Vector Marketing is a direct selling subsidiary company and the domestic sales arm of Cutco Corporation, an Olean, New York-based cutlery manufacturer. The company was founded in 1981 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company sells via individual sales representatives who sell Cutco cutlery via one-on-one demonstrations, typically through home visits. The company has been the subject of criticism and lawsuits for its business practices, and has been accused of being a multi-level marketing company. Salespeople are generally young and recruited from high school or college; Vector's recruitment tactics have been described as deceptive, and they have faced numerous lawsuits over their pay structure and treatment of its salespeople, who are mostly independent contractors instead of employees. Vector claims they are a single-level direct selling marketing company, not a multi-level marketing company, and they are not a pyramid scheme as its detractors claim. History Vector Marketing Corporation was founded in 1981 by Don Freda in Glenolden, Pennsylvania as an independent seller of Cutco Cutlery products manufactured by the Alcas Corporation. It quickly became one of the top sellers of Cutco products, and in 1985, it was acquired by Alcas, which was struggling with sales following their split from former parent company Alcoa in 1983. In 2009, Alcas changed its name to Cutco Corporation, with Vector its domestic sales subsidiary. In 2019, Vector Marketing reported $273.8 million in sales. Business model Vector Marketing is a direct selling company that has built its sales force through advertising via newspapers, word-of-mouth, posted advertisements, letters and various media on the internet. The Los Angeles Times claims that Vector meets the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) definition of a multi-level marketing company because they sell their product through person-to-person sales, but Vector argues that they employ single-level marketing and don't meet the FTC definition of "businesses that involve selling products to family and friends and recruiting other people to do the same" because higher-level employees don't profit from the revenue of people they recruit. While the company has paid millions of dollars in lawsuits alleging deceptive recruiting practices, since it does actually sell a product, it is not a pyramid scheme. The company recruits sales representatives from high schools and college campuses in the United States and Canada, sometimes through misrepresentation of affiliation with the school. Sales representatives are employed as independent contractors to sell Cutco products (mainly kitchen knives) to customers, typically their friends and family members,