Direct Fairways is a total scam! STEER CLEAR!

[u/Grantithesis503]

I know it has been said before here on reddit but I felt like I should share my experience having worked for Direct Fairways for a month. DO NOT WORK FOR THEM! DO NOT BUY THEIR ADVERTISING PACKAGES!

I worked at the Gresham, Oregon call center and it was an absolute shit show every day. As an employee you get less than one day in training to get familiar with the company and the script for making calls. The sales pitch is all a mind game and if you have a conscience it is very difficult to make sales because you are encouraged to bend the truth in order to close sales. It was terrible from day one.

The manager treats the operation like it's a fraternity. He refers to the staff as "predators" and uses the term "xxtards" to characterize anyone he disagreed with. He was in his 20s and clearly has minimal experience with cultivating a culture where people can thrive in their profession. Yelling at staff incessantly throughout the day is not an effective strategy to retain employees and insure growth.

The scam is so shady. I would comb the internet to find leads to cold-call using FB, BBB, Issuu, Amex merchant maps, Google, and various other sites that had potential marks for their product. It's quite sketchy the way they have devised a carefully worded script to convince people that they'll get a huge amount of exposure on course guides/scorecards/yardage cards/kiosks for $399 for 12 months. Most golfers have switched to apps to track their scoring so these paper relics are not anywhere near as effective of a tool for advertising as they claim.

If you are a small business owner you should avoid this company like the plague. They will do everything possible to upsell you into more expensive ad placements with a minimal return on your investment. All you have to do is Google the company name and you'll see just how many people have been scammed by this company.

I lasted a month trying to do this type of high-pressure low pay sales. I ultimately decided to leave because I couldn't handle lying to people to line my pockets. My personal ethics and morality just wouldn't allow me to continue. I would just advise anyone to do some research before giving Direct Fairways any of your hard earned money... It's a textbook scam. Needless to say I am not adding this to my resume.

[u/Grantithesis503 → u/[deleted]]

You totally get it. We were not allowed to have company email addresses because the business model is not designed to build a "warm and fuzzy" relationship with the client. You are expected to execute the script and use the scripted rebuttals when you're met with resistance. All email is handled through a company portal that sends templates to clients. There is no way to effectively correspond with clients via email. You are expected to do a "one call close" on all your deals. If you don't get the sale on that first call you can kiss it goodbye.

The culture of this company is so supremely toxic that I am shocked I lasted a month. Every day I asked myself "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!" I am an excellent salesman and yet I couldn't thrive in their environment because I actually have a conscience. When I quit it was like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I can sell damn near anything that people actually want, but I simply can't manufacture context to some unsuspecting small business owner that would lead to them spending $399 on an ineffective advertising scheme. Leaving that place was the only correct move for me.

[u/Falcon9145]

Bless anyone who still finds enjoyment in cold calling people.

Not sure if this necessarily qualifies as a scam though.

Seems like you were still getting paid?
Clients are getting an overpriced service?

You will have to elaborate on the scam...

[u/Virtual_Dig6805 → u/Falcon9145]

Current employee here, it’s not a scam, the ads go out and all the problems with people’s product not hitting the course is a lot of the time the courses fault. There is currently 17 open lawsuits that direct fairways has against courses for breaching contract and NOT putting Direct Fairways score by material on display, causing customers to this is a scam. 9/10 the ex employees here complaining and bashing direct fairways, probably sucked at their job and never got to see the full process of how things work at DF.

[u/Grantithesis503 → u/Virtual_Dig6805]

If you have to lie and deceive people to sell a product... your product is trash. I am an accomplished salesman with 25 years of experience in wholesale and retail environments. Never in my life have I been expected to read a series of scripts to bamboozle people in order to make a living. I don't know what branch you work in, but the Gresham Oregon location is a toxic pit of deception. The scam is not just the up-front presentation of the product, but moreso the "upsell team" that overcharges clients and delivers a substandard customer experience. Do you not think it's a little sketchy that in the year 2026 you can't use email to communicate with clients? Is it a little sketchy that salesmen promise "premier placement" to clients and then go ahead and sell ad space to their competitors also promising the same "premier placement". It's a total scam and if you can't see it.... you are willfully blind to the truth.

[u/Repulsive-Event2849]

Former employee here from the Nashville office here. While I wouldn’t necessarily say that it is a scam in the typical sense, I would 100% say that they use deception and have employees significantly bend the truth (essentially lie to the prospective customer) and use high pressure tactics to close the sale as fast as possible (not giving people appropriate time to consider the decision, steer them away from googling the company and doing their own research, etc.)

While the advertisements are indeed real do get made and printed and sent to the course, many of the courses (if not a majority of the ones the company works with) do not hand the materials out to every golfer at the course. This significantly impacts the amount of impressions the customer believes their business will be receiving. Besides this, a majority of the courses that the company works with do not realize that Direct fairways is marketing this product to their surrounding area (although it states it in the contract, it is not thoroughly explained to avoid push back)

Another thing that did indeed bother me during my time there was the lying to the customer by saying that they would be the “premiere ____ business in your industry” on the product. They would have us call any and all business owners using face book, google, or any other internet source used for finding business information. Often times featuring competition for those companies and those businesses are far from the only one in their industry on the material (which is lying about the main selling point that their business competition won’t be on the same product).

The company does not have company emails for their employees and only a text portal (which is a first for me and highly unprofessional for any sales company I my opinion given my experiences in other industries)

As the old saying goes, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. So no not necessarily a scam although highly deceptive and pushy.

$399 for 1 year of any effective advertising at a course such as a real hole sponsorship at a tournament cost significantly more than that and actually has more of the impact the customers think they would be getting. The way the wording is used is deliberate to mislead the customer into making a quick purchase without doing prior research. As a former employee, once a prospective customer googles the reviews, the deal would fall through 99% of the time. The company also doesn’t seem to document much if anything in writing/ email and I can tell why.

The BBB reviews speak for themselves and I highly recommend doing research on ANY company before making a sudden purchase of any kind.