Complaint Review: Plumchoice - Billerica Massachusetts

I worked at Plumchoice for 1.5 years, was full time during school (got the job through school). When i left school they moved me to part time... In fact, they had 90% of the technicians working part time. At any given time your hours would be cut. You could have an unexpected schedule change and get in trouble for not showing up for your shift... when it changed that day! A few of my old coworkers, who have worked at plum longer than i, can and will back me up. They are scum. The sales team is aggressive in selling products to elderly who don't know any better, they make the company money so who cares? When i spoke up for myself one day i had my hours cut by the time i came in the next day.

Plumchoice, more like plumschwitz

 It's sad to see a once great company like Plumchoice fall to the standards that it has. No longer about helping customers but more about making that bottom line larger. Techs are understaffed on shifts and queues are always filled/backed up. It was very normal for people to come in from sales and me having to turn them away because I realized our service couldn't help... The miscommunication between the tech team and the sales team is borderline criminal... It honestly is criminal negligence in my opinion to say your doing one thing while you know that's not the case: most of the staff is highly under trained when it comes to the latest software. A long while back I recommended we start forums/Archie's of issues and solutions to those issues. But instead we are instructed to use google.com lol which is a valuable resource however not effective when it comes to known issues we have all solved that apply specifically to the avast and Hp software. This company is a joke and the only reason they continue to make money is there dedicated workers which they grind into the ground. I was an effective tech but was burnt out twards the end due to the endless toolkits and handoffs. I wish nothing but the best for this company, but I'm not gonna lie I've never worked for a more unorganized organization in my life. Please rethink your business model. Maybe charge more and give customers a fair existence instead of cheating them out of 14.99 a month with promises that there Windows XP machine will run like a new computer... That's stealing... Your selling a service that can't be provided

 All you people who are whining and crying about working at Plum Choice must either be totally incapable of effectively multi-tasking or you're just flat out lazy and looking for an easy buck. Unfortunately, most people in this country have to actually work. I work for Plum Choice as a temp and I wasn't promised or told any of the BS some of you are spewing. They never said I WILL get hired on permanantly after four months, they said you have to be a temp for AT LEAST four months before you can get hired on permanantly. Of course, if you suck balls at doing your job, obviously you will never get hired on permanantly, which probably explains a lot of what's posted in this thread. Is it hectic, yeah, it is. Is it frustrating, yeah, it is, but to put every tech in the same boat as not being qualified or capable of performing high levels of technical work is a small-minded statement and a load of horse ****. The lot of you are probably just incapable of performing work without explicit instruction or guidence.

I take two 15 minute breaks every day. I take a half hour lunch everyday. I start work at the same time every day, and I clock out at 3:30 every day. I work three remote sessions at a time with another customer on the phone, and this is the daily routine for phone techs. Most mornings start out slow with at least 10 to 20 mins between calls and then it picks up around 10am, then, it's busy as hell until about 2:30 when it slows back down to about 5 or 6 minutes between calls. Granted, the job is not for everyone, but just because you may not be Plum Choice capable doesn't mean you need to talk **** and knock other people who work there. Do I love the job, no, but it's not the worst job I've ever had, and it pays my bills with plenty left over.

The bottom line is that not everyone is tech savvy and computer literate. Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes and Plum Choice provides that helping hand for a lot of people. Is every customer satisfied with the service, no, but who in this world can please all of the people all of the time? No body! True, some of the techs working at Plum Choice are little better than novices, but the majority of us know what we're doing. Most of you complaining in this thread probably couldn't even repair a corrupt profile without trying to migrate a customers files and settings to a new user account (if you even know how to do that), or know how to reset a windows 7 password without a reset disk.

For the people saying they would rather work a manual labor job or work for $7 an hour... you're so full of ****! The only reason anyone would choose those options over making $14 an hour busting your brain is if it was the only kind of job they are capable of doing, which I suspect is the real root of all the whining and crying about how "crappy" Plum Choice is. Learn some skills. Learn how to engineer a plan for success. Learn how to multi-task, and above all learn how to abstain from soliciting company for your miserably pathetic and below average lives. There is nothing wrong with working for Plum Choice as long as you can handle the pace. I'd like to see some of you complainers in action. I bet you all just totally sucked at doing what you were hired to do.

SMH!

 This is absolutely the worst company I have ever worked for in my entire life. Believe every negative word that every past/present employee is stating. Straight out of training you are pushed right on the phone to take call, after call, after call. On another site, many state that you are assisting elderly folk. This is absolutely the truth, and you’re expected to be off the phone within 18 minutes. Mind you, you’re trying to walk some elderly/hard of hearing person through finding IE so you can remote into their machine and do nothing. Why can’t you do anything? Simple you’re remoted into 5/6 other computers and the phone just never stops ringing. Your supervisor is IM you to get off the phone so you can get to the next call/next remote session. The folks who are defending this company are folks who are company people(notice that it is only two/three people). Do yourself a favor Google Plum Choice reviews, see for yourself. One site alone states that 7% of its ratings recommend this employer.  I quit immediately 2 days after training, due to some idiot supervisors lack of knowledge of a great employee. Mr. Supervisor I’ve been given several awards for my outstanding customer service and polite posture with clients. Last, the team lead guy who stated that this company has less scripts than any other call center he knows. Mr. /Mrs. team lead you’re a liar. My current company that I didn’t give up while I was training with this lousy company has no scripts. Scripts are a terrible company practice. Stay far, far, far away from this slave mentality company.

PS. The person that wrote the comments about the company man is telling the truth. I actually read this board before I started working at this company. I decided to block out the negative comments and give the company a shot. Well, two days out of training was enough for me. Do Not Do Not Do Not apply for this company even if your dead broke and your life depends on it. #tostressful

I agree with the ex employee above on everything.  What the current employee/company man is saying is not true at all.

PlumChoice is the worst job I have ever experienced.  I used to work for a Fortune 500 company making much more then I do at PlumChoice but due to downsizing most of us were let go.  Looking for a work from home position where I could see my family more I chose this job.  A little over a year later I haven't got ONE DAY OFF besides the 2 scheduled days off per week.  None of us have a set schedule either.  This is bad on employees with kids as lets say you were told you would be off at 330 everyday but some days you work until 5, you can't pick up your kid.  PlumChoice is not at all accommodating in these situations.  But, its sad that in over 400 days of employment I haven't been able to have one day off even with a 3 month notice.  It's your typical corporate america job.  Everyone is allowed a day off and vacation time EXCEPT the workers that run the company.  PlumChoice wouldn't survive without its Technicians yet we can't have one day off.  If your kid is sick and you need to go pick him/her up then forget it.  Plum won't allow you to do so.  Hopefully your kid never gets so sick it needs to be rushed to the ER because Plum will fire you if you leave.  I mean, in PlumChoice's eyes, phone calls rain supreme over EVERYTHING.  Parent about to die? PlumChoice doesn't care.  You better take a phone and an internet connection to the showing because you aren't getting a day off for any reason.

I wish I could say I have found one positive in my piece of junk job but I haven't.  I put in my 2 week notice a few days ago but not sure I can survive these 2 weeks at such a crap job run by crap bosses that don't care if your breathing or not.

It's also truly sad that morons like the guy above can defend this place.  I guess people really will let their bosses pee on them.

(Also note....no one that works here has a wife or kids if they support this company and never will.  Because no kid or wife is going to put up with their dad or husband not being allowed to have a life or have a day off.)

I did not work in your department so I can't really attest to how things were run there.  I can tell you that the interviewing documents and the job descriptions posted in the system do not and have not mentioned a set period where people get converted since I've had access to them.  That's not to say it was never the case, but its not there and no recruiter should be promising that.

As far as the whole blaming Obama for Ted Werth, are you high?  I was pointing out that the US government does not provide healthcare like every other first world country, and that is the problem.  Not temp agencies.  Nowhere did I say it's Obama's fault.  Your response was childish and out of line.

As i said earlier, Ted Werth is not the CEO.  I don't know what his involvement with the company is now but it is not CEO.

You seem very angry about your situation.  I can assure you that the vast majority of people here, at least in my department, do not think like you.  I know a few techs from the department you worked in and they are happy there.  I believe it is time for you to move on, as at this point all you are really doing is whining on the Internet without anything additional to contribute.

Well, you didn't sound like a company man there or anything.  That was the most sad display of company butt kissing I've ever seen. 

How sad.

Is your name Lee or is your name Jesse?  Those are the only 2 I know that kiss butt that bad and have been with this terrible company for so long.

You are exactly what is wrong with America.  You are okay with all these companies hiring temporary employees.  You are okay with being lied to.  And you are okay kissing the butt of the man that started the company and started the trainwreck that has resulted in an average of one employee quitting per day off the MVG team.  Now that average wouldn't be bad if this was a factory that employed 4,000 people.  It's not.  It's a dead end job that's not even really a job, and it only has around 80-85 techs on the team at one time.  It's sad when every 2 weeks a new training class of minimum 20 techs has to be brought on to make up for the 20 that left over the last 2-3 weeks.  It's just a merry-go-round of temps coming in and walking right back out.

You say that we were all "misinformed" by the temp agency.  Let me ask you this Mr. Company Man.  What is more believable....... 1.  Temp Agency lies to temps for heck of it.  Tells them there is amazing job to work at.  Gets nothing in return, really.  OR...2. Plumchoice tells Temp Agency what to tell temps because if temps new what the job was really like they wouldn't be able to find anyone(besides the few company men like yourself) to work this crap job.

It's a call center what do you expect?  Dude, I have worked in a few call centers and for the most part enjoyed them.  I HATED this experience.  Please explain to me why this was the worst experience of ANY JOB I have ever had.  Please explain to me why everyone I have talked to feels the same(well everyone but a company butt kisser like yourself)

And finally, let's blame Obama for Ted Werthless starting such a crap company with his Slave-like 1800s ways.  Let's blame Obama for Ted Werthless starting a crap company that tries to not let you take a break or go to lunch because he enjoys having 40+ calls backed up in a queue.  And finally, let's blame Obama for Ted Wethless being a con artist that wants to have techs troubleshoot a 95 year old ladies ISP issue and then when we can't fix it charge her the $99 anyways.  And face it, 99% of the time it wont get fixed because a 95 year old lady can't unplug her equipment or do any troubleshooting.  

By the way, tell Ted he is a sad man.  It seems like even though your his little puppy dog you still speak on his behalf(without his consent, I'm sure).  And if he doesn't "run the company" anymore then tell the new person that does(since even though your the puppy dog you know so much)that they are a trainwreck.

By the way, I recommend you watch a movie called Fun with d**k and Jane.  You remind me of a d**k Harper.  You are the "VP of communications" only not for Globodyne but for Plumchoice.  Only you weren't sent to appear on TV, you were sent to appear on Rip Off Report.  But, you have a fake title that the higher ups gave you(just like d**k), terrible pay for a tanking company(just like d**k), and the higher up's for Plumchoice are making out like kings(Just like Globodyne).  Oh it looks all so familiar, company man.

I currently work at PlumChoice and have for around four years.  After reading the previous few employee reviews I feel like it would be beneficial to provide a different perspective.  All tech agents that take calls are initially hired through temp agencies.  There is not a set period of time where you get converted to a full time employee afterward.  Your interviewer and/or recruiter gave you incorrect information.  The pay rate for full time employees of the company in the tech position does not start at $17/hour either as was mentioned above.

The job pays what the market bears.  There is no problem sourcing certified employees through temp agencies at $14/hr, so it will continue to be done.  This is simply economics, and if you are not happy with it no one is forcing you to work here.  I understand call center work may be frustrating, but that is why PlumChoice looks for people with previous call center experience.  Working in a call center typically involves dealing with irate callers and back to back calls.  The reason employees are required to work on multiple issues at once is again a simple issue of economics.  If customers won't buy the service in large enough numbers unless it is priced around X dollars or less, say $15/month, then PlumChoice has to make the numbers work.  If a customer spends 30 minutes on the phone every month with a technician who is focusing only on their issue, PlumChoice loses money on them.  The cost of labor, operating expenses, vendor fees, and other overhead is too high to let technicians work solely on one customer's issue at a time.

On-site tech visits from large companies typically cost from $80/hr to upwards of $200/hr depending on the region and service.  They can afford to focus on just one issue as they are paid by the hour and will make a profit no matter what.  That is just not the case in a call center environment that charges a fixed fee regardless of time spent.  PlumChoice cannot change what they charge without approval from the vendors, who also have a vested interest in seeing the highest amount of customers sold for the highest dollar PlumChoice can sell at.

This all means that the customer spends more time waiting, although the quality of the resolution is typically the same as it would be if the tech stayed on the phone the entire time.  PlumChoice does not allow employees to stay on the phone during things like virus scans, windows updates, etc - things that would be idle time on the phone that could be used for handling another customer's call.  This is also necessary to stay competitive with outsourced call centers.

The argument that your phone and internet service equates to a lower wage is not very good.  So you are saying you would not have internet service without working at PlumChoice?  Hard to believe.  At $60/mo for a phone and internet bundle that would be less than 40 cents an hour out of your pay.  The biggest ding would be health insurance, and that's something you can blame the US government for.  I personally do not understand why it is up to private industry to provide something that every other first world government provides for all of their citizens.

I don't know why PlumChoice doesn't do exit interviews for temps or if they will start.  I do know they do have a process for full time employees.  There is a big discussion about attrition and what can be done to improve it.  I have a feeling the biggest problem is that expectations are not being set correctly by the recruiters and interviewers.  There is no monthly bonus on the tech side, there is no set period where you get converted to full time - all of those things are not true and have not been in the past.  So I can see why one would be upset about that and it is something I know PlumChoice is working to correct.

Ted Werth has not been the CEO for over a year.  As far as it being a dead end job, most of the lower to middle management was promoted from within.  Obviously not everyone is going to get promoted but it is far from a dead end job with no path to advance.

Basically this is how it is:  If you are not able to handle talking on the phone all day while multitasking, this job is not for you.  It requires a patient person who is technically proficient and works efficiently.  Working at PlumChoice can be a rewarding experience if you have the right attitude about it.

I can't stress this enough.  DO NOT WORK HERE.  You will regret it. On the outside this sounds like a dream job.  Work from home.  Use your own bathroom.  Use your own kitchen.  Lay on the couch 8 hours a day and take a few phone calls for $14/hour.  

It is AWFUL.  You are told you will make $14/hr for 3-4 months then advance to $17/hr and get benefits.

It's a blatant lie.  When you get to 4 months you are told there is a hiring freeze and no temps will be hired.  Meanwhile while you are making the company thousands of dollars during those 4 months Ted Werthless(the clueless CEO) is filling his pockets and promoting his Yes-Men.  

It literally is a dead-end job as 15 years from now you would still be a $14/hr temp doing the same thing.

Here is what you do everyday:  Take back to back calls from 90 year old ladies who want to play farmville with their last few days of life and need help getting on the internet.  Want a breath between calls? To bad.  Want a break? To bad.  Want a bathroom break? To bad.  Want to call your customer back when your done fixing her problem? To bad.  The company wants you to get off the phone with the customer ASAP to take more calls and refuses to let you call them back.  It's a sad excuse for a job and making $7 at Dollar General would be like winning the lottery compared to this. 

I am a current "temp" at TempChoice/PlumChoice and everything the former temp is saying is 100% true.  This is the worst company I have ever worked for and it isn't even close.  My very first job was manual labor making minimum wage and I would go back to doing that over this "job".

If you want to know how everything works with 100% facts then listen to a current employee(I promise you all of my co-workers feel the same way, they even email in their letter of resignation on how much they hate the company and WE ALL AGREE WITH EVERYTHING THEY SAY). When you are "hired" on through your temp agency, you are promised a $14/hr contracted job that after 3 months you will be hired on full time with full benefits, a 401k, and a pay raise.  You are also told there are monthly bonuses.  All of that is a lie except the $14/hr part, which get used to the # 14 because that is your pay for the life of your temp position with Plum.  After taxes, paying your internet, home phone line, buying a headset(the one they provide is crappy as all crap...see where this is going?), and finding someone to give you insurance, your pay is more like $9/hr.  You get no bonuses at all.  The only "gift" we have been given in the last year is a stress reliever magnet that was $0.99.  NINETY NINE FREAKING CENTS.  Apparently the CEO of this craphole knows how much stress we are under because of the craphole environment he provides so he wanted to help us out with soeme stress.  What a nice guy this fella is, huh?  Plum also advertises itself on being affiliated with the BBB.  They aren't.  Their accreditation was revoked.  EVen the BBB knows what a craphole this place is.

Enough about being lied to.  Let's find out what your job title is.  You are a "tech".  You provide "tech support".  No, you don't.  You are an answering machine.  That's it.  You take back to back calls all day from old ladies that want their XP machine to run like a WIndows 8 machine.  Ain't happening.  When I say old ladies...I mean OLD ladies.  Get used to every caller having XP, every ladt being 90+ minutes, and a Supervisor yelling at you on chat to hurry up on the call.  You have to get them connected in Bomgar, then get off the phone and go right back to another.  This pisses off the customer because it takes twice as long to fix their computer because your helping 5+ others at the same time.  Plum doesn't care.  Customers complain all the time, end up mad at us, and the company doesn't care.  Think about it like this.  You take your car to the mechanic, mechanic says it will be done in 1 hour, and he lets you know you can watch him work.  Right after that, he pulls in 5 more cars, and starts working on the other 5 while you sit and watch your car not being touched.  3 hours later, he gets back to your car.  Yup, this is EXACTLY what PlumChoice wants done.  If these customers weren't so illiterate I would actually feel bad for them.  Because PlumCHoice is a scam, a huge scam, and I am sorry to say I am a temp with such an awful company.

Now, I'm sure PlumChoice will respond to this saying I'm just mad that I haven't been promoted, or I'm not good at what I do, etc.  That would all be a lie.  I used to make double what I make here but I needed a job and I got stuck with the crappiest job I've ever had.  And I have had some really crappy jobs that I thought never could be topped, PlumChoice topped it by miles.

And finally, my biggest complaint of all with this craphole is they REFUSE to find out why all their temps quit.  They have zero interest in knowing why they just brought on a training class of 22 techs and half quit the first week.  A Training class that started 10 months ago started with 30 techs, its down to 1 tech.  These are insane numbers for a $14/hr work at home job.  A 90% turnover rate.  And they refuse to figure out why.  More importantly, they have let some really good people walk.  If you quit(which everyone does, they don't fire you), they don't ask why, they don't want to know, they don't care.  Everyone hates their job.  Noone gives a crap.  Why care about a company that doesn't care about you.  A co-worker had a heart attack and they were calling him as he was laying in the hospital wanting to know if he was going to come to work the next day.  HE HAD A HEART ATTACK BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH STRESS THIS JOB CAUSES AND YOU WANT TO KNOW IF HE IS COMING TO WORK TOMORROW!

Your story is like most that is plastered on the internet, but what Michael does not tell you is that Plum Choice boasts a very active and good marketing team.  The simple fact is, Plum Choice "built" their reputation, the reputation they described is not earned or achieved through service.  I'm a near 20 year engineer and I had to, sadly, take a low level position as a remote help desk tier 1 employee, which means:

1. They pay the lowest compensation ever imagined for their "certified" technicians
2. The majority of their staff work from their homes, which may sound like a good thing to a lot of people but consider this as well.
3. They require you use your own computer, phone line and high speed connection at your own expense.  This makes the 14 dollars an hour they pay a lot of their staff even smaller.
4. As mentioned, Michael did say some truth in that they monitor everything on their employee's personal property through Bomgar and audio capture software.
5. While they offer benefits, how can someone afford them at such a low pay rate
6. If the average Plum Choice customer pay's 100$ for one session that is suppose to take 15 minutes or less (not to mention, you are multitasking several computers running scripted programs), they give you 14 dollars out of that 15 minute session.  Thank's Ted, you get the best place not to work award of the year(s)!

So, from a former employee, what do you expect from low paid "certified" tech's that they REQUIRE you to multitask multiple computers at the same time and want you done and off the computer, regardless of status within 15 minutes.  Now this is for Plumchoice direct, ACN, Comcast and Cox, which is whom I had to answer as depending on the voice announcement on incoming calls.

The customer above is correct, everything from speech to virus/malware/spyware removal is scripted. You can do everything Plum Choice does by yourself if you know how to boot into safe mode with networking.

Now, with that being said, as a "certified" engineer (notice, I didn't say tech), I pride myself as providing quality, whereas Plum Choice prides themselves on quantity.  I didn't care about their metrics, hence I had one of the highest quality ratings during my tenure and what kept me employed with them.  If I didn't get constant 100 points on reviews and customer satisfaction responses and surveys, the would have fired me and replaced me so fast.  If they can push their tech's to work 10 computers at time and getting them off the phone and computer in 15 minutes, regardless of outcome, the job is done and completed, period.  That's why it's a "Best Effort" service, give it your best 15 minutes effort to fix it remotely and that's it.  Now a lot of times, it takes 15 minutes to get you remotely connected, but hey, they will say that's our fault (ha-ha!).

Point is, Plum Choice is just Plum wrong for a business and Plum wrong for you as a customer.  I hope you received your money back because the customer service will work hard to make sure you get only a little returned compensation, they hardly ever refund in full (actually, I don't ever remember anyone getting refunded in full).  So Ted's little marketing machine man Michael is doing exactly what Plum Choice is really good at, marketing rhetoric and tactics.  That's why they are constantly defending themselves on all sorts of sites (just google Plum Choice sucks, and see for yourself) and boasting a biased BBB score and PCMag is a paid for advertising.  How absurd to think Plum Choice didn't pay top dollar for a good review and oh, by the way Michael.  You failed to mention that people marked VIP's get TOP service or the tech loses his or her job...guess who is on the VIP list...PC Mag! 

Now, I'm sure this is going to get response of "Disgruntled" employee, but I'm not.  I could have easily said no, but I needed a job and had to lower my moral's to work for them and that was my choice, period.  I understand that and I do not actually harbor animosity towards them, they gave me a job when I needed the most, so bravo on that part but, hey they will hire anyone if you have an A+ cert (one of dozens I have).

I will also say this to the customer, the hal.dll file was probably infected and could not be cleaned by the several programs they use by script that you can download for free and use (ccleaner, malwarebytes, combo fix, superantispyware and reimage) yourself for the most part, therefore it was removed.  Now, in any shop USA, that would have probably happened anyways.  In that case, regardless, you would had to reload your OS (Operating System).  Malware/spyware is such a huge money maker, not just for those that make said malicious items, easily obtained by browsing the internet, but by companies such as Plum Choice to take advantage of you to remove them.  I think Ted and Mitt Romney have something in common, greed.  Go figure.  Sorry to hear about your experience with said company but, just a little research on your part would have shown true user experiences and current and ex-employee (like me) explanations.  Plum Choice is not the worse out there, but don't let Ted and Michael make you believe they are any good either.  Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war!) 

This is an unheard-of customer experience at PlumChoice. We run tens of thousands of support sessions and serve more customers every year. We have been in business for more than 9 years and we have been ranked A+ by the Better Business Bureau since 2003. We have received quality awards from organizations like PC Magazine and Laptop Magazine. We have a 95% customer satisfaction rating based on independent third-party surveys conducted after every service session. If this customers complaints were common, these achievements would not be possible.

Also, to set the record straight, the statement that we have part time temporary Service Technicians is inaccurate. All PlumChoice technicians are full-time U.S.-based employees with multiple years of experience. All have MCP, MCSE, CNE, CNA, A+ CompTIA certifications (one or more). This is one of our strengths.  

In addition, we have a rigorous quality assurance system that includes the complete recording of every service session. These include voice, email, chat and even screen shots.  We fully investigate every complaint using these and other records. We take every customer complaint seriously. We work hard to resolve any customer concern. 

That is what we would like to do in this case. We have no way of identifying this customer through this website as the complaint was posted anonymously. We encourage this customer to contact us directly at  [email protected] or to call us at 1-888-PLUM-HELP (758-6435). Unfortunately, if we dont hear about the problem directly, we cannot take action to rectify it.