How to Spot Devilcorp Offices Online
Written by Ben Jamieson, Founder and Editor of Devilcorp.org
A large part of our day to day work at devilcorp.org involves conducting online research to find and track new Devilcorp offices operating across the UK. We want to equip all members of the Devilcorp community with the skills needed to join us in this search.
This guide focuses on helping you to distinguish Devilcorp offices from legitimate businesses, without having to directly interact with these companies. We provide practical tips, such as examining job postings, checking company websites, reviewing social media. Our goal is to give readers the tools to conduct effective online research, making it easier for job seekers and the public to make informed decisions about these opportunities.
Job postings
If you’ve read one Smart Circle, Credico, Cydcor, or Appco job ad then you’ve read them all.
These job postings mention terms like "sales," "marketing", "clients," and "training program" without actually outlining the roles’ day-to-day responsibilities , or indeed the nature of the businesses themselves.
For example, let’s examine a LinkedIn job posting with London Credico office ‘Steppe2’, which was live as of 11/2/24.
‘Sales and Marketing Assistant’ with Steppe2
(CN: 08083612), Credico
Here we can notice many common red flags that let us know this is a Credico sales role, such as:
Applicants needing a Student Mentality
Working with Fortune 500’ and ‘Fortune 100 companies
An active mentoring/coaching programme, while failing to mention that applicants work beneath a Team Leader and join their downline
Briefly mentioning travel opportunities which will include sales conferences or trips to work with other UK offices. Not mentioned; team members are still responsible for covering their own expenses
Leadership qualities and competitive streak, needed to succeed in Credico’s promotional system with the hopes of one day opening a new office to grow the business structure
Devilcorp job roles almost never mention their commission-only, self-employed pay structure. Many roles may mention a specific salary, almost all of which are untrue
The intentional vagueness in Devilcorp sales roles serves two purposes:
First, it keeps applicants unaware that the job is primarily a fundraising/sales role, which most people simply have no interest in doing. Leaving this part out maximises the potential number of people who might apply for the role, subsequently pass through the interview process, and head out into the field with an iPad and an umbrella.
Second, this ambiguity leads applicants to form incorrect assumptions about the nature of the job. “Marketing” for “Clients” could really mean anything after all, leading jobseekers to come to their own conclusions and fill in the gaps in the job description with their ideal job qualities. Applicants convince themselves that the position is in fact legitimate because they've imagined and invented a job that doesn’t exist.
An Office’s Website
Building a website is one of the many steps in readying an office for recruitment, along with legally registering as an LLC or leasing an office.
A Devilcorp’s website exists for the sole purpose of boosting their legitimacy in the eyes of applicants, while simultaneously not giving the game away in regards to it actually being a sales role. This is why it’s almost impossible to discern from an office’s website alone what it is they actually do.
Let’s have a look at Steppe2’s website for signs that tell us they’re a Devilcorp: www.steppe2.com
If you're looking to learn more about an office, then make sure to check the footer of their website as well as its Privacy Policy and Terms of Conditions pages. In some rare incidents, a sales office may actually include their UK Company number somewhere on their website itself. You can then use this Company Number to find the sales office’s Companies House page, and learn their legally registered name, address, and operational officers.
Footer of VP Promotions.co.uk - About Us
An Office’s Social Media Presence
Similar to a Devilcorp sales office's website, its social media accounts are designed with potential recruits in mind, serving as a tool to enhance perceived legitimacy.
Consequently, there are more than a few common red flags to help us identify a Devilcorp sales office from their social media presence alone. However, social media accounts on platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn can prove even more valuable than the office's website. This is largely due to the ease with which one can use them to find direct links to parent companies such as Credico, Appco, or Smart Circle.
Let’s look at a couple different Credico offices’ Instagram feeds for posts that fill the bill, and go step by step to learn how we can anaylse these posts to learn more about the office:
First, lets check Credico office Arete22’s (CN: 11329605) IG feed, and search for a post that explicitly names the office’s owner. These posts are most common earlier in an office’s IG feed, around the time the office is founded and first looking to recruit.
Here we can see a video post of Arete22’s team trip to South Africa. The post also tags Cyril Williams’ personal IG account, and names him as the office owner.
@arete_22 'In Arete 22 we LOVE traveling!' - 8/11/18
Photos of Credico/Smart Circle/Cydcor/Appco leaders or consultants are clear signs that you’re looking at a Devilcorp office. If you see any of the faces featured on the Devilcorp WordPress ‘Picture Gallery’ page, then you’ve got your answer. Here we have an image from Arete22’s IG (left) featuring known owner Cyril Williams, and former Credico office owner Paul Gillett. By using CTRL + F to search the gallery for ‘Cyril Williams’, we’re able to find his image on the Devilcorp Picture Gallery along with Paul Gillet.
Photos at Galas, Awards Ceremonies, and Leadership Summits are very common on Devilcorp socials. To make the most of these posts, have a good look at any banners or standees in the photo, as well as the text in any documents or presentations. If you can find Credico or MoneyExpert logos, or mention of the ISA Summit, then you’re looking at a Credico office. If you see any Mission50 logos then it’s an Appco office.
Promotion updates congratulating team members as they become team leaders or open their own offices are some of the most common posts on Devilcorp social media. As well as being handy for identifying Devilcorp sales offices, these posts can also be useful for finding which former team leaders are being promoted to opening their own offices.
@audeamuspartners 'Promotions within our partnering firms are some of the best experiences for individuals at Audeamus!' - 24/8/23
LinkedIn can also be a valuable tool for locating Devilcorp sales offices. Simply open the LinkedIn page of a sales office that you suspect to be a subsidiary of a parent company such as Credico or Appco, and open the ‘Pages People Also Viewed’ panel. Many of the businesses featured here will be subsidiary sales offices with the same parent company.
LinkedIn - Company, AJG Direct
LinkedIn - Company, AJG Direct (Pages people also viewed)
In AJG Direct’s ‘Pages people also viewed’ panel, we’re shown another 5 different Credico sales offices. These include:
Alpha Gamma Solutions (CN: 09101130)
Ripple (Rebrand/offshoot of AJG Direct)
The Synthesis Group (CN: 12129991)
VP Promotions (CN: 10771882)
Odyssian Sales (CN: 07049799)
Company Reviews
Those aware of the Devilcorp business model know that a sales office's online image is crucial.
If working for a sales office seems like nothing more than a low-paying, commission sales position, they will struggle to attract enough salespeople to stay profitable and operational. This is why sales offices and their parent companies try to maintain control over review boards like Glassdoor, Google, and Indeed, and why negative experiences in the form of blogs/vlogs are so often completely removed from the internet at request of the office’s parent company.
Let’s anaylse Credico office AJG Direct’s Glassdoor reviews, comparing the negative and positive reviews to see what major differences we can find.
Negative Reviews, 2020-2024:
As of 2024, AJG Direct is a largely abandoned sales office. Having re-branded and relocated with its members moving to other teams, it has had little need in the past few years to maintain its reputation or project an image of legitimacy. Consequently, the last 30 of its Glassdoor reviews rate working there 1 or 2 stars, and there haven’t been any positive reviews in all of 4 years.
It’s these real, negative reviews which tell us what’s its really like working at AJG Direct. The commission-only pay structure, the 12 hour long work days, the pyramid business model, the street selling reality of the role. These red flags which job-seekers would only find in negative Glassdoor reviews such as the ones featured above, are exactly the same signifiers we need to look out for to tell us this is a sales role with a Devilcorp sales office.
Positive Reviews, February 2019:
On the other hand, AJG Direct’s positive Glassdoor reviews tell us very little about what it’s actually like working there. This is a common factor in the Glassdoor pages of Devilcorp offices; fake 5 star reviews posted with the goal of artificially inflating the star rating, written to be so meaningless that job-seekers still can’t gather what the responsibilities of the company’s roles are.
For example, all of the 5 star reviews featured above tell us next to nothing about the responsibilities of the employees that wrote them. They make no specific mention of marketing or sales, either in the context of the role in question or the company as a whole. The pros could be attributed to absolutely any company, appearing so generic and lacking in substance so as to be AI generated. While the cons almost sound like the office owner is questioning if we’re tough, competitive, or hardworking enough to rise to the challenge of the role. It’s not the job that’s the con. The con is instead the theoretical employees that are too lazy or unambitious to cut it.
AJG Direct received 12 reviews in February 2019 alone, all of them 5 stars (featured above). In comparison, they received close to 10 reviews for each year from 2020 to 2024, almost all 1 or 2 stars. This clear spike in reviews illustrates a concerted effort to improve their Glassdoor score by forcing new recruits to write reviews, or by paying a third party to do so.
We’re hoping this guide empowers readers with essential tools to distinguish Devilcorp offices from legitimate businesses, emphasising scrutiny of job postings, a company’s website, and their social media presence.
If you have any further tips or tools for finding Devilcorp offices, then please share them on the r/devilcorp subreddit today: www.reddit.com/r/Devilcorp/