After reading a previous report on this company, I felt compelled to write about my experience with Jerry Edmonds, and Easco Wireless. I also took a job with Easco Wireless, because of the benefits Jerry Edmonds promised me, including overtime pay, sales commission, and a nice salary. I was then promoted after 30 days to store manager. I was in charge of the Gainesville Virginia store. I worked approximately 55 hours every week. After my first paycheck, I noticed that Jerry had paid me the same amount for all 55 hours, instead of the Federal Labor Law, which says all hourly employees working over 40 hours a week, must be paid 1.5 of their hourly rate. I approached him, and he said that he doesn't pay overtime, period. All of the companies I had previously worked for, always paid overtime for all hours over 40 for the week, and I found this very odd.
Well after 2 paychecks, I was promoted to Store Manager, and took a salary plus commission. I no longer was paid hourly, so he legally didn't have to pay ME overtime, however I was in charge of 3 hourly part time employees at the time. Jerry Edmonds at this time assured me that I would be receiving a monthly commission check of nearly $2,000 as long as I could sell and increase sales. Well a month into my new store manager position, our store was #1 in the entire district for sales of new phone contracts. I was selling phones like crazy! I blew away all the previous months figures, and set an all time high of phone sales in the history of Easco Wireless. I was pumped, I would stay late everyday, just so I could keep selling, and keep making Jerry money, because I was expecting to be paid well for my efforts.
Well when the time came for my commission check came, Jerry only paid me $400 bonus. WTF? I worked my ass off that month for $400, when he assured me that if i could beat the figures from the month before, $2,000! Each accessory I sold, cost Jerry about $1.75 (car charger) to $5.00 (leather cases), we charged customers $29.99-$39.99, and I sold literally hundreds of accessories that month. From the sales software we were working in, I sold 400 accessories that month, or close to $15,000, just in accessories, not even counting phone sales. He totally rips people off on accessories, which are not even made by Verizon, but in China somewhere, and they usually break very quickly, and if a customer comes and tries to return it, Jerry's policy is "All Sales Final", and won't give them $1. All of those sales, all of my extra hours, all that for $400?! I went to Jerry and asked him why it was so low, and he told me "I paid you what you deserved". From this point on, I knew that my time at Easco Wireless would be short, unless he paid me what I really deserved.
I continued to work there for even after this.in the meantime, the part time employees that I was managing started to complain that they were working 50-60 hours a week, and they were not being paid overtime. I really felt bad for these high school kids, who were working during their summer, trying to make money. I knew this was against the law, and I did contact the Department of Labor, to inform them that Jerry Edmonds, and Easco Wireless were not paying their employees overtime. They assured me that they would look into this, and have someone contact Jerry. I even approached Jerry before I contacted them, and told him how unhappy is employees were with him, and that he really needed to pay them the overtime that they deserved, because that was the law. He told me "they are just high school kids, and they don't deserve, or need overtime pay". After this ignorant response, I contact the Department of Labor.
Now looking back on it, I should have quit right then and there. I had even moved my family to Gainesville, to be closer to work then, and I thought that things might get better, so I stayed on. Well apparently Jerry got word that I had contacted the DOL (Deparment of Labor), and immediately he began acting different.
Within a week of contacting the DOL, Jerry came to me one day, and said that there was a deposit missing from the store, and asked me if I knew anything about it. I told him I knew nothing about it. He came to me, and told me that I because I was the manager at the time, I was responsible for the deposit. Keep in mind that Jerry had never given me any type of instructions, or procedures on how to correctly make deposits at the end of the day. Easco Wireless is the most unprofessional company I have ever worked for, period. He basically said, ok you are now the manager of this store, without any training, without any procedures, and again, he wouldn't pick up the phone if I had any questions.
Until that point, I truly was not concerned about leaving the deposits in the cash register because that was the way everybody did it, and I fully trusted all of my employees. Looking back on in it now, I really, really wish I would have quit right then and there, as I should have realized that I was being setting up.
After the deposit went missing, I asked him to show the EXACT procedures I needed to follow to avoid this from happening again. I now began to put every single deposit into the safe, even if it was my day off, I would go in at night, do the deposit, and personally put it in the safe myself, just so I knew exactly that the deposit was safe. Even after the initial deposit went missing, Jerry Edmonds continued to leave the key for the safe inside the store, where everybody had access to it. When he went over the procedures, I asked him, shouldn't you keep the key to the safe, instead of leaving it in the store, so everyone has access to it? He told me not to worry about it, but it just didn't make sense to me, so I decided to hide it, so only me and him knew where the key was hidden.
He didn't realize however, that he was the only person I had told where it was. All of the stores have bank accounts with BB&T Bank, which was in the same parking lot of the store in Gainesville, and I had even told him while he went over the procedures that I would feel the most comfortable taking the deposit directly to the bank every single night. He told me no, not to do that, just put the deposits in the safe, and he would come and make the deposits. This made no sense to me, after a "missing" deposit, isn't taking the deposit to the bank the safest way to prevent this from happening again I thought. But since this was the new "procedure" I did his way. After a "missing" deposit, you would think that he would be concerned, and come and do the deposit, pretty frequently, right? Well he didn't. He allowed the deposits to build up for a week!
After a full week had passed, and I was continuing to follow the EXACT procedures he had given me, and I personally put EVERY deposit in the safe, and
I knew that none of the other employees knew where the key to the safe was, so everything should have been right, but then it happened.
One morning, I came in, and Jerry was already at the store. He then told me that all 7 deposits were missing. I can not describe in words the feeling I felt when he told me this. I was shocked, furious, and just couldn't believe this was happening. He told me again that because I was the manager, I was responsible for them. I blew up at this point. It all hit me like a ton of bricks. I finally realized why he had not wanted me to take the deposits to the bank every night, whey he had not taken the safe key, and kept it on himself, and why he hadn't come to the Easco Wireless store in Gainesville for a week to make deposits, he had just successfully set me up, because I had contacted the Department of Labor on him, for not paying overtime. I immediately called the police, and asked them to meet me at the store.
When the police officer showed up, I pleaded my case with him, and told him everything, including the motive for why Jerry would do this to me, (contacting the DOL about him not paying overtime) and that I was 100% innocent. The detective didn't believe me, and went ahead with pressing charges. I was so depressed, and upset that I was being accused of something I DID NOT DO! Well after hiring two attorneys, and $10,000 later, I was able to convince the prosecutor that I was innocent, and they agreed to drop all of the charges, and clear my name completely. There was never any evidence that I took the money, but I also couldn't prove that he set me up, accept for the circumstantial evidence I mentioned above. I was completely and totally cleared off all charges, but spent a lot of money to prove my innocence.
I would urge anybody that reads this usacomplaints.com, to avoid Easco Wireless, and Jerry Edmonds at all costs. He rips off his customers, screws his employees out of overtime, and doesn't care about anybody but himself. I have no doubt that he set me up, and if anybody reads this, and they have hard evidence, or know something about him setting me up, I would ask that they please email with any details;. I have heard he now tries to get all of his part-time high-school kids to sign a waiver, saying that he doesn't have to pay overtime. CHARGING SOMEONE $39.99 FOR AN ITEM THAT COST YOU $1.75 SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.
Chris
Leesburg, Virginia
U.S.A.
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