Complaint Review: West Telemarketing As Well As Others - Omaha Nebraska

I am a 35 year old young lady, right now I work as an Independant contractor for a great company in the accounting software feild. When I call prospective customers or current customers , I tell them I work for the company I actually do work for.

Now let me ask you , I have worked for Dial america in the past as well have worked for West telemarketing, in the call center as a tech support agent for earthlink as well as an agent for USSA earthlink ( which is the dial up service for military personel) . I have also worked as a WAHA agent for West Telemarketing, with the lines Home Shopping Network, Direct Responce and Virgin Mobile.

When I was with West in the Call center doing Tech support for Earthlink( which i did for a little over a year). i didn't mind it too much with the exception of they want your call times to be super low with a very low average call time, It seamed as though they would have much rather you pushed through the calls instead of make the customers happy. Either way most if not all of my recorded/graded calls were 85% and above, which is a grade of a little over average. I did get in trouble a few times for having a high call time or ( ALC Average Length of Call) but i refused to get off the phone with customers until I knew they were satisfied regardless if I got in trouble or not :}.

With my WAHA (Work At Home Agent) Status , i never recieved a Good Recorded / Grade because I would except the Answer NO to any upsells only once. I figure If you tell me NO once you mean NO. I tried it twice working as a WAHA and the first time was in the end of 04 to the beginning of 05, working for Home shopping Network. Then again in the end of 06 to somewhere in the middle of 07, taking calls for Direct Responce and then Virgin Mobile . Both attempts to work with these call lines was not a great experience. I was tring to support two boys , with this and I ended up wasting alot of time . For each call line you have to train and learn all of the materials , without getting paid, for 10 days(Each Call Line) as well as a few calls for testing with a PAL ( not Paid).Then busy or not you have to be prepared to take a call if they do not have alot of calls coming in or not. So I sat in front of my computer staring at it not getting paid and making sure there was no one going to knock on my door or my kids were being quite so I could follow the rules of no back ground noise, to get a check after putting in several hours for about 150 -200 bucks in two weeks. Verses what they pay in the call center for their employees 10.00 bucks an hour, which isnt much but at least it paid some bills. Also you know I am so not the type of person to have to make people unhappy or unsatisfied and I would get disaplined for everytime I would stop tring to sell people things they didnt want.

Does the spectrum system work at the office of for signing up for hours , no unless things had changed , It signed me up for wrong hours and it was not acurate . As a WAHA IC I had to follow every guideline they produced if not I was repremanded, when I need to pass a person onto a superviser (PAL) It was a long wait for the customer and I , which would result in Customer getting upset even more and myself caught in the middle trying to explain away why I couldnt get a superviser on the line , and why it took so long.

I never was paid for anytime on the phone with a PAL and while the systems were down which was quite a bit , when West wanted to call me (NO PAY) . It was really an awful deal, and thats why I joined the LAWSUIT. While I was being forced to do all of this upselling and fraudulent sales , WEST was REAPING the BENEFITS of commision while none of the WAHA IC would see any of it, this is where WEST was able to make most if not all of their money:} from WAHA and continue just in a slightly different way, but it is all the same .

By the way if you do decide to WORK for WEST as WAHA IC, do not work THIRD SHIFT as this is WHEN you get HARRASSED by all the PREVERTS calling in for the INFORmercial, with Those Video's simaler to Girls Gone WILD ( Belive it was called (Wild Young PARTY GIRLS) , and I recieved so many calls that were degrating and just down right nasty, I will leave it at that.It was SO NOT WORTH IT !!!

With Dial America, which is also a well known telemarketing company, I worked the lines of selling Magazines, Bank of America Credit Cards, as well as AOL High speed Internet ( Road Runner) .

In all of these companies ( with the exception of the one I work for now) I was forced to portrey myself as working as an employee , for each individal call line . So lets say I took a call and it was Earthlink tech support call, I had to say I worked for earthlink and not West which was my true Employer .

When I was making calls for Dial America it was the same, I would call up a potential Customer and would have to tell them I worked for that peticular company.

Customers or Prospects would not know any different, let me ask you, with your personal opinion, DO YOU THINK THAT IS FRAUD, PORTREYING YOURSELF TO WORK FOR SOMEONE YOU DO NOT WORK FOR???

The company I work for now as an Indepentant Contractor is a great company to ask for and I love them , they do not ask me to portrey myself as working for anyone else , they WANT me to make sure the people I am talking to are happy regardless of what they are using now .

Mrs d

Omaha, Nebraska

U.S.A.

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