Complaint Review: Viaero - Internet Internet

Viaero
aka:
Viaero Wireless
Cellular One of Northeast Colorado
CELLULAR ONE OF NORTHEAST COLORADO, INC.
NE COLORADO CELLULAR, INC.
VIAERO MESSAGING
STAY CLOSE. GO FAR.
INDUSTRIAL COMMUNICATIONS & ELECTRONICS, INC.

Viaero is a small wireless carrier that goes after RURAL areas of Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming.  They have stores in towns of 500-10,000 people mainly in Nebraska although they are headquartered in Fort Morgan, CO led by owners Frank Dirico, Mike Felicissimo, and Steve Neilson of Florida.

Because of the rural nature of their business they are very desperate for staff in many of their locations and resort to bait and switch hiring practices to attract sales talent.

For Example:  In the Imperial, Nebraska store they have been without a manager for almost a year and have had to bring coverage from individuals in stores over 100 miles away in Kansas.  They have also churned sales reps in Imperial going through several in just 7 months time.

My experience with Viaero confirms the above.  I was hired as a store manager for the Imperial, Nebraska location.  Expectations were set of a 3 month ramp up period to a $55k annual compensation.  After accepting the position and turning down my other offers I was required to drive to Fort Morgan for a 3 week training on my own dime.

After spending some time in the small community of Fort Morgan, where Viaero is headquartered, I quickly found out about their poor track record with the people of Fort Morgan.  I encountered several individuals who were former Viaero employees and others who simply complained about their service. 

The story was the same from the former employees about their burn and turn hiring practices.  They have you make a list of 100 people you know that you will solicite on their behalf while you make peanuts and then burn you in the end to hire another person with a 100 list. 

The same can be said on how they treat their customers.  Several complained about enormous bills sales and reps flat out lying to get the sale.  I observed reps lying to customers during my on the job training as well as several people coming in upset that they were lied to. 

And get this: they call your MyGroup numbers!!!  Thats right, if you have one of their friends and family cell plans and add your buddies, they call them and use your name to try and sale them!  Well Viaero, there is this little thing called CPNI (Consumer Private Number Information)and I dont think what you are doing is even legal!

Adding insult to injury, during the 3 week training their service went down completely twice without warning for 24 hour periods!  They said they were doing updates! Why not give their customers a heads-up?  Later the truth came out that they messed up and Nokia came in a saved their butts with some switch equipment.

Several trainees began to ask questions and were quickly pulled aside and harassed by the training department head, a Miss Carly Brown.  Clearly they did not want to deal with any issues head on and instead tried to belittle myself and other students who could actually think for themselves. 

All of it reflected poorly to the other students in the class and by the end of training 2 of the students had enough and quit.

During the 2nd week of training I became really uncomfortable and realized that they had not given me a copy of my compensation plan.  In the interview the territory manager, Jesse Pfortmiller, penciled it on some paper which he kept and I wondered if there was some slide of hand going on.  I asked to be emailed a copy and was strung along for 2 weeks before going to human resources.
I got nowhere with human resources other than to find out it was a 6 months ramp up and not a 3 month ramp up before I could even earn a commission.  I took issue with the lie that was told and they basically said that I could either stay or go.  Of course this was after I invested 30 days of my time and my money and taking a pass on my other offers.

After completing training and talking to my wife over the weekend I decided to hang in there as I had no other options at the time.  I asked again on Monday for a copy of my comp plan and was told by Jesse Pfortmiller that it is proprietary Viaero information.  What kind of company will not give an employee their comp plan?  Clearly the relationship had become adverse so I left Viaero to avoid any further harassment.

Viaero Wireless breeds a cut-throat sales culture that stems clear up to the top.  This goes for how they treat their employees as well as how they treat their customers.  If you are forced to deal with this company in any capacity I strongly recommend you cover your own and get everything in writing as both an employee and a customer. 

I have never encountered more of an unprofessional group of people in my career.  The sales division is poorly managed and the sales culture there is poison.  They must think they can get away with this as they do business in rural America and believe they can fleece these people.  Us small town people need to stick together.  Hopefully this saves some of you out there from a bunch of heartache in dealing with Viaero Wireless. 

Think twice before you put your name on this company.  I certainly regret my experience with Viaero and will stick with larger more reputable carriers and others who respect my privacy and deal in a more straight-forward, honest manner.