (10 or so people). It was really quite elaborate - he had temp offices set up, accountants, headhunters, and as far as I know he didn’t pay anyone a single cent. Everyone was duped.

I’ve never seen anyone check anything. I agree that you will be a dead duck if they do check, but you might think about rolling the dice anyway. From what I have seen, you can’t get ahead in this business by playing the straight and narrow because it’s zero sum between you and your employer – their incentive is to pay you as little as possible and work you to death. Sad fact of the day.

I also agree with bchad – you really have to be ready to walk away if they say, thanks, that’s great, good luck. Although really, a smart employer will realize that anyone can walk away at any time for any reason. The quiet ones are the ones you should worry about most.

Why would someone do that? Did the guy make any money? If not, is this just some sort of trolololol prank?

Definitely agree.

I have no idea. He certainly didn’t make any money, but caused people to lose money and time (e.g. paying for his offices, work done by accountants and head-hunters etc).

I thought hard after that on how he could possibly screw me over, and I suppose possible identity theft at a stretch. But it seems too elaborate for that. Perhaps he had something more awesome in mind but it all fell apart before he could get to it - it started to show when he couldn’t pay the people he ‘hired’.

He went to jail, was released and broke parole as I understand it.

forget about this company, we live ina differnet era dude! it’s about time finance professionals work on a getting a better rep. ban those companies.