Complaint Review: Wireless Retail.

WOW! I read all the other responses from old employees and cant say that i was suprised one single bit! I used to work for WRI myself out of Denver Colorado, started in a walmart ended in a Sams club, only because the closed all Kiosk in the walmarts. I happend to be one of the top reps out of Colorado.
I was screwed out of Several thousands of dollars and after a year of putting up with it, I left the company. I thought it was only us reps out of Colorado that i worked with that was being screwed. (What can i say, i had a DM, that sugar coated everything)
I thought several times about trying to start a class action law suite and had several other employees that would have loved for me to do so.
I worked with a whole lot of younger reps, who (as stated in one of the comments) where there for hourly wages and to talk about getting a piece of a*s, and how fast they could drive. I figured it would probably take a lot of energy to get a class action suite going.
Maybe not! Do you know how many people this company has ripped off nation wide?
Now I figure they have already "sold" there would be a fat chance in getting my several thousands from WRI!
But.... if this class action suite is "REAL" i would be very interested in joining, along with another 15+ people out of the Colorado market alone.

Ahh and where to start on the wireless retail battle. I suppose with the employees, for that is where the true trouble lies. Too many employees, and especially the ones on here seem to have had the wrong idea while working for WRI. It is true there are numerous scams which can be run, and it is true that some managers do encourage them. But this does not mean that the employees MUST do them.

I've been employed with WRI for a little over a year now and have been able to, and continue to, make solid money. Far too many employees believe the only way to make money is to scam, but in reality the way to make the most is NOT to. The services being sold are services that sell exceptionally well cross country regardless of location (corporate vs indirect). The key to sales is honesty. Customers know when someone is being honest and will buy from those that are. Customers are aware that no matter where they buy a carrier it will still function the same. So why be the rep that tells them it'll work everywhere? Why not tell them about extra charges? These things are the same everywhere, tell them honestly and have some wit about you and you'll do quite well.

On the corporate end the story is somewhat different. Many parts of the company are poorly ran, there are issues of inventory, IT, and indeed payroll. The key to these is to be proactive in all. Too many reps will push the inventory that is easy to sell, the best free phones they have, but often times a customer would be well satisfied, and sometimes moreso with a phone that the rep themselves does not like. Problems with IT come down to whether or not you know your way around a computer and just how much time you spend on the internet. Payroll, well, comission reports are available as is a reconcilliation process. It is rare that there are true errors in payroll, rather that half of a reps comissions weren't verified. Do your paperwork right, send it in on time, and keep store copies as you should and it is rare to receive 'incorrect' pay.

I worked for WRI for 2 years in the Ohio Market. There were many highs and lows that came along with my job. When I started you could not beat the money for a college student's life style. Management was pretty much like family we were a very close crew.

So, when it came down to following the companies slogan "Whatever it takes" we all did. We wanted to make your managers happy and the possiblity for promotion was always available.

Well by doing "Whatever it takes" many employees got so stressed out and nervous to under perform they were either told or forced to lie and cover up hidden details to customers.

I do not think it was ever told once to a customer about the $200.00 breech of contract, WRI charges. Now, I dont know for a fact but this is probably why WRI is able to discount their phones so much compaired to the corporate locations. Corp. does not charge this!

Earthlink sales! Now this is probably all I have to say! If you have worked or do work for WRI now you know what I am talking about. Fraudulant credit card processing. I think many reps or FM's and upper management should be behind bars for some of the illegal activities this company encounters every day.

Now, I am not saying I never took part in this activity. As a rep. for WRI I always tried my best to avoid activities like this. When the company went to a draw commisson salary..I left as soon as I could. With this type of pay you are pretty much forced to either lie to the customer or you will be making $5.15/hr. I dont care what other brain washed WRI employees say. I was brain washed too at one point, so I understand if you take offense to any of this. You will understand one day, trust me!

Currently I work for T-mobile corp. in Dayton, OH. Not only do we make it the #1 issue to serve our customers. It is a perfessional environment were sales are always important however done honestly!

IF I can give advice to any employee looking to work in the wireless industry. Go Corp. the money and lifestyle is much much much better.

Remember that fraudalant HEPP we used to sell. It coved manufactured defects. Sounded good..replaced in 48 hrs. Why go through Nokia right takes forever to replace. Well we were all selling a product that they already had. At least with T-mobile if you purchase a phone you get a 1 year warrenty which is FREE at time of purchase. No matter where you buy the phone. We send you a new or slightly used for at NO CHARGE!! I think WRI just thinks there customers are dumb! Lets rip off our customers, brain wash our sales reps and make money!!
KINDA SOUNDS PRETTY EVIL TO ME HUH?

I am a former employer of wireless retail , and i am in agreement of all that was stated. I worked for the company as a kiosk supervisor in a small location in clarksville, tn. I believe this compan is fraudulant i use to sell the company's hepp plan until one day i had a cust come in who was having problems with getting their phone replace/fixed i personally called up the hepp comp. and they stated that they would not fix/replace the customers phone until they received the 34.99 so when they recieve it they fix it, this customer had purchased this plan 5 months ago it should have already been there. Plus we don't get paid for selling earthlink or hepp .Then there's the earthlink scam where we were instructed to just go ahead and sign them up for the free trial for 30 days with their credit card and then when the customer leaves the store to just sign on once and then call and cancel it because u get paid for it as long as they sign on. I have also had a problem with my commision checks since i started working there they have never been right their always missing $200.00 to $350.00 and whenever i submitted the reconciliation form it never got taken care of i was told the process had changed then once i got the new information i was told that it never was received i resent it and then the proccess changed i call my field manager and he would just state oh it will be on your next check, it will be there next week sometimes it took up to 4weeks for me to recieve a check .My old field manager also liked to pre-sale phones .He would have us tell the customer to go ahead a take the free phone and the phone that they wanted would be in next week and they he would tell us that he would send it or bring it by, in the meantime the customers are coming by every week getting irate with us (the sales people) because of something our manager promise needless to say evertime this was promised it took so long because the phone was on back order or cancelled so i manager knew this the whole time but just had us having the customer wait that way they are locked into contract because the went past their 14 days. I also have a problem with the companies HR department there was a sexual harassment complaint made and nothing was done about it . Also who is gonna pay us for all this training that we have done all of these courses that we had to take and that know that just decided to stop, or whats goin on with the wraps points that they took the only reward for working for this company. So to some this up please use your brains and don't even consider working for this company unless you have alot of money saved up and just like working to kill time because you wont get paid for it ,alos adam-solo,oh please contact respond back

i KNow because i originally started out in a Best Buy selling for WRI, and yeah we made 5-6k a month easily, actually if you didn't make that much you were retarded, but the people in best buys, k-marts and BJ's couldn't say the same.

It doesn't matter now anyways becasue it's not like their gonna pay you for your efforts, they are broke. T mobile will not give them any more phones, Nextel cut off all of their demo lines, Cingular is not giving them any more phones. They owe me thousands for sells they never paid. but i'm head ing a class action lawsuit with 20+ others that will send them a message.

Location does matter-more than you might think. If your running a store on the south side of chicago your not going to sell anything but cingular and maybe a nextel or two if the right drug dealers come in looking for one. If you work in Park Ridge or Arlington Heights then your gonna sell more AT@T and sprint, and T-Mobile your gonna sell anywhare. The commishion yuou get with WRI is based on the company and the rate plan you write up-not just the fact that you got the sale. Every location sells but only some can make serious bank. I used to work for WRI and im actually hoping to start workingg for them again sometime soon. No company is perfect-ive been working for Kirby for the past 2 months-WRI is holy ground compared to Kirby. If you suck at sales your gonna suck at any sales job, s**t with kirby i pull down aver 500 a week and im still gonna try and go back to WRI.
And its not that some people are born with it and some arent-thats an arogant statement, its that some people want it and some dont.

George I didn't mean to come across as a harsh individual and I do agree that SOME locations vary from one another but the bottom line is that if you CAN sell and you CAN offer a customer (who perhaps already has service and is out of contract) a better plan then what they currently have then by all means make your pitch to the customer.

You're right that customers usually don't want to be bombarded with third party vendors such as WRI but we are there to offer our services to the customers...plain and simple. You're going to get people who come to us because of our fantastic service (I'm not talking about EVERY market, though) and others because the salesperson was able to stir up a conversation in which the customer realized that they could indeed use our services!

It's just a matter of how you look at the situation. As for traffic in a store and it's location...well, the top producing store in my market is actually a K-Mart (not a Sam's Club) and I truly believe that the store would not be as successful if it weren't for the CSR that works there. As a matter of fact I KNOW that it wouldn't be as successful.

Some of us are born salespeople while others are born to do another line of work. It's not a bad thing rather just a difference in what we decide to do with our lives. Thanks for listening.

Dear Mr. TM Ben,

You talk so eloquently that I'm sure everyone who read your rebuttal will be knocking down your door looking for a job.

I am an employee for Wireless Retail also. I have been in sales for more than 5 years. However I see your arguement as flawed and contrived. Location does matter. Any expert will tell you that. Fast talking salespeople are great for sales and also great for returns and customer complaints. Sure its about networking and interacting with the public. Some people know lots of people too.

How many "good" cell phone purchases are impulse buys? How much better are purchases where the customer is informed and buying the phone on price and customer service?
I'm also sure everyone loves a pushy salesperson that is trying to sell them cell fones when they came into the Retailer for what it carries not some small third person company trying to sell things out of a glorified cardboard box with chairs and a computer.

I'm sure belittling employees that need a little more training is a "smart" business choice and adds value to the business and employee.

First off, I am a TM for the company and while things don't always go the way them seem the only reason why you weren't making any $$$ is because you obviously suck as a salesperson! I have a guy who works in a K-Mart (not a Sam's Club) who "banks" as you put it close to 6k a month and that's only working two weeks a month!!! It's VERY the location but rather the person. I've hired people in the past who stand around with their thumb up their a** thinking that customers are going to approach them. Well, that's not the case. Like any commissioned sales job you have to "solicit" the sale(s) from people in order to succeed and make the money. This means getting out in the store (aroundt the kiosk, store, etc.) and greeting people with what you have to offer. It also means approaching people as they're walking by you and not sitting there playing on the computer! Bottom line here, if you weren't making sales don't blame the location/store, blame yourself!