Among the mass of flyers crowding the mailroom bulletin board, students naturally gravitate toward a bright yellow promise for easy employment. If you're poor and interested, all you have to do is go to www.workforstudents.com. That's where it gets a bit more complicated, though, as students find themselves lured into an selling cutlery through Aclas Corp., an intricate maze of corporations, subsidiaries, and marketing strategiesOn Sept. 28, 1982, the management of Alcas Cutlery Corporation bought out the subsidiary firm from its parent corporation, the Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA). Since then, the new Alcas Corp. has achieved great financial success, but not without paying a price. Recent accusations leveled at the corporation's top-dollar subsidiary Vector Marketing Corp. by a group called Students Against Vector Exploitation (SAVE) have raised renewed concerns about the company's reputation.

SAVE's most recent press release claims that for years, "Vector Marketing has been deceiving tens of thousands of young students" with "vague" advertisements that turn out to be "a business opportunity they have to take an hour or so to sell to you."

Sandy Gray, public relations manager for Vector, said she is "very familiar" with SAVE. "We take great exception to the way SAVE have portrayed our company," she said. "We could not possibly be successful unless the people who work for us are successful, too."

SAVE is an online "Yahoo!Group" founded early in July 2003 by a group of students who were "not going to take it anymore," their Web site reads. But these 24 members are not the only ones who are concerned with Vector's reputation.

According to Meryl Glatt-Raider, a senior administrator at the Hyatt Career Center, Brandeis University does not recommend Vector to its students anymore. "We are concerned that students will not have a good experience with this firm," Glatt-Rader said. "It is not a reputable company (and) they do not handle themselves professionally."

Because the person scheduled to represent Vector Marketing at last year's career fair showed up two hours late (the fair is three hours long), the company will not be invited back to campus for this year's career fair, which is scheduled to take place Oct. 8.

Vector Marketing's Campus Relations Department, on the other hand, has an entirely different story. On August 27, the company released a Corporate Statement to career services directors at multiple universities, claiming "a rogue individual is sending e-mails to career services directors as well as press releases to campus papers in an effort to discredit Vector Marketing." This individual is allegedly known simply as "Chad," and is characterized in Vector's statement as "a disturbed individual seeking attention."

At the same time, the statement refers to some "growing pains" the company has had to face. Pains that "are a matter of historical fact," said the statement. Most likely, this is a reference to Vector's previous legal disputes, such as in 1990 with the attorney general of Arizona, in 1994 with the state of Wisconsin, or in 1999 with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

SAVE also claims that their co-founder "just recently won a case with the N.Y. Department of Labor, alleging Vector to have breached the independent contractor-client relationship (by) making her an employee." Gray said that Vector Marketing is "absolutely unaware of the lawsuit (or) any record of (Lauren K.)" The company "disputes the allegations as characterized on the (SAVE) Web site."

Erin Maidan '04, who earned a profit of about $2,000 this summer selling CutCo Knives for Vector Marketing, said she had a purely positive experience. "It's great," she said, "it's just a really supportive and energetic work environment. You make your own schedule, you decide everything." While the SAVE press release implicitly characterizes Vector's managers as overbearing and intrusive, Maiden said they "are more like coaches than bosses."

Despite the strong controversy surrounding the nature of Vector's business, most parties agree with Gray's statement that "sales is not the kind of work that is suited for everyone." Gray said a successful experience with Vector is especially valuable for students in sales and business schools, because "students talent themselves both personally and professionally."

"It is similar to running your own business," Glatt-Rader said. Maidan agreed: "There's definitely a lot of entrepreneurship involved, (but) it's not telemarketing and it's not door-to-door."

"There's nothing shady about Vector," Erin said. "They're not trying to hide anything, they just want to capitalize on college kids, (because) college kids are really excitable, but at the same time, they're really used to being trained, and also they're smarter than most people."

In 1981, Alcas employed about 220 people and made less than $5 million in annual sales. Today, the new Alcas boasts a workforce of over 1,100 employees, and annual sales of approximately $200 million. The company has become a parent corporation in its own right, with four subsidiaries under its wing.

CutCo Cutlery Corp. is Alcas' top-ranking subsidiary, together with Vector Marketing Corp. CutCo manufactures high-quality knives and Vector markets them at prices anywhere from $20 to $100 per knife, or from $200 up to $2,000 for complete sets. Alcas also owns CutCo International, as well as KA-BAR Knives, Inc. CutCo's major competitor is Henckels, a German cutlery company.

Vector pays its employees $15 for each sales appointment, regardless of the outcome. Each appointment takes about one hour. If the sale is made, then the salesperson receives either $15 or a 10 percent commission on the sale, whichever is more. The sales commission also rises proportionally with the total sales an employee makes over time At $3,000, the commission rises to 20 percent, and an employee can earn up to 50 percent commission if their total sales are above $20,000.

A 2002 press release by Vector's P.R. Coordinator Kathleen Donovan states that Alcas is a privately held corporation, which has enabled the company "to function without the pressures and constraints of the investment community," allowing Alcas to focus more on its long-term prospects for growth. "The decision to make the acquisition (from ALCOA) very likely saved the company from being closed, (and) opened the door to acquiring Vector Marketing, which gave us our major growth rush."

CutCo's success, then, rests heavily on Vector's marketing strategies. Therefore, public allegations of deceitful and dishonest practices as expressed by SAVE and other individuals strike at the very core of Alcas' structure of success. Because much controversy surrounds the issue, however, these allegations cannot be confirmed.