312-499-5900

"Good morning, this is Amy."
"Hi, may I speak to thmumble?"
"I'm sorry. Who did you say you were trying to reach?"
"I was calling for thmthmumble."
"I'm sorry?"
"The owner."
(Pause. Sigh, not another one!) "May I tell him who's calling?"
"It's Mark." (Oh that explains everything!)
"One moment, Mark." (Punches "Mark" directly to voice mail.)

Wow, thank you for being so truthful. I wish more people would do the same.  It's nice to see a little honesty in the business world from time to time.

Well said. I couldn't agree more!

I am writing because I actually did work there. Hours are long and grueling, promises made to its employees are not kept and they are underpaid, and it is true most of the representatives will not disclose the purpose of the call. Not because they are being "shady" but because they specialize in raising money and selling companies, either of which if disclosed could cause a panic at an office and the company held liable for legal action. It is an investment bank and they do get transactions completed so if you are looking for some kind of M&A transaction or to secure money they might be an option, but not for everyone. If you are looking for a job and they offer you a position I would continue looking. You might learn some stuff about the industry but overall you will be wasteing your time and will never be able to make a living wage at their entry level postion. The post above may be real, but most likely it probably is an employee.

This company called my office last week. A gentlemen by the name of Rob Schy asked to speak with my boss and referred to him by his first name, indicating it was a "confidential business matter." I relayed the information to my boss, who placed a call back to Rob. The conversation was strange, and as the other commenters have indicated, Rob was rude and curt. Rob then put my boss in touch with a gentleman named Muhammed Azfar, who was again curt and rude. He asked a lot of weird questions, such as why we needed the money, what my boss was planning to do with the money gained by selling his business, etc. Moe arranged for another individual to come to our office to meet with us and sent an NDA, part of which included a $1950 fee just to review our due diligence materials.

This sent up a red flag, naturally. Also, I initiated a google search of this company and found the comments listed here and on whocallsme.com. I had our legal counsel and CFO review the contract with the fee agreement and they both agreed it raised a red flag.

They and our director of special projects called Moe asking for references and to ask that the fee and face-to-face meeting be waved in lieu of a conference call or video conference. Muhammed became very short, accused us of being unprofessional from the moment he had first spoken with my boss, and told us he was going to do us a favor and cancel the meeting altogether.

I found their demeanor strange from the beginning. I understand the need to mask their intentions from "gossipy" administrative assistants, but the questions they asked and their tone, as well as their unwillingness to review our due diligence materials prior to their coming here and meeting our team face to face, indicated to me that they were not in the business of doing anything other than ripping us off. We have been in discussions with several other investment banking groups, none of whom charge upfront fees and all of whom agreed to review of due diligence prior to a meeting.

Thank you very much to the commentors on this site - you just saved my company a lot of money.

I recently interviewed with Kim L. and Houlihan Smith thinking that it would present a good opportunity out of college.  Having no work experience I was under the impression that I would put my time in at whatever job necessary in order to move into other facets of their investment bank.  After interviewing and meeting Kim I was offended multiple times and up in the air about the job.  I took it anyway.

For the first day of training there were three total people present to start the new role.  By the first break, one person had decided to leave. By lunch, I was the only new hire that remained. Thinking that I must at the very least remain throughout the day, I stayed. They proceeded to go over their scheme and how it would work.  Expressing that I should take the "thank you's" "ma'ams" and "sirs" out of my vocabulary.  They told me this was because they exercise "professional arrogance."  At days end I left laughing at how absurd the company and corporate culture was.  I have never been back.  Great first job experience.

I know how to spell "idiot." Perhaps you should learn to punctuate.

Executive Assistant, like most of the people posting here, work for Pres and CEO's.  We are highly qualified and make a pretty decent salary.  We are not gossips and our job is to route out all of the sale people calling to bother our bosses.  I just got this call too.  I told him the boss is out of town.  Now I know to make sure to tell him he is on an extended vacation.

Same kind of call I got. He implied that my boss should know who he was. I said that I had already asked my boss about him and he didn't. I said maybe if he told me what it was about it would prompt my boss to remember him. He said it was personal and sensitive. I could tell he was a fake from the start. These guys are stupid if they think they are going to get past the receptionist by being a jerk. lol

Why do I also suspect that the person who posted this has an agenda?  I received a call from this "company" today, and it was the standard, aggressive, pushy, rude [***] that calls when they're trying to get through to a President by intimidation.  If this is a legitimate company, they'll never get through any good secretary with their tactics.  I'm more inclined to write them off as scam artists along with 98% of the other people posting about them.  People who make their money by scamming others are a wart on the tush of humanity and a pain in all of the tushies of the people they bother with their barrage of unwanted, nasty phone calls!  I personally worked for a company who was scammed by one of these "financial service" companies.  Awful people, indeed.

After reading all these posts, I decided I am going to use another tactic...Instead of putting these people to voicemail or being as rude to them as they are to me, I will politely tell them to wait while I connect them to the CEO and I will keep them on hold!  Eventually they will hang up AND I will have the satisfaction of knowing these rude people have lost the opportunity to bother as many people in a day.  Just think if everyone does this...

I receive several calls a week from this company and like most people post, they are very pushy and rude.  The last call was from Patrict.  They always claim to know the CEO and say they will call him on his cell.  Yeah right! Anyway, hang up on these guys!

OK...here we go again. Another useless company leeching off of professional companies. Let me tell you something, I have an Iron Fist because I don't have the time to listen to BS. If I don't know you, then chances are the President doesn't know you.

Today I got a call from Rob Becker. He didn't state what company he was calling from but I ALWAYS take their number down so I can post it here. Rob was asking for a "BILL" at our office. The man has not worked for our company in years!!! Shows you how well Houlihan Smith researches its prospects. So I tell him he is not available. Rob asks to speak to the person in charge of Finance. I tell him no one is available so I will take his info down and forward it to their dept. He sounds frustrated but he ends up giving his phone number.

Word of advice...don't ask for an employee that hasn't worked for the company in 5+ years!!! What a bunch of idiots!

They call here fairly often, and when they do, I'm very polite and ask who's calling and what company they're with. I then say "hold on a moment" and put them on hold. Typically they hold for about 30 seconds or so before giving up.

Why not just hang up on them? They're wasting my time, so I like to waste some of their time in return.

The only Houlihan I want to talk to is Margaret Houlihan, AKA Hotlips!

Called asked for me,I am the owner of the company. I told him I was not in. Gave me the message and made it appear lke I know him. I do not.

Receive MANY calls from these yahoos.  When asked what it is regarding they say "he knows", I then tell them I cannot put any calls through without detailed information.  They say it is "personal business", I then tell them I am his personal secretary and am privy to all personal information.  They still refuse to give any information and say they will contact him later. I always wish them good luck knowing they will NEVER get past me.  They have no idea that I am also the owner's wife and a co-owner of this company.  I love to leave them on hold and continually get back on the line asking them to hold longer that he will be right with them.  Play your cards right and you can irritate them more than they irritate you.

I received a call from company today asking to speak to the owner (and yes, he did mention the owner's name).

I asked for his name, he said Mark Brown.
I asked for the name of his company, he said Houlihan Smith.

I put him on hold. I figured this call wasn't legit. Plus they've been calling our place of business for the past few years. I told him the owner left for the day and asked him if he wanted to leave a message. He said no and will call back at a later time.

He was very short and curt with me.

I shouldn't take the "offered right away" entry level position with them huh? Oh by the way, I went to training today and the guy that was training us (his name is Omar, but he calls himself Kevin Miller) didn't know how to spell entrepreneur...he wrote it on the board like entraparnuer (claiming that there should be an "a" somewhere) I wanted to laugh at him so bad but held myself back just in case I decided on taking the job. The receptionist is so rude as well; Kim is nice if you know how to talk to her but she is used to talking to douchbags who usually are the people that work there and that's why she comes off as rude.

I am going to call B.S. on this.  Looks like between the pushy cold calls, they are also writing comments on these forums.

Got a job offer from a Miss Kim LaDolce, probably one of the rudest most unresponsive human being in North America. My resume is astounding, my past work record is amazing and I'm financially secure for the rest of my life. I was eager to get back to work and this looked like a decent inside sales position. Kim LaDolce called and said she had lost my resume and that I would need to call her back!!! I laughed at her and hung up, she preceded to call my phone 4 or 5 more times. I'm so happy I was able to check these loser scam artists out before I ever really considered it. If you hire moron people, you'll have a co. making moron phone calls.