Is Anyone Selling Life with Life Quotes Inc.

I worked for them on and off for three years...Bob Bland may know insurance but hes a poor business man...Bob Bland takes care of...Bob Bland...it may be a good idea (Lifequotes), but its not very well thought out...while I was there, turnover in Darien was high (two of the top three senior people came and went), and after hiring literally hundreds of agents at the $23 per talk time and 30% commission, he discontinued the talk time after 90 days unless your placing ratio was a certain number, and then awww shucks sorry this isnt working and he would raise the placing ratio and just keep pruning agents and grab all the commissions they left because you have to work there to collect...so my advice is stay away from lifequotes as Bob Bland is a thief, and he gets away with it...
 
Life Quotes Inc. (LQ) sells term life insurance policies for the Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO). Working from their own home or office, agents are given access to LQ’s main telephone system, which is directly linked to GEICO call center(s). A type of Independent Marketing Organization, LQ claims they hire only experienced independent agents. LQ is a publicly traded company owned Robert Bland.

A number of current and former LQ agents have claimed that Mr. Bland's business and labor practices are unfair and literally hundreds of agents have been "taken" for thousands of dollars. Furthermore, I have been told that LQ agents who are "working scared" have sometimes misrepresented the terms and conditions of policies in order to make sales.

Some agents claim, "we were told we'd be paid well if we worked hard and met the company's metrics / sales quotas. After a few months, some of us have thousands of dollars in our accounts and Bland changes the metrics with very little warning. If we don't work harder (often for free), Bland fires us and keeps all our money."

I have personally discussed these issues with Mr. Bland and been assured that no problems exist.

For the law firm of Casper, Meadows, Schwartz and Cook of Walnut Creek, CA, my investigation of Life Quotes, Robert Bland, current and former LQ agents, GEICO and other life insurance companies they may be contracted with is ongoing. Any person with information valuable to a potential class is welcome to send me a message to arrange an interview.

Your name and and any information given will be kept confidential.
 
I saw an add for LifeQuotes.com, Outside Agent sales position. You sell from internet leads that they provide off of an auto dialer, from your home. Is anyone working with them? If so, can you make money at a 30% commission rate and $23.00/hour? Thanks

Hi,
I'm Bob Bland, CEO and founder of Life Quotes, Inc. Our Outside Agent program is going well now and have nearly 100 outside agents working with us as independent contractors. Independent agents who are good at phone sales make, under our current contract, $23 per hour of actual talk time for first 2 months. They also make $50 per submit and then 30% of commission. We generate 1,000 fresh life leads on some days here, so we're busy. But you do have to work our leads using our scripts and procedures on recorded calls, so it is highly managed for quality control purposes. It works: we've sold almost 300,000 policies using this system. But it's not for everybody and the pace is very fast.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Life Quotes Inc. (LQ) sells term life insurance policies for the Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO). Working from their own home or office, agents are given access to LQ’s main telephone system, which is directly linked to GEICO call center(s). A type of Independent Marketing Organization, LQ claims they hire only experienced independent agents. LQ is a publicly traded company owned Robert Bland.

A number of current and former LQ agents have claimed that Mr. Bland's business and labor practices are unfair and literally hundreds of agents have been "taken" for thousands of dollars. Furthermore, I have been told that LQ agents who are "working scared" have sometimes misrepresented the terms and conditions of policies in order to make sales.

Some agents claim, "we were told we'd be paid well if we worked hard and met the company's metrics / sales quotas. After a few months, some of us have thousands of dollars in our accounts and Bland changes the metrics with very little warning. If we don't work harder (often for free), Bland fires us and keeps all our money."

I have personally discussed these issues with Mr. Bland and been assured that no problems exist.

For the law firm of Casper, Meadows, Schwartz and Cook of Walnut Creek, CA, my investigation of Life Quotes, Robert Bland, current and former LQ agents, GEICO and other life insurance companies they may be contracted with is ongoing. Any person with information valuable to a potential class is welcome to send me a message to arrange an interview.

Your name and and any information given will be kept confidential.

Hi, Mark! Bob Bland here, founder and CEO of Life Quotes, Inc. I see you are trolling for new business here. I never told you there were "no problems" but did inform you that you misunderstood our program and were not given full, information by disgruntled ex-agents. For example, you had no idea that we used a standard independent agency contract format and that all of our outside agents are designated in that agreement as having warranted that they are independent agents. We have almost 100 outside agents now and the program is working well. You are not a lawyer and, when we owned Insure.com, my editors and writers named you as a good insurance investigator. It's odd that you'd now turn against us and be trolling for unhappy agents who've left us because they couldn't sell in our model or otherwise lathering up the downtrodden who forget to show you their written, signed contracts with us. Kinda shameful, in fact. You are not a lawyer nor a coporate agreements expert. I think this tells us more about your character than mine.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I worked for them on and off for three years...Bob Bland may know insurance but hes a poor business man...Bob Bland takes care of...Bob Bland...it may be a good idea (Lifequotes), but its not very well thought out...while I was there, turnover in Darien was high (two of the top three senior people came and went), and after hiring literally hundreds of agents at the $23 per talk time and 30% commission, he discontinued the talk time after 90 days unless your placing ratio was a certain number, and then awww shucks sorry this isnt working and he would raise the placing ratio and just keep pruning agents and grab all the commissions they left because you have to work there to collect...so my advice is stay away from lifequotes as Bob Bland is a thief, and he gets away with it...

Hi,
I'm Bob Bland, CEO and founder of Life Quotes, Inc. I'm not a thief. Our Outside Agent program is going well now and have nearly 100 outside agents working with us as independent contractors. Most work part-time, some full-time. Independent agents who are good at phone sales make, under our current contract, $23 per hour of actual talk time for first 2 months. They also make $50 per submit and then 30% of commission. We generate 1,000 fresh life leads on some days here, so we're busy. But you do have to work our leads using our scripts and procedures on recorded calls, so it is highly managed for quality control purposes. It works: we've sold almost 300,000 policies using this system. Yes, our detractors hate our success and it's true that this activity is not for everybody because the pace is very face and we do have minimum standards that have to be met. Usually when agents fail at sales in our model, they publicly blame me and then gather to post on anonymous bulletin boards, safe from any accountability. Draw your own conclusion.
 
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[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Hello Bob, Mark Colbert here. [/FONT][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']I’ve been investigating Life Insurance Fraud in America for 19 years, and according to your writers and editors; I'm pretty good at it. I specialize in the investigation of insurer fraud. The investigation of dishonest agents and the companies/agencies they represent. You’ll be happy to learn that I haven’t found enough of these cases within your company to lose any sleep over. However, I haven’t been looking. I’m sorry to say that I[/FONT][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'] haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading your post. I obviously need to spend more time in here, trolling for new business.[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']In my post, Bob, I was merely sharing my professional opinion with people. When you owned Insure.com, your editors and writers named me as one of the four best-known Life Insurance Fraud experts in the nation. That article, and stories that followed on [/FONT][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']CBS, ABC, NBC and PBS television stations, Newsweek, Money, Woman's Day, and Sales & Marketing Management magazines, The Wall Street Journal, National Underwriter, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Contra Costa Times, Bloomberg News and numerous other publications helped my career immensely. Oh, and thanks again for hooking me up with Dateline as a Technical Advisor in their story, Tricks of the Trade. Chris Hansen is a great guy, and I’ve enjoyed working with him. I thought when we’d last spoke, I thanked you for that.[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']I can certainly appreciate how confusing it must be for someone with your limited Corporate Management experience to understand how someone like me would be investigating someone like you. It’s not that difficult, Bob, just look at the preceding posts and feel the love people obviously have for you and your company. It’s actually quite easy; one of your former disgruntled independent contractors, someone merely goes on to Google, types Life Insurance Fraud Investigators; hits enter, and Voila, there I am.[/FONT]
“you had no idea that we used a standard independent agency contract format and that all of our outside agents are designated in that agreement as having warranted that they are independent agents.”

Yes, Bob, long before we first spoke, I knew that an adhesion contract was a contract (often a signed form) so imbalanced in favor of one party over the other that there is a strong implication it was not freely bargained. Example: a rich landlord dealing with poor disgruntled tenants who have no choice but to accept the terms and conditions of a lease, no matter how restrictive or burdensome it might be. Even if the landlord sporadically changes those terms and conditions whenever he sees fit, the tenant cannot move without forfeiting sometimes tens-of-thousands of dollars of money rightfully owed them. An adhesion contract can give the little guy the opportunity to claim in court that the contract with the big shot is invalid. This doctrine should be used and applied more often, but the same big guy-little guy inequity may apply in the ability to afford a trial or find and pay a resourceful lawyer.

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Bob, I was just wondering; Do you now if any of your disgruntled agents have ever received Unemployment Benefits, from any state, after leaving your happy insurance family?[/FONT]
“We have almost 100 outside agents now and the program is working well.”

Bob, do you have any idea what your turnover rate is? If I told you that since the Insure.com days, the rate in which disgruntled agents leave your company – and are replaced by the next round of disgruntled agents - was somewhere around 71%, would I be wrong? If so, how far off am I?

Bob, you’ve pointed out a couple of times that I’m not a lawyer, and you are absolutely correct. I’ve gone through my post again, and I cannot find any words I may have used to imply otherwise. I am, for the record, a Private Investigator that specializes in the investigation of Life Insurance Fraud. I actually educate lawyers in this particular field and develop cases against bad agents and their companies. When lawyers pick up cases insurance cases, I am often retained as an Expert to help walk them through the Bad Faith litigation process. I have personally investigated more than 2000 cases and, for the record, have a 100% success ratio.
You must remember all of this being covered in the Insure.com article, Bob.

“when we owned Insure.com, my editors and writers named you as a good insurance investigator. It's odd that you'd now turn against us”

Really, Bob? Does it really seem odd to you? Maybe it was just a matter of time?

“agents who've left us because they couldn't sell in our model or otherwise lathering up the downtrodden who forget to show you their written, signed contracts with us.”

Would you like to know what's “kinda shameful,” Bob? I have spoken with nearly thirty of your current and former agents, who'll swear you changed the terms and conditions of their signed contracts regularly. They've told me that in many cases, they are given these changes in the form of an e-mail and told that if they do not acknowledge receipt of said changes, they will be terminated - and you will keep all the money they've worked so hard for - Shame on you, Bob.

“You are not a lawyer nor a coporate agreements expert. I think this tells us more about your character than mine.”

Come on, Bob, again with the lawyer thing? I never told you, or anyone else, I was a lawyer. I did say that I educated lawyers in the different ways to prosecute people like you. I'll stick with that. Your character is clearly reflected in all the posts before mine.

How do you know anything about my level of education? I couldn't imagine where you got a copy of my CV. Didn’t I send you one when I offered to help develop a plan to straighten out your failing business matrix? I honestly don't remember.

Let’s see:
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']ECON 110 Principles of Macroeconomics [/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']ECON 120 Principles of Microeconomics [/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MATH 205 General Calculus & Linear Algebra[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']ACCTG 211 Financial Accounting[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']ACCTG 221 Managerial Accounting[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']STAT 350 Business and Economic Statistics I [/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']STAT 351 Business and Economic Statistics II[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 400 Marketing[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 520 Corporate Marketing[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MANGT 420 Management Concepts[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MANGT 421 Production/Operations Management[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 450 Consumer Behavior[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']FINAN 450 Business Finance [/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']FINAN 460 Insurance Regulation & Management[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MANGT 466 Management Information Systems[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']ECON 520 Intermediate Microeconomics [/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']ECON 530 Money and Banking[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 541 Retailing[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 542 Sales Management[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']FINAN 550 Financial Institutions & Markets[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MANGT 595 Business Strategy[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MANGT 596 Business, Government & Society[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 640 Marketing Research[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']FINAN 661 Professional Financial Planning[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']MKTG 690 Marketing Management[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']GS 831 Ethics and Human Values[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']HS 324 Life Insurance Law[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']HS 331 Planning for Business Owners and Professionals[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']HS 326 Planning for Retirement Needs[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']HS 330 Fundamentals of Estate Planning[/FONT]
  • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']CA State University[/FONT]
    • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Course work:[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']PSYCH 322 Psychology of Personality[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']PSYCH 333 Consumer Psychology.[/FONT]
  • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Pursuing the Master of Business Administration degree at The American College,[/FONT]
      • [FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Bryn Mawr, PA 19010[/FONT]
You are absolutely correct, Bob. I haven't taken one corporate agreements class. I guess I'll have to add that to my thesis.

As odd as it may seem, my offer stands, Bob. If you'd like some help running your company, give me a call.

Mark J Colbert
Life Insurance Fraud Investigator
 
Hello Bob, Mark Colbert here. I've been investigating Life Insurance Fraud in America for 19 years, and according to your writers and editors; I'm pretty good at it. I specialize in the investigation of insurer fraud. Which includes the investigation of dishonest agents and the companies/agencies they represent. You'll be happy to learn that I haven't found enough of these cases within your company to lose any sleep over. However, I haven't been looking. I'm sorry to say that, until now, I haven't yet had the pleasure of reading your post. I obviously need to spend more time in here, trolling for new business.

In my prior post, Bob, I was merely sharing my professional opinion with a few of your fans. When you owned Insure<dot>com, your editors and writers named me as one of the four best-known life insurance fraud experts in the nation. That article, and stories that followed on CBS, ABC, NBC, and PBS television stations, Newsweek, Money, Woman's Day, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine's, The Wall Street Journal, National Underwriter, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, Contra Costa Times, Bloomberg News and numerous other publications helped my career immensely. Oh, and thanks again for hooking me up with Dateline as a Technical Advisor in their story, Tricks of the Trade. Chris Hansen is a great guy and an excellent journalist and I've enjoyed working with him immensely. When we last spoke, I was almost sure I thanked you for that.

I can certainly appreciate how confusing it must be for someone with your limited Corporate Management experience to understand how/why someone like me would be investigating someone like you. It's really not that difficult, Bob, just look at the preceding posts and feel the overwhelming amount of love people obviously have for you and your company. Funnier still is the way in which you and your company are referenced in every single insurance blog or forum I've found. You must be incredibly proud to be so universally despised.

"you had no idea that we used a standard independent agency contract format and that all of our outside agents are designated in that agreement as having warranted that they are independent agents."

Yes, Bob, long before we first spoke, I knew that an adhesion contract was a contract (often a signed form) so imbalanced in favor of one party over the other that there is a strong implication it was not freely bargained. Example: a rich landlord dealing with poor disgruntled tenants who have no choice but to accept the terms and conditions of the lease, no matter how restrictive or burdensome. It might be. Even if the landlord sporadically changes those terms and conditions whenever he sees fit, the tenant cannot move without forfeiting sometimes tens-of-thousands of dollars of money rightfully owed them. An adhesion contract can give the little guy the opportunity to claim in court that the contract with the big shot is invalid. This doctrine should be used and applied more often, but the same big guy-little guy inequity may apply in the ability to afford a trial or find and pay a resourceful lawyer.

Bob, I was just wondering; do you know if any of your disgruntled agents have ever received Unemployment Benefits, from any state, after leaving your happy insurance family? Maybe the truthful answer to this question should be posted somewhere so that the rest of your disgruntled agents will know they might be entitled to benefits.

"We have almost 100 outside agents now and the program is working well."

Bob, do you have any idea what you're turnover rate is? If I told you that since the Insure<dot>com days, the rate in which disgruntled agents leave your company-and are replaced by the next round of disgruntled agents-was somewhere around 71%, would I be wrong? If so, how far off am I?

Bob, you've pointed out a couple of times that I'm not a lawyer, and you are absolutely correct. I've gone through my post again, and I cannot find any words I may have used to imply otherwise. I am, for the record, a Private Investigator that specializes in the investigation of Life Insurance Fraud. I actually educate lawyers in this particular field and develop cases against bad agents and their companies. When lawyers pick up questionable insurance cases, I am often retained as an Expert to help walk them through the Bad Faith litigation process. I have personally investigated more than 2000 cases, and for the record, have a 100% success ratio. You must remember all of this being covered in the Insure<dot>com article, Bob.

"when we owned Insure<dot>com, my editors and writers named you as a good insurance investigator. It's odd that you'd now turn against us."

Really, Bob? Does it really seem odd to you? Maybe it was just a matter of time?

"agents who've left us because they couldn't sell in our model , or otherwise lathering up the downtrodden who forget to show you their written, signed contracts with us."

Besides the fact that you are so well-liked, would you like to know what's "kinda shameful," Bob? I have spoken with nearly 30 of your current and former agents, who'll swear you change the terms and conditions of their signed contracts regularly. They've told me that in many cases, they are given the changes in the form of an e-mail and told that if they do not immediately acknowledge receipt of said changes, they will be terminated - and then you will keep all the money they've worked so hard for - Shame on you, Bob.

"You are not a lawyer nor a coporate (sic) agreements expert. I think this tells us more about your character than mine."

Come on, Bob, is that all you have? Again with the lawyer thing? I never told you, or anyone else, I was a lawyer. I did say that I educate lawyers in the different aspects of life insurance bad faith litigation. I'll stick with that. Your character, on the other hand, is clearly reflected in the posts prior to mine. You certainly don't need my help to look bad.

How do you know anything about my level of education? At first, I couldn't imagine where you got a copy of my curriculum vitae, then I remembered. Didn't I send you one when I offered to help develop a plan to straighten out your failing business matrix? I honestly don't remember.

Let's see:

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*ECON 110 Principles of Macroeconomics[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*ECON 120 Principles of Microeconomics[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MATH 205 General Calculus & Linear Algebra[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*ACCTG 211 Financial Accounting[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*ACCTG 221 Managerial Accounting[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*STAT 350 Business and Economic Statistics I[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*STAT 351 Business and Economic Statistics II[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 400 Marketing[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 520 Corporate Marketing[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MANGT 420 Management Concepts[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MANGT 421 Production/Operations Management[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 450 Consumer Behavior[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*FINAN 460 Insurance Regulation and Management[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MANGT 466 Management Information Systems[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*ECON 520 Intermediate Microeconomics[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*ECON 530 Money and Banking[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 541 Retailing[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 542 Sales Management[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*FINAN 550 Financial Institutions and Markets[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MANGT 595 Business Strategy[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MANGT 596 Business, Government & Society[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 640 Marketing Research[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*FINAN 661 Professional Financial Planning[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*MKTG 690 Marketing Management[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*GS 831 Ethics and Human Values[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*HS 324 Life Insurance Law[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*HS 331 Planning for Business Owners and Professionals[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*HS 326 Planning for Retirement Needs[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*HS 330 [/FONT][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Fundamentals of Estate Planning[/FONT]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']* CA State University [/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'] * Course work:[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*PSYCH 322 Psychology of Personality[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*PSYCH 333 Consumer Psychology[/FONT]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']**Pursuing the Master of Business Administartion degree at The American College, [/FONT]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']*Bryn Mawr, PA 19010[/FONT]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']You are absolutely correct, Bob. I haven't taken one single Corporate Agreements class. I'll have to add that to my thesis.[/FONT]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']As odd as it may seem, my offer stands, Bob. If you'd like some help running your company, give me a call.[/FONT]

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Mark J Colbert[/FONT]
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']Life Insurance Fraud Investigator[/FONT]



[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
 
They are a scam. I wasted time on applying with them going through their hurdles and this is the email I received right before I was going on another test stating that their program has changed and the comp is not the same.

"Effective May 1, 2012 we have restricted the compensation and job duties on this program to pay only $75 per submission with no commission-sharing. Attached as a PDF is more details on our new Plan75, which is the only Outside Agent plan we are offering at present time. This new pay plan also has you doing less. From now on, agents in Plan75 will not be engaged in case management, rate-ups or delivery tasks; from now on, our Submit Agents will only be involved in giving advice, running quotes, completing applications and seeing them through the submission point. "
 
They are a scam. I wasted time on applying with them going through their hurdles and this is the email I received right before I was going on another test stating that their program has changed and the comp is not the same.

"Effective May 1, 2012 we have restricted the compensation and job duties on this program to pay only $75 per submission with no commission-sharing. Attached as a PDF is more details on our new Plan75, which is the only Outside Agent plan we are offering at present time. This new pay plan also has you doing less. From now on, agents in Plan75 will not be engaged in case management, rate-ups or delivery tasks; from now on, our Submit Agents will only be involved in giving advice, running quotes, completing applications and seeing them through the submission point. "

Now hiring: Order Takers
 
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