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  • Report:  #444750

Complaint Review: Merl Group - J9 Executives Stephen Kordella - Indianapolis Indiana

Reported By:
- indianapolis, Indiana,
Submitted:
Updated:

Merl Group - J9 Executives Stephen Kordella
Indianapolis, 46241 Indiana, U.S.A.
Phone:
317-5696433
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good? What's this?
I worked for Stephen Kordella and ill tell you exactly what the truth is and what i have noticed. Over the time i have seen many people come and go and have been effected by the scam. It all start with the interview./ We are trained to always have a positive attitude whether we run into a pissed off customer that has already been visited by one of us and have been ripped off, or that we are wasting half our paychecks on gas, nothing bothers us.

The pay is ridiculous, on average expect to get 300-400 a paycheck. The tell you its a tax write off for the miles but you will not get 10% back on your taxes when everything is said and done. Expect to get rejects or unpaid orders in which the managers will go a head and sign them up themselves by using fake names and calling them in themselves so they get paid on them and NOT YOU.

They will tell you the dream becoming a manager but unless you are one of there favorites they will continue to give you 40 year old interview knowing there is no way for you to build a team with them just to keep you quiet. I dont need to go on and tell you what exactly the job entails because previous postings have already did that for me.

On average 1 out of about 100 people will make it to management, and with that only about 1% will actually have a business 2 years down the road. They promote making it to management BUT wheres the future in that. All they do is fill your heads with lies. You are there soliders on foot. Your job to patroll the streets and make Stephen as much money as possible for the short amount of time your there.

I've seen people get fired because they decided to date one another, and from what ive heard Stephen Kordella was dating his assistant Theresa while they worked together in Cleveland. What a hypocrite.. I've seen first hand people get fired or not hired because they have children, why punish someone for having children and not being able to work from 730 to 630 everyday for 400 dollars. Ive seen people get fired for going on vacation and missing a couple days because they didnt hit as many sales as Stephen wanted them to. ITS COMMISSION who cares if people want a day off.

All the responses from the posting comes from Stephen's girlfriend Theresa, no one has anything good to say about the Merl Group only bad. Oviously she is going to defend the posting because if no one works there who will pay the bills for her?

There is nothing to respond to about this posting (Theresa) it is 100% the truth and anything written to defend it is a lie, the same lies that sucker people into working at the Merl Group.

Merl group

indianapolis, Indiana

U.S.A.


11 Updates & Rebuttals

Stephen

Indianapolis,
Indiana,
U.S.A.
Proud of our Accomplishments! Growth and Expansion!

#2

Wed, August 19, 2009

Employees of The Merl Group, Inc. will not hide behind anonymous names and defame those who have written negatives against our company. Those that have written have actually worked for our company for more than a few months and obviously know we are a growing firm that produces results or they would not have continued to work for the company. We are a very competitive company and unfortunately not everyone will choose to complete the tasks required to manage one of our offices or clients. When an employee completes the management training program they will run offices for At&t, Staples, Verizon and other Fortune 500 and 100 companies. These are all large clients who would only work with the most professional companies like The Merl Group, Inc.

In the negative articles written by past employees who either quit or were fired for causing inappropriate scenes, they have written false statement due to either frustration or emotional anger associated with not being promoted or being released from the company. I personally am one of the managers of The Merl Group, Inc. and I fortunately chose to work hard and complete the program and understand that those who have chosen to defame The Merl Group, Inc. only do it because they chose to not succeed in our program.

A few of the articles claim that we go into business face to face and do sales. This is absolutely true, but only a part of our training program.
 We are outsourced by the companies mentioned above because it is more cost effective to outsource. We are very well respected in the community and we do not call and do sales over the phone because telemarketing is ineffective. At&t and Quill and Verizon has hired The Merl Group, Inc. do all of the face to face in the Midwest. We produce millions in revenue for our clients. Ethics are very important to me and I train people to up sell when possible and bundle different packages, but always to be clear with the business that we are taking care of. Our reps are not trained to be unethical and unfortunately sometimes people choose to do the wrong thing, but we strive to weed those people out of our company.

There are rejected orders if a customer cancels, but not everyone deals
with those. The sales reps that do their job correctly rarely deal with rejected sales. It seems to only be those employees, like the ones on here who wrote negative things, that seem to deal with them. If someone does not clearly explain the products and services being ordered or make a sale that is ethical, then I agree it should be rejected. Most reps average between $600-$1000 a week in our company based on their performance.

Due to the
economy, we now offer a base plus commission or a commission option. We can offer a salary at the managers discretion, but choose usually not based on the fact that people will take advantage of our company. We are all W2 employees and we are corporation that runs its payroll

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  • 28 people marked this review as helpful Helpful -->

    Anonymous

    Beech Grove,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    Same old story!

    #3UPDATE EX-employee responds

    Wed, May 20, 2009

    First off, thanks to those of you who posted negative things about this company. They are a pyramid scheming scam company at its best. They are directly linked with Cydcor, and if anyone there tries to tell you different I went to the National Conference, I know. They dont like to tell you about that affiliation though b/c if you look up Cydcor you'll find loads of bad feedback on them. These companies such as the Merl Group are all across the country scamming young adults and college grads daily. Its really sad to see that people like Steve do this to people. Yes these pyramid scheming Cydcor companies do work for a SMALL portion of people ever hired. If I had to throw a number out there it'd be much smaller than the 1 out of 100 number that was already given. They go threw about 100 empoyees a month atleast. If you count all the offices that are shoved into that one office it's probably even higher. I was a witness to one of these offices failing. J9 Executives used to be in the same office as the Merl Group. They were the brother company to the Merl Group at one time. Dan the ex owner has since quite entirely. He was in the business over two years and was convinced to move to Indianapolis where he'd make 100K plus. Hah....We see that he obviously didnt. Another office was recently closed in Columbus. It gets better just wait. Soooo A group of people out of the Indy office that Steve trained moved there to take the place of that office that failed. Just to run through the same d**n places that had been run through and failed the last 2 years. Also, some girl who I dont know the name started a new office to take the place of J9 and run through the same d**n territories that had been run through for the last who knows long???? Doesnt this all seem ridiculous? I hope that someday these d**n people get shut down. For now we can only post stuff on here and hope the excited people who are about to go to an interview or have already went and got suspicious read this!!!!


    Anonymous

    Beech Grove,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    Same old story!

    #4UPDATE EX-employee responds

    Wed, May 20, 2009

    First off, thanks to those of you who posted negative things about this company. They are a pyramid scheming scam company at its best. They are directly linked with Cydcor, and if anyone there tries to tell you different I went to the National Conference, I know. They dont like to tell you about that affiliation though b/c if you look up Cydcor you'll find loads of bad feedback on them. These companies such as the Merl Group are all across the country scamming young adults and college grads daily. Its really sad to see that people like Steve do this to people. Yes these pyramid scheming Cydcor companies do work for a SMALL portion of people ever hired. If I had to throw a number out there it'd be much smaller than the 1 out of 100 number that was already given. They go threw about 100 empoyees a month atleast. If you count all the offices that are shoved into that one office it's probably even higher. I was a witness to one of these offices failing. J9 Executives used to be in the same office as the Merl Group. They were the brother company to the Merl Group at one time. Dan the ex owner has since quite entirely. He was in the business over two years and was convinced to move to Indianapolis where he'd make 100K plus. Hah....We see that he obviously didnt. Another office was recently closed in Columbus. It gets better just wait. Soooo A group of people out of the Indy office that Steve trained moved there to take the place of that office that failed. Just to run through the same d**n places that had been run through and failed the last 2 years. Also, some girl who I dont know the name started a new office to take the place of J9 and run through the same d**n territories that had been run through for the last who knows long???? Doesnt this all seem ridiculous? I hope that someday these d**n people get shut down. For now we can only post stuff on here and hope the excited people who are about to go to an interview or have already went and got suspicious read this!!!!


    Anonymous

    Beech Grove,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    Same old story!

    #5UPDATE EX-employee responds

    Wed, May 20, 2009

    First off, thanks to those of you who posted negative things about this company. They are a pyramid scheming scam company at its best. They are directly linked with Cydcor, and if anyone there tries to tell you different I went to the National Conference, I know. They dont like to tell you about that affiliation though b/c if you look up Cydcor you'll find loads of bad feedback on them. These companies such as the Merl Group are all across the country scamming young adults and college grads daily. Its really sad to see that people like Steve do this to people. Yes these pyramid scheming Cydcor companies do work for a SMALL portion of people ever hired. If I had to throw a number out there it'd be much smaller than the 1 out of 100 number that was already given. They go threw about 100 empoyees a month atleast. If you count all the offices that are shoved into that one office it's probably even higher. I was a witness to one of these offices failing. J9 Executives used to be in the same office as the Merl Group. They were the brother company to the Merl Group at one time. Dan the ex owner has since quite entirely. He was in the business over two years and was convinced to move to Indianapolis where he'd make 100K plus. Hah....We see that he obviously didnt. Another office was recently closed in Columbus. It gets better just wait. Soooo A group of people out of the Indy office that Steve trained moved there to take the place of that office that failed. Just to run through the same d**n places that had been run through and failed the last 2 years. Also, some girl who I dont know the name started a new office to take the place of J9 and run through the same d**n territories that had been run through for the last who knows long???? Doesnt this all seem ridiculous? I hope that someday these d**n people get shut down. For now we can only post stuff on here and hope the excited people who are about to go to an interview or have already went and got suspicious read this!!!!


    Merl Group

    Indianapolis,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    David dont defend when you know the truth

    #6Author of original report

    Mon, April 20, 2009

    If you were to go through all the paper work you and the other employees do are you saying that all the orders were called in by the customer and the sales rep, were all the pricing written on the paper work correct, all the people that you signed up were the actual decission makers rather that 18 yr old employees that have been working there for 2 weeks? NOOOOOOOOOO.. You sign up anyone and will do anything possible whether you have to lie or cheat. If the Better Business Buruea would come in there would you feel comfortable I dont think so because you know that half the people that you force to sign paper work IS NOT the authorize decission maker. IT IS A SCAM AND YOU KNOW IT your to blind to admit it but in about 6 months you will realize it and will be in New Jersey and itll be to late to do anything about it.


    Merl Group

    Indianapolis,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    David dont defend when you know the truth

    #7Author of original report

    Mon, April 20, 2009

    If you were to go through all the paper work you and the other employees do are you saying that all the orders were called in by the customer and the sales rep, were all the pricing written on the paper work correct, all the people that you signed up were the actual decission makers rather that 18 yr old employees that have been working there for 2 weeks? NOOOOOOOOOO.. You sign up anyone and will do anything possible whether you have to lie or cheat. If the Better Business Buruea would come in there would you feel comfortable I dont think so because you know that half the people that you force to sign paper work IS NOT the authorize decission maker. IT IS A SCAM AND YOU KNOW IT your to blind to admit it but in about 6 months you will realize it and will be in New Jersey and itll be to late to do anything about it.


    Merl Group

    Indianapolis,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    David dont defend when you know the truth

    #8Author of original report

    Mon, April 20, 2009

    If you were to go through all the paper work you and the other employees do are you saying that all the orders were called in by the customer and the sales rep, were all the pricing written on the paper work correct, all the people that you signed up were the actual decission makers rather that 18 yr old employees that have been working there for 2 weeks? NOOOOOOOOOO.. You sign up anyone and will do anything possible whether you have to lie or cheat. If the Better Business Buruea would come in there would you feel comfortable I dont think so because you know that half the people that you force to sign paper work IS NOT the authorize decission maker. IT IS A SCAM AND YOU KNOW IT your to blind to admit it but in about 6 months you will realize it and will be in New Jersey and itll be to late to do anything about it.


    Merl Group

    Indianapolis,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    David dont defend when you know the truth

    #9Author of original report

    Mon, April 20, 2009

    If you were to go through all the paper work you and the other employees do are you saying that all the orders were called in by the customer and the sales rep, were all the pricing written on the paper work correct, all the people that you signed up were the actual decission makers rather that 18 yr old employees that have been working there for 2 weeks? NOOOOOOOOOO.. You sign up anyone and will do anything possible whether you have to lie or cheat. If the Better Business Buruea would come in there would you feel comfortable I dont think so because you know that half the people that you force to sign paper work IS NOT the authorize decission maker. IT IS A SCAM AND YOU KNOW IT your to blind to admit it but in about 6 months you will realize it and will be in New Jersey and itll be to late to do anything about it.


    Fed-up

    Greenfield,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    Did you get paid to write that David???

    #10UPDATE Employee

    Sun, April 19, 2009

    First off I also currently worK for The Merl Group and Steven Kordella and I would like to tell you that I cant wait to find a better job and quit! David, just how brainwashed are you to not see whats happening to people on your own team! Adam was ranked #2 insales overall on the AT&T campaign during the month of February in the nation! This also means he had a low number of rejects for that month! I also believe that he ranked higher than anyone else in Steves office at any given time! He was also one of the nicest and truthful people in the office! I always went to him for advice and the way he was treated by Steve and Mike was ridiculous! He was there everyday on-time unless he had something to do with his son. Which hardly any of us in the office know anything about so where do you get off talking bad about him for that! Futhermore, he was usually one of us leaders that made the most money everyday and also overall for the week! Myself and more of the top leaders in the office think that Adam was right for standing up for what he believes in and we are glad someone finally told Steve how they felt! APPLAUSE FOR ADAM!!!!! I would just like to end by saying thanks to all those who have posted here and also to those who showed me what was really going on in our office! No wonder Steve wants to give up his office, move to another city, and start a new campaign! I just hope that you get Indy David so you can deal with the mess that you feel so desperate to defend! Did you ever think that if all these post were lies, WHY HASN'T STEVE OR MIKE STOOD UP FOR THEMSELVES???


    David

    Indianapolis,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    Another Critical Conversation

    #11UPDATE Employee

    Sat, April 18, 2009

    I've been an employee of the Merl group for a while. I think the above post, the one before it, and the one from Adam make some good points. Lets start with the expectations of an employee. Be at work on time in the morning, go do sales during the day, report back to the office in the evening, give your best effort every day, and don't make excuses for poor performance. I guess management just expects too much. How about responsibilities of one of our Account Executives? We're expected to network with other offices via conference calls, train newer employees, take attendance to see if guys like Adam actually show up on time, and run meetings to set the goals for the day. I guess management just expects too much. What about bothering customers during their work day in order to give them better phone rates and services? (I personally get mostly welcoming responses from customers. Of course there are a few who are just angry people, but thats life.) The majority of my co workers treat their customers with respect and help them save a few dollars on their phone bill. The people who write these reports are the ones who habitually do unethical sales and treat their customers poorly. No wonder there are angry business owners out there. Thanks Adam and the other anonymous person whose post I am responding to. You've made us all aware of the "truth." It seems that the truth you have revealed to us is your way of allowing yourself not to feel bad for having a poor attitude, showing up to work late every other day, constantly complaining when you're held accountable for being lazy, and having pitiful sales performance. Glad you're gone.


    David

    Indianapolis,
    Indiana,
    U.S.A.
    Another Critical Conversation

    #12UPDATE Employee

    Sat, April 18, 2009

    I've been an employee of the Merl group for a while. I think the above post, the one before it, and the one from Adam make some good points. Lets start with the expectations of an employee. Be at work on time in the morning, go do sales during the day, report back to the office in the evening, give your best effort every day, and don't make excuses for poor performance. I guess management just expects too much. How about responsibilities of one of our Account Executives? We're expected to network with other offices via conference calls, train newer employees, take attendance to see if guys like Adam actually show up on time, and run meetings to set the goals for the day. I guess management just expects too much. What about bothering customers during their work day in order to give them better phone rates and services? (I personally get mostly welcoming responses from customers. Of course there are a few who are just angry people, but thats life.) The majority of my co workers treat their customers with respect and help them save a few dollars on their phone bill. The people who write these reports are the ones who habitually do unethical sales and treat their customers poorly. No wonder there are angry business owners out there. Thanks Adam and the other anonymous person whose post I am responding to. You've made us all aware of the "truth." It seems that the truth you have revealed to us is your way of allowing yourself not to feel bad for having a poor attitude, showing up to work late every other day, constantly complaining when you're held accountable for being lazy, and having pitiful sales performance. Glad you're gone.

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