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Top Pro Media Group Craig Wertkin Aaron Feldman Shae Adams Jonathan Shipman Crystal Melissa Forced false hourly reporting and no credit for work completed Boca Raton Florida
In March of 2014 was asked to join a development team at this company. When asked how much money I was expecting which everyone in the room agreed on. When I started April 1st, they informed me it would be different. Since it was less than what I and everyone else agreed on, I settled.
Throughout my employment with this company, the "executive team" consisting of Craig Wertkin, Aaron Feldman and Shae Adams all sought to bring in more and more clientelle without expanding their workforce. In fact, their workforce slowly began to wither. People quit, were fired etc. They eventually brought in interns from FAU who basically did little to nothing. Multiple times clients would call in- companies such as Love Jugs (a motorcycle accessory company) complaining about their billing and how it is not reflected properly on their bills. One such company flat out cut this one out of its marketing business. A company called Liv Institute. Their top complaint was that nothing was ever done on their project. Despite knowing this, Aaron Feldman and Craig Wertkin both decided to bring on more and more projects and without finishing anything. This went on for months.
In July of 2014, while Aaron Feldman and Shae Adams were out on a week long vacation on a cruise ship in the Bahamas, client complaints reached an all time high. During this time, 2 new projects were lumped on my lap. Projects which the executive team thought were 2 day projects despite everyone in the office explaining to them that it would be much longer. The "executive team" along with Crystal Melissa all spoke to clients and gave false impressions of completed projects etc. This in turn led to extreme harassment from company owner, Craig Wertkin. Craig has no idea what is going on with his company yet tries to stick his hand into everything- often disrupting work flow and providing further delays.
Projects were often times laid out for Chantelle Breuning- their head graphic designer (a self proclaimed and often vocal, hater of everyone who worked there, and i quote "I hate all of you. Please do not talk to me unless you absolutely need something."). She would then take a predefined template and match it to suit her needs as well as the clients. Unfortunately, the changes she would make would break each template 100% of the time. Attempting to work with her was like tryign to pull teeth from a shark 500 feet underwater.
Many times the complaints would register under the SEO and Marketing department. When I first began working at Top Pro, a woman by the name of Alexia Cotter was in charge of social media. Her work day included: 9am talks about how her 5:30 wake up time enabled her to go to the gym, 9:30am nail filing. Noon- lunch time. 1pm- office gossip with Crystal Melissa. 3pm- possible client meeting, if not phone play time. 4pm- delegate work to content writers. 4:30pm- phone fun time with friends and or boyfriend. As you can see, no client social media marketing happened at all while this lady was "working" for top pro. It is a wide held beleif that she and Aaron Feldman were on a trip to New York and cavorted sexdually while under heavy influence of alcohol despite Aaron being married. This was made very clear by the tension between Aaron Feldman and his wife who shares the same office space.
On the SEO hand, some clients had results whereas most did not. ZOn billing day, the "executive team" and Crystal Melissa (office manager) all had large blocks of time scheduled wherein they would sit in their respective offices to handle phone calls to current clients. 100% of the time, every month rain or shine top pro lost a client. At least 1. Shae Adams and Aaron Feldman would hide themselves in an office and lock the door and have arguments with clients every time this happened. Often yelling and shouting obscenities.
Being a developer, I was curious. So, I would ask my friends what was happening. My friends consisted of other developers and a few of the content writers. The content writers self admittedly "did nothing all day really". They further explained that work was never really assigned to them and that they would write maybe 1 or 2 pages weekly. All developers would work "head down" on all projects assigned making progress every day.
In July of 2014, upon returning from their cruise ship vacation, Aaron Feldman and Shae Adams informed me that they were "extending the probationary period" for which I was hired to see if I could complete a project. Tuthfully, no project I had worked on since being hired was launched- however there was 1 project which had been completed twice by then. The client ended up backing away because a design which the client had approved which top pro's graphic designer had made, fell short when made into a web site. Twice.
I was terminated on August 1st 2014. I had never felt such releif from being let go. Before leaving however, I had finished 2 projects for which I still have all source files and databases. In looking for prospective jobs, I used the dev links as one conversation I had with Aaron Feldman, Shae Adams and Crystal Melissa was that I would receive a letter of recommendation. As it stands, it is September 7th and I still have yet to receive what was promised. In additon, there were multiple hours for which I simply did not charge them in the interest of keeping the job. I go to look at these dev links now and in large letters the link specifically says "Do Not Hire Jonathan Whetsell", which according to Florida labor laws is 100% illegal and I am pursuing this legally for everything I can.
In short, Aaron Feldman considers himself a poker afficianado and chooses to play all cards close to the vest. What this means to prospective clients is thus- he will lie to you, steal from you and cheat you while at the same time making you sign confusing paperwork that practically guarantees underhandedness. Do not bother with this company as they can and will not do anything to "help your business grow". Thank you for reading, I know i threw alot of my personal story in here but I felt it necessary for you to see all the cogs and gears for which this company is solely responsible for attempting to crush.