| Topic Name: |
worst employers |
| Message Name: |
The company I left is highly unethical... |
| Date Posted: |
08/07/1999 |
| Message: |
After reading about the companies in WisconsinI thought I'd mention something about the company I just left.
I've been in the copier industry for a few years. This company is in Portland, Oregon, and the stuff that goes on in sales is incredible. The scamming on service and supply contracts is an issue for another day. When a customer trades in their copier, the warehouse manager frequently sells the trade-in for cash, off the books, and splits the money with the owner. No taxes paid. Never mind the fact that we sales reps have prospects who might actually be interested in that machine, and legally so! The copier industry is well-known for unethical practices, but this company seems to be especially guilty. Another example... the sales manager sells a program to customers that is wrough with lies. Instead of buying a copier, or leasing one, which means a financial company like GE Capital or Copelco owns title to the copier, the customer agrees to buy, say, 10,000 copies per month for five years at, say, 2.5 cents per copy. He tells prospects, "we own the title to the machine, and can swap out the copier if it gives you grief, if your needs change, at any time, as often as you like, with no penalty." To a business that has been burned by 3rd party leasing, this is music to their ears. The problem is that copiers on this "program" ARE third party leases, disguised as a cost-per-copy program. Yeah the customer can upgrade to a different machine, but the ballance of the remaining payments (in this case, copies), just like with a traditional lease, will be wrapped in with the new machine. It's a extremely costly to buy-out a lease and wrap it into a new lease. The whole program is one big lie, and one major liability to the company. Glad I got the heck out of there.
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