Complaint Review: West Corporation

A class action lawsuit has now been filed for this IC vs employee status among several other things that are listed in the class action, including issues with pay and other things that I have seen listed here on this web site. In the papers I recieved last week about this class action, they are going back to June 2005 IC status and up to current employees. The class action apparently began as a complaint with the Dept of Labor standards, and has moved forward. If you worked there it's to all of our benefit, for both past and current employees and IC's to sign on and see what we can do to send a message and affect a change.

I was with west since 07/2006 until 9/2008. West went 'employee' status Sept 2007.
The upsells were forced, we had to give them even if we were stopped when reading, we were supposed to continue from that point over and over and over. I lost many sales due to this policy over 2 years. By the time many heard three or four and sometimes there would be 12 or more to go through, they were downright mad or simply hung up. (sometimes this results in 30-45 minutes on a call, for something very simple in a product they called for, I don't blame them for hanging up!).
Then the policy was changed, to be if they stop you with a no, go to rebuttal. If they insist on no more upsells give a bypass and complete the order. What they didn't say there is that we have to have the customer IRATE before we bypass, and if you bypass they only want you to use a certain statement you can NOT tell the caller I am supposed to give you the information, but you can decline. I did that, not knowing, and recieved a coaching.
I gave a bypass statement after a caller had told me at least 4 times I only want what I called for, nothing more, he wasn't mad yet, or he could have been, I don't see the point in taking the chance and loosing the sale, I didn't want to make him mad I gave the bypass statement and recieved a coaching for giving him a bypass statement they said was not needed. When I told them I disagreed with the policy and decision, they did not like that.

I also told them I didn't want to recieve negative phone calls. They would call, email and post to home page for everything negative. For anything positive, you never saw feedback. Thier phone calls were not paid time, you were never paid if they called you, and that is company business time you should be paid for. You were also never paid for time you spent having to call them in off duty time, or unscheduled time to get issues fixed, also a common occurrance. I told them not to call me with the negative, if I am off work that's my personal time. This particular morning, I had an appointment I had to be at and could not cancel and they were insistant on having this unpaid coversation on my time.
The negative feedback in my opinion did not need to be three or four or ten times, so I told them don't call me with the negative, on my personal time, then email me the same information and also post it to the work site, that's three times the amount of time needed of MY time for the same issue and that they said was 'rude' and termination followed.
I am not sad about loosing this job, I disagree with the way business is performed, the products that are pushed onto the callers that the callers do not want. On the line I was working, we experienced in the last few months, hours capped, wages cut for no reason, or none given to us, and only for some lines, but they keep hiring and no one gets anything for actual hours of worktime. You were lucky to see an average of 20 hours a week with an hours cap at 30 and they were still hiring more people for this line!
The unemployment person felt the need to share with me the dept of labor phone number, that I did already have and had used several times in the past year to check on things that felt not legal, like wages being averaged for 'employees' (only receive a min wage guarantee, wages averaged per week while they also claim to pay per min rate, if the per min rate is one cent above min wage for the entire week of hours you received NO adjustment, hours are added together, per day then divided to see if it equals your state min wage for the week. experience with that was there would be one busy day, the rest dead or very slow, west controls the volume you receive, the average from the busy day would make up for sitting there the rest of the week and no adjustment would be made, you rarely made above min wage no matter how many hours you worked).
Unemployment person seemed to think it was not a lawful termination, the way it is still there as an account lock and there has been no final check issued, law here says they have 24 hours to mail the final pay check on termination, so they get around that by doing an account 'lock' you can't work but you also have not been paid but are effectively terminated. This company truly bends hard, but doesn't break completely, the rules yardstick! They come very close to breaking the rules, so close even the dept of labor says thier employment practice, especially with the pay, is considered highly unethical.

I received notification from the IRS on June 30, 2008 that I was an employee, not a contractor, for West.
In fact, an opening paragraph in the letter I received from the IRS states:
The employment tax status of call agents for West Telemarketing LP was previously addressed by this office.

You can infact, be an independent contractor (1099) and have some what of an employee status, ie. company contracting you out, has control over what you do. In that event, you are somewhat of a statutory employee. My husband is 1099, working his own bread route, but the company (larger distributor) controls, how he runs it. He goes into his stores at a certain time( schedule), he has to go back to the warehouse (check-in), and other duties that would have it appear that he is an employee. He has actually functioned as an employee for other companies, doing the same job. The difference now is that he owns his equipment(truck & handtruck), and he is paid on commission). There are some distinctions, but it is not illegal for a company to function i the way that West has in the past. They had no control over your schedule, so that in and of itself, made it easier for you to be classified as an IC. There are other major and minor distinctions, but as y ou research you will find that they were doing nothing "illegal". Many companies do it, and some are skirting the law, but many others do it. and it's not illegal. West is a big company, and they've been around for a while, I don't think that they would jeopardize their business, for this one WAH division.

The fact tha they are now employers works out well for me, even though we don't have some of the benefits of employees. I've been a 1099er for over 10 years, ans my husband has been for 2 years. We've switched roles a bit, but I'm cool with it.

The "independent contractor vs. employee" distinction is significant in a few ways, not just per taxes. Without getting into the particulars, suffice it to say that, for the worker, you're generally better off as an "employee," and for the company, it's better that you be an "independent contractor."

So, naturally, most companies would prefer that their laborers be independent contractors. In most circumstances, legitimate companies that care about complying with the law will make an honest distinction. Fraudulent companies do their best to "straddle the line" or outright classify obvious employees as independent contractors.

The language that you cited above is a solid, but overly simplistic summation of what is actually a very complex principle of law. The IRS actually employs an eight-factor test to determine whether someone is an independent contractor or an employee. These factors look, for example, to whether the work is performed on the property of the employer, whether the employer provides the tools for the job, etc. The bottom line IS, however, that an employee is one over whom an employer can exert a certain deal of control as to the way in which the job is done.

If you were in fact an "employee," and it kind of sounds like you were, you may have had certain entitlements under the law, such as health insurance and other mandatory employee benefits. You may want to consult with an attorney, and you probably should send a letter to the IRS apprising them of this situation.

Best of luck!

The "independent contractor vs. employee" distinction is significant in a few ways, not just per taxes. Without getting into the particulars, suffice it to say that, for the worker, you're generally better off as an "employee," and for the company, it's better that you be an "independent contractor."

So, naturally, most companies would prefer that their laborers be independent contractors. In most circumstances, legitimate companies that care about complying with the law will make an honest distinction. Fraudulent companies do their best to "straddle the line" or outright classify obvious employees as independent contractors.

The language that you cited above is a solid, but overly simplistic summation of what is actually a very complex principle of law. The IRS actually employs an eight-factor test to determine whether someone is an independent contractor or an employee. These factors look, for example, to whether the work is performed on the property of the employer, whether the employer provides the tools for the job, etc. The bottom line IS, however, that an employee is one over whom an employer can exert a certain deal of control as to the way in which the job is done.

If you were in fact an "employee," and it kind of sounds like you were, you may have had certain entitlements under the law, such as health insurance and other mandatory employee benefits. You may want to consult with an attorney, and you probably should send a letter to the IRS apprising them of this situation.

Best of luck!

The "independent contractor vs. employee" distinction is significant in a few ways, not just per taxes. Without getting into the particulars, suffice it to say that, for the worker, you're generally better off as an "employee," and for the company, it's better that you be an "independent contractor."

So, naturally, most companies would prefer that their laborers be independent contractors. In most circumstances, legitimate companies that care about complying with the law will make an honest distinction. Fraudulent companies do their best to "straddle the line" or outright classify obvious employees as independent contractors.

The language that you cited above is a solid, but overly simplistic summation of what is actually a very complex principle of law. The IRS actually employs an eight-factor test to determine whether someone is an independent contractor or an employee. These factors look, for example, to whether the work is performed on the property of the employer, whether the employer provides the tools for the job, etc. The bottom line IS, however, that an employee is one over whom an employer can exert a certain deal of control as to the way in which the job is done.

If you were in fact an "employee," and it kind of sounds like you were, you may have had certain entitlements under the law, such as health insurance and other mandatory employee benefits. You may want to consult with an attorney, and you probably should send a letter to the IRS apprising them of this situation.

Best of luck!

The "independent contractor vs. employee" distinction is significant in a few ways, not just per taxes. Without getting into the particulars, suffice it to say that, for the worker, you're generally better off as an "employee," and for the company, it's better that you be an "independent contractor."

So, naturally, most companies would prefer that their laborers be independent contractors. In most circumstances, legitimate companies that care about complying with the law will make an honest distinction. Fraudulent companies do their best to "straddle the line" or outright classify obvious employees as independent contractors.

The language that you cited above is a solid, but overly simplistic summation of what is actually a very complex principle of law. The IRS actually employs an eight-factor test to determine whether someone is an independent contractor or an employee. These factors look, for example, to whether the work is performed on the property of the employer, whether the employer provides the tools for the job, etc. The bottom line IS, however, that an employee is one over whom an employer can exert a certain deal of control as to the way in which the job is done.

If you were in fact an "employee," and it kind of sounds like you were, you may have had certain entitlements under the law, such as health insurance and other mandatory employee benefits. You may want to consult with an attorney, and you probably should send a letter to the IRS apprising them of this situation.

Best of luck!