- Report: #1199051
Complaint Review: Marketing Operatives - Internet
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Author Not Confirmed
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Marketing Operatives
Internet, USA
Phone:
310-438-0200
Web:
marketing-operatives.com
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Marketing Operatives John McCoy, John Does Not Run The Type Of Agency He Says He Does - Complete Ripoff Hermosa Beach California
Hired by John to subcontract work out for this company (which he likes to position as his own employees through his clever naming conventions) I was paid to manage a large paid advertising campaign for a mobile app marketing company they do work for under the premise I would be paid $20 / hr for such services. How stupid was myself for agreeing to this as you will learn despite it being a good learning experience overall.
Upon initially engaging with John, John had strongly pushed for myself to agree to do net 30 billing terms with his very shady organization which I initially declined for due to no apparent billing history I could find. I had renegotiated with John to work on the oDesk contracting site to ensure I would get paid for such work (or so I thought).
My nightmare started recently when I was awarded a contract through another client and needed to cut back my work schedule with the company. Upon notifying John and what seems like his only real employee and general point of contact/project manager Dana Scherzi about my desire to transition out of the part time role due to general rate hikes, I had quite the backlash from their company.
I originally did offer to continue our contract through the oDesk platform at my new higher rate of $75 / hr by which the owner of this company John, felt was grossly not worth any account managers time that he hires. After being with this company for a couple months, I then agreed to disagree and attempted to end our contract civially by offering to train my replacement free of chage, take on any phone conferences until a switch was being made in management, and to answer any pending questions on what I have done for the company for the end of time. John and Dana however were jelous and greedy about the situation and mandated I could not increase my rates and would not end our contract on good terms unless I agreed to work at our original agreed upon rate for an undisclosed amount of time without further rebuttal. ***This is a warning for offering a low starting rate on any contract for any of you contractors that are trying to build a reputation online doing so, vulture companies like this one will not let go of you.
Even depite this terrible closure with the company, working with the organization had been demoralizing as John was totally incompetent in managing marketing for this well respected and primary client obfuscating the truth on mutiple occasions and implicating me in such activity which I am glad to be completely done with now.
No where in our contract was there anything stated regarding the contact lasting any finte amount of time, nor that rates could be adjusted. There were however clauses in the contract which stated I had no recourse preventing such ridiculous action against myself so this type of activity could thrive. Check your contracts with this company, and please do not sign them whatever you do.
So in summary of this notification of closure with the company, the return thanks John has provided myself in terms of hands free PPC account management service was in the form of a official clawback on funds paid (thankfully just 1 week time or roughly $400, the maximum amount he could successful get away with) and an official publication on his part warning others not to hire me (feedback extortion) despite admiting that I had met all contractual obligations thus far in private. According to John, all I must have done to prevent this was to contact him direct which in fact is almost impossible to do direct due to is general absense in nature and terrible management style but did indeed happen as well despite his allegations otherwise. Even worse than this, there was fradulent claims made to the contracting site oDesk itself stating work submitted was unverfiable thereby creating libel acts agains myself which enabled the payment clawback. If a rebuttal from John refutes this, I will be providing screenshots that proves this fact.
Do not do business as a contractor with this company, and do not accept his net 30 terms offering (funny I know bitcoins! as that is an option to do business with this company).
1 Updates & Rebuttals
John McCoy
Los Angeles,California,
We do what we can with what we are given
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sat, January 03, 2015
Not sure why Corey feels as upset about his engagement with us as he does. My phone line has always been available to him to discuss any concerns or issues that he needed to discuss. I'm not sure if he feels justified by airing his greviences in this manner, but I hope that he does find some peace.
Corey is a driven paid advertisement specialist. He isn't the best, but he does get the job done. We found Corey through oDesk, one of the many avenues used to find freelancers and subcontractors. Our subcontracting process is simple: we negoiate a rate, set the limit on weekly/monthly hours, set expectations on work and timelines, and sign a subcontractor agreement provided by the firm. We leave the option to the subcontractor about how he/she wishes to be paid. Since we have several freelancers working with us, especially from different countries, we offer EFT, Paypal, Check, Bitcoin, or oDesk/Freelancer. Net 30 is standard for everything we have accounts payable for. oDesk/Freelancer is different since they process weekly, which is fine.
We expect that the freelancer will perform whatever duties are described in that agreement for that rate agreed upon. If there are any requests for changes in the rate or limits, we expect the same process to occur similar to the initial process.
The challenge with Corey's situation is that on December 29th, myself and his project manager received a vague email stating that his hourly rates were increasing to $75/hour for short term contracting and $50/hour for long term contracting. The deadline for this change was Jan 1st. While I understand the need to increase rates, the more professional way of managing this is to make the request would be to: discuss either via email or phone, set a new timeline, a new rate, and a new/amended subcontrator agreement. To make matters worse, Corey was in the middle of a project expected to be completed by him. The remainder of the project timeline would fall into the new year; billable at the new rate he set. Frankly speaking, that is not how you do business. We have paid Corey every dollar due to him for his work. We even increased his rate to $22 so that he wouldn't have to pay the transaction fees on oDesk. We set his limit to 80 hours a month to ensure that he had enough time to perform his duties.
I would never be against Corey finding higher paying work. In the subcontractor agreement, no one has to continue working for us if they don't want to. No explanation needed. But you can't subject us to pay more than what we initially agreed to. Because Corey decided to terminate his engagement before completing a project, we could not provide him with favorable feedback or recommendation through the oDesk platform.
To make matters worse (I don't know if this is how Corey manages his relationships or issues by immediately going on the defense), when we made Corey aware of the acceptance of his termination and our unfavorable feedback, he threaten us to make us change our feedback. We decided to close off any discussions with Corey, submit all information to our legal representatives, and pursed any means to safegaurd ourselves.
For any freelancer currently working with us or looking to work with us, understand that we are open to any changes that occur in your life. You are entitiled to higher gains and we support you. In the occurance that you are presented with a better opportunity, please reach out to your project manager or myself to discuss the options. If you are in the middle of a project, we expect that you will complete the project before moving on.
For any current client or future client, I personally will ensure that we bring on subcontractors that can see the job done to the end.
Here is the feedback we provided on oDesk:
Corey definitely understands PPC and other paid advertising. He also does a great job of connecting with our client and partners via email and phone. To be fair to Corey, we couldn't budget to increase his rate from $22/hr to $75/hr with only a two-day time window to adjust. We have the expectation that when we use oDesk's platform, the rate that is agreed upon is set unless we have another agreement. We didn't expect such a sudden change in rate, especially in the middle of a major project. Were the handling of this change request done more professionally and appropriately, we may have been more accommodating and the project would have been completed as expected. Unfortunately given the mission critical nature of the project and the untimely ending of Corey's contract, we cannot with good faith provide a more positive feedback or recommend his services. Learn from our mistake and be sure to have the conversation with Corey that the expectation is that rate is set before the contract begins and the rate doesn't change unless there is an amended agreement, granted after any projects that have started and have been completed.
We wish you the best Corey. Any recourse on our part is just part of doing business. As a business owner yourself, I hope you can appreciate the challenges of working with other individuals, especially when compensation is involved. I see this as a learning opportunity for myself and I hope you see it as the same.
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