Complaint Review: ACT - New York New York

I wanted to warn my fellow consumers out there of an insidious scam that ACT (aka ACT Service, Hal James, in New York and Sebago ME) is conducting. I was first contacted by one of Hal's sales people (Rich Stubbin) who seem fairly legit and knew what he was talking about in placing senior executives in new roles. They seemed particularly knowledgeable about the challenges of placing business owners as well. I did my homework, searched this forum, the BBB Online (they are a member), and followed up on the 2 references they gave me. The references said they were happy with the services and the DB's didn't have anything on them. The service they promised was a custom career marketing program that would entail a detailed executive profile, customer cover letters, and a telemarketing campaign to clients they have all personally known and placed people with. The service price was a little steep ($4900) and the fact they wanted it all upfront should have been a dead giveaway but everything else seemed in order.

What should have been my first big red flag was when I wanted to split my payment up Hal said he could only separate into two payments one week apart on my credit card. I told him that wasn't enough of a space and I needed 30 days to allow for a 401K check to come in and I would tell him as soon as I got it. He agreed, but then 1 week later he charged me a second time putting me in overdraft on my account and costing me money there. I emailed a complaint over which was never addressed. I gave them the benefit of the doubt on this and decided to wait on their service delivery before passing judgment.

The first executive profile was a disaster with numerous spelling and formatting mistakes and took several weeks to get anyway near readable. They I wanted to know where this profile was being sent and where the cover letters were. I was told I must have been mistaken on the cover letters since they never use them, and my profile was being sent out to their entire database of companies to specific hiring managers. I questioned this a being a resume blaster service (I was definitely NOT interested in that and told that to the first sales person I spoke with) and I did not want this to be sent to anyone who hadn't specifically asked to receive profiles from your group. They all assured me that that my resume would be going to hiring managers who specifically asked for this.

We are now almost 60 days into this at this point (remember the 85% placed in 30 days, guess I was off that group since we haven't even started yet) and waiting for any meaningful results. Finally got word they began and then my email flooded with a ton of rejection notices from my profile sent to general HR emails like [email protected] and to a bunch of gmail and hotmail accounts. I was mortified and told them so and insisted they deliver on what I agreed to. Instead they tried to convince me that these spam bounce backs were "results" and I should be pleased. Well I wasn't (would anyone be?) and wanted to know when the one-on-one marking was taking place and I wanted some details on the calls here and what follow ups they were doing on my behalf or I wanted a refund.

Instead what I got back was a nasty email from Hal James to "stop harassing his people" and I was getting what I paid for and there were no refunds of any kind. I decided I was done with the lies from this group at this point and contacted my credit card company, BBB online, and I'm also in the process of filing complaints with the Attorney General's Offices of both NY and ME (where there offices are supposedly located). I'm not sure where all this will end up but in the same time I've had numerous interviews and phone calls with real hiring managers (not the fake ones they supposedly had access to) all prompted from my resume (not that profile they created) on Monster and Dice. I just hope someone reads this and can avoid the amount of time (6 months at this point) and money ($4900) I wasted with this jokers.