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Debbie Davis Ad Finem D/B/A Focus + Finance In late Feb 2011 I signed a contract with Ms. Davis that stated in 3 months my pay was to go up $5 dollars. In 3 months she made an excuse not to give me the raise and hired someone else to continue Brooklyn, New York
Ms. Davis contacted me through an ad I placed on Craigslist looking for freelance part time work. We signed a contract that stated I would work for $30 less than my rate until 3 months time when I would receive my raise to my rate of $35/hour. During the 3 months I worked for 3 clients of Ms. Davis', one was virtually,
I did her books at my home office and submitted them back to her via email and hard copies back to Ms. Davis for safe keeping. I then worked for another client on site in Brooklyn and that was for a month and 1/2. I was pulled from that job by Ms. Davis citing that the client wanted a more expert bookkeeper, which was confusing because they did not need an expert all they needed was a data entry person but Davis told me that I lacked experience as a digital Macintosh user. This is not part of what I was hired to do and I did not know the client wanted a paperless office. Having said that I did a good job for that Brooklyn client considering their accounting team in California was slow to give us the books. (this company had moved out of a partnership and was now on their own; their old bookkeeper was in Calfornia and the books were slow in arriving via email and snail mail so Ms. Davis blamed me for not getting the work done properly.
Last client was in NYC on 26th street and 12th Avenue in NYC and I was taught the company's bookkeeping procedures by Ms. Davis which took a month of learning because she does not know how to relate information properly. She gave me the info in dribs and drabs and between trips to Spain to further her ambitions as a visual artist showing in a gallery there. She made 2 such trips while I worked for her company.
Upon her return I was having problems with certain procedures and was asking the staff who worked there how to proceed. The client, RAY BROWN supposedly told Ms. Davis that I was giving him sub par work and he told her to dismiss me. When I asked him, he told me the exact opposite and that he liked my work and he has accepted my resume to forward to people he may know so that I might get more work.
When Ms. Davis returned in late May from her 2nd trip to Spain she laid me off but before doing so we had many discussions via email about work to be done at Ray Brown and at his other company Hudson Studios. Ms. Davis often told me one thing and that thing would change daily and never come to fruition. She was a liar and a cheat and when I asked for the raise due me since 3 months time was up, she promptly hired someone else, told me that I was no longer needed, made me wait days for an answer and had promised me full time staff work (from freelance to staff with benefits) but that never materialized either.
Ms. Davis does not live up to her own contracts and broke our contract making up excuses because she did not want to pay me what I was due. I do not work for her any more or will I ever work again for her but I wanted to report her so that other people will know that she has bad business practices and to not be fooled by her.
While I worked for the lower pay, I was paid but never on time. I always had to wait for the Clients to pay her first so she could pay me. This is a RED FLAG that Debbie Davis lied when she said she had 30-50 clients and that was said during our first meeting and many times thereafter. She refused to send me to anyone else other than Brown and I suspect there are no more clients other than Ray Brown Pro due to the bad economy.
I do not have the funds to sue her as I have moved forward after two weeks of unemployment with out any other compensation from Ms. Davis but I feel it is important to note her behavior; passive aggressive, selfish and self-serving. She supposedly had two other bookkeepers on staff, both of whom were f*** ups and created a lot of problems for her company. She appears to have a lot of people as turnovers and can't keep anyone in place and she seems to be a user even though she pays, she pays late and then does not live up to her own contracts.