Complaint Review: UMG Merchanttec HSolutions

They where robbing my small buisiness for fourty nine ninty five out of my acount for ten months.We thought it was our card prossesor.We changed prossesors and it was still taken out.I googled them and found rippoff reports so I started harrassing them .I was not very nice but it only took them about five days from my first contact with them.Damand full refund dont give up and call them every hour if need be.It worked for me

I work for Vici Marketing a telemarketing company that sells UMG 'products', with about 300+ employees doing this for approximately 6 years now. We formerly did a credit card on file sales pitch where we 'sold' grocery coupons and $50 in gas rebates (that you had to pay $49.95 per month in the coupon club membership fees in order to use the $5.00 per month rebate) to consumers. As well as a small group of 40 of us that sold business to business for the company. We sold IT technical support to small businesses with a one month free trial, followed by a charge of $49.95 that were Discover Card Merchants. I was on that program and I can promise you that we HAD to fully disclose what we were sending out, and the terms, which we did on a recorded line.

BUT IT ALL CHANGED REALLY FAST!!!

When the laws changed, the FBI came in and shut us down for 3 days because we had to have telemarketing licenses. Our managers bragged about how the owner of the company donates six figures a year to the governor and state officials and that the governor himself was going to make sure we all were licensed by the end of the week. My license arrived by the following Monday. However there are so many people in the company that have criminal histories, that they weren't able to get licenses for more than half the employees. Since less than half the employees qualified for the licensing the company immediately switched our sales program to business to business company wide, because a license is not required to telemarket to a business. Discover did NOT wish to participate in having such a large amount of their clients bombarded by more than 200 people every day.

So we started calling merchants listed through the phone companies. ALL the phone companies. We now sell 'enrollments' in IT support services to businesses for $49.95 per month. The company does 2000 sales per day Monday thru Friday. That's 10,000 businesses every week that are getting stuck with this. It is no longer sent out on a one month free trial basis either. It is sent out as a 'risk free trial' meaning we charge the business the minute they hang up the phone and IF they catch the charges and want to cancel, then we refund the money. They have the employees divided up between 4 programs, all selling the same exact product under different company names. Merchant Technical Solutions, Advanced Business Solutions, Small Business Technical Solutions and Business Enhancement Services are the 4 company names. With 200+ employees 'fronting' the leads, and 70 employees closing the deals. Each program gets about 10,000 new leads to call on Monday and we call those leads several times per day until we get one of the employees to go into closing.

We start out the call with "Hi! My name is Jane Doe, I'm with Merchant Tech Solutions. We have a package regarding the new tech support and point of sale information for XYZ business in (city name) scheduled to go out today. It should be there in the next 7 to 10 business days, and the shipping department just needs to confirm that the address we have on file is correct so everything gets out to the right place. (then the employee usually says "what address do you have?) Actually, it's my first day here, so the shipping department is helping me with all of that (shipping is the closers) So please let them know I did a good job! It only takes a minute, I have shipping on the line...Shipping go ahead (and we hit transfer)
The closer then picks up the call and starts with: Hi! My name is Joe, I'm in the shipping department, I'll be confirming the address we have on file is correct and getting everything out to you today. And who am I speaking with? (if they don't want to give their name, they say 'the package we are sending actually has a $500 diagnostic assessment for the business so I just need to confirm that someone with the company is aware that it's coming') They give their name: Okay Heather! and who's attention will this be going out to? (heather gives the bosses name) Great and what is your last name heather? (Smith) And your position in the company? (I'm just a receptionist) That's okay, the reason I asked your name and title is because it's okay if I don't speak with (boss) directly, but I have to make sure that I'm speaking with someone that is authorized to answer the phone for the company, and not a customer that happened to walk by and pick up the phone. (this sets poor heather up for the authorization question later on, as you will see) And just to briefly recap what we're sending out, XYZ is listed as a preferred merchant with the local phone company, and theres $60 in rebates going out along with some information regarding tech support, if it's not something that benefits the business thats fine, you don't have to send anything back, but if you and your team see the advantage to it, it is available for just $49.95 per month, but we don't want YOU to make that final decision over the phone today, we send everything out in writing with our toll free number so you and your team can review everything risk free and make an informed decision at your own convenience and Okay Heather I'm just going to read the shipping information I have to you and if there are any changes you can let me know. (the closer clicks on the record button at this time) Oh and I almost forgot Heather, just so you know, for quality assurance they have me on a recorded line. (as if the entire conversation were being recorded, but only the parts that we want on tape are recorded) And todays date is Aug. 12th 2008. And I'm speaking with Heather Smith the receptionist at XYZ correct? (we accept ANY affirmative answer including mhmm) And I have the shipping address as 123 Yellowbrick Road in Emerald City OZ 12345, correct? (mhmm) great! And your authorized on the business phone account and at least 18 years of age correct? (remember he told Heather that he needed someone authorized to ANSWER the phone earlier, so she has been programmed to say yes to this !!!) Okay, and I just need 20 more seconds of your time and I'll let you get back to your busy day! I have to play a really quick recording that gives you our toll free number and website address, so you can get in touch with us if you need to, but it will be in the literature coming out as well. And I'll come on to say goodbye at the end of the recording, PLEASE stay on the line until you hear my voice again at the end, because if you hang up, the computer thinks we were disconnected and will keep calling you back to reestablish the connection, and we don't want to interrupt your day any more than we already have okay (heather laughs and says okay) Then a lightning speed recording comes on that gives the phone number web address and a very garbled explanation of how the company is going to be billed on the current phone bill and every subsequent bill UNTIL someone calls to cancel, at which point that current month will be refunded in full.
The actual service that we're enrolling the business in is nothing but a subcription to a tech support call center. That will talk the business owner through fixing things. OR if they absolutely have to have a person come out, instead of $250 an hour for the housecall, the business is only charged $125 an hour!
Once the business is enrolled, that company immediately is charged on their telephone bill $49.95, and charged every 30 days until they notice the charge, and call to cancel. The company is not taken out of the data base all together though, the lead gets taken out for a week and then is put back into one of the other programs to call. We do this until all 4 companies we're calling for are billing this business, and they are paying us $200 a month.
In the verification process we get the employee to say they are authorized on the business telephone account and at least 18 years of age, on recording so that we have a recorded verbal contract, in case the company tries to dispute the charges. But the majority of companies that we are calling are major corporations, that don't scrutinize over the phone bill. We call Home Depot, Walmart, 7/11 etc. We sell to schools and churches, sometimes even getting students on the phone to agree to the charges on behalf of the school or church, thinking that they are doing a good thing! And government agencies including police stations, the clerk of the court and even the various branches of the military (usually the recruiting stations, because they have to call alot of potential recruits so will probably have large phone bills anyway). We do not get someone in management on the phone, we specifically target the minimum wage employees that answer the phone and have no idea what's going on. But if we do speak with management, we have our script worded so they think that this is sent out company wide and we are merely verifying the address, and because the contents of the package are so valuable, that we have to verify that we're speaking with someone authorized to handle priority information for the company. Sadly, it usually works.
If they say that we have to call corporate for this, we either tell them that it is something that is going out to each location, or we tell them that they are supposed to forward the information to corporate when it arrives. If they say they are not authorized, we stop the recording, and start the verification over, and restart the recording, so we have them on tape agreeing one way or the other.
Our managers will stand in front of the room every morning for the meeting and joke about how we have to send qualified and authorized people with the company over to the closers, and then one of them will throw in a comment telling us, that if they aren't authorized, we have to make sure they at least think they are before they go so they can go to closing.
I HATE my job, and I'm currently going to school, so I can get out of there, but I just want to tell everyone I speak to on the phone what they are really getting into, but I've been written up on numerous occassions as it is for not pitching certain business. Cause when the Hospice for Cancer comes up on the screen or some small business owned by a Mom and Pop senior citizens, I can't in good conscious let them do this, and I put them on the do not call list, and I've been suspended for doing it. Until I finish school I need this job, but I would love to see them shut down. The sell 10k business per week! that amounts to 520,000 businesses every year, that are being conned out of ALOT of money.