Being a small home business providing bookkeeping and support services, I was looking for potential clients. I located the company by way of a newsletter which I was registered to receive from a company that supports Virtual Assistants and aids them in the training and assistance they need to make their home based businesses a success.
After reviewing the very professional website, and seeing that they were also asking for bookkeepers, I submitted my resume for both the bookkeeping and customer service positions. I was contacted by email by a staff member, requesting a scheduled interview for the following week. She was to call me. Needless to say, I was never called. I should have known then that things were not kosher. Needless to say I contact one of the owners of the Newletter. To inform them of the behavior of the company and the missed appointment, when doing that I cc: d Tom Capone. Right away Tom Capone contacted me and apologized for the missed interview blaming back office staff for the confusion.
He then scheduled an interview with me for a few days later. I interviewed with Tom Capone of MTP I believe on the 26th of October. The same day I was offered a position as a Contractor Bookkeeper. I was sent a small packet of information along with a simple agreement which I was to fill out and complete. Upon doing so, I started my contractor services on October 30. My main position was Bookkeeping. I sent out Invoices, and statements. Processed credit card payments, processed other contractor's time cards and time logs. The Quickbook account that was used by the company was a complete disaster. I asked about trying to clean it up and was constantly told I shouldn't mess with it because we would be starting from scratch as of the first of the year. I was told paychecks would be processed and paid 10 days after the end of each pay week.
I continued to work for Tom and MTP week after week and never received any pay. Processing payroll left me in a very bad spot because other contractors were asking me about there pay, but I could never receive any answers from Tom as to why myself and others were not being paid. I continued my position until 11/30/06. Deciding to end my contractor status with MTP after being told on a conference call with Tom, that with changes in the future he wanted me to take on more responsibility with the Books. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to take on such a responsibility with such a messed up set of books already, and already spending 4 weeks of my time without being paid, I ended the contract. I sent my final time log and timecard along with my resignation letter. Automatically I was taken out of all accounts and my email address was deleted.
Time Cards 10/30/06 to 11/05/06 $150.40 was due 11/16/06.
11/06/06 to 11/12/07 $87.70 was due 11/23/06.
11/13/06 to 11/19/06 $140.40 was due 11/30/06.
11/20/06 to 11/26/06 $74.30 was due 12/07/06.
11/27/06 to 11/30/06 $110.60 was due 12/14/07.
On December 15th after several emails to the company I was told by another contractor that the paychecks had been mailed. On the 22nd of December also by another contractor I was told that 4 paychecks had been issued according to Quickbooks on the 20th of December.By December 29h I still had not received any of the payments, so I sent out several more emails, which did not get responded to until January 3rd 2007 by a newly assigned bookkeeper. Stating that if I had not received the payments to verify my address with Tom and that he would re-issue the payments. I also received this day an email from Tom stating "verify the mailing address, and we shall check this in the system.". I did just that on the 3rd of January.
I had to email again on the 8th because I had not heard anything once again from the company. I was then email by Toms Head assistant (Name Removed) who took over my non payment issue, and an issue with a missing invoice. She verified all the timecards that were in the QB system for payment and added the missing timecard to the QB account. On January 11th, I was email by (Name Removed) and she had sent me a corrected time card. Also on that email Tom was CC:'d and asked to please send (Name Removed) the new Bank password so that she could check the status at the bank level to see what my payment hold up was.
After not hearing anything I kept sending emails on the 23rd of January I received an email from (Name Removed) stating that another contractor was handling the situation and that that person had quite, so I would need to send all my stuff back to (Name Removed) again so she could take over. I was also told that day that the bank stated 4 payments were sent out on the 20h of December. And was told she would contact the bank and find out where the payments were sent, if I didn't receive them. I emailed her back on the 24th asking her to please keep me informed and I verified my address once again. I receive an email on the 25th from (Name Removed) stating that the bank had to research and that it might take 2-3 days. She also stated "You can always speak to Tom directly to see if they checks cleared his account or not and if not, maybe he can cancel them and issue you an ACH or something for the total amount due you, but you will have to speak to him directly about that. I am not authorized to do so."
I tried multiple times to email Tom directly, but never received any responses. On the 29th I email (Name Removed) again asking for a status on the Bank research. I received this as the reply "My hands are tied at this point. I have done all I can do with the bank, now Tom must take if from here. He is in Arizona for a week, but should be able to follow up with you when he returns. These payments were made via the TAC Holdings account and I do not have access to it nor am I authorized to make inquiries about it per the bank rep. Tom has been notified. Tom turned the case over to me. I contacted the bank and spoke with one person who didnt have any problems speaking with me about it. They said they would look into it and call me back. That is what I told Tom. I also followed up with them and was told that it was still under investigation and they would get back to me. Then, the last time I contacted them, I was told that I was not authorized on the account to discuss and Tom would have to be involved. I sent an email to Tom to see if he could look into it and he said he would as soon as he gets back from his trip next week.
I am sorry that we are having so much trouble, but we are trying to get it taken care of."
I waited until the 5th of February and started emailing for a status of the non-payment. I emailed weekly, and never received another response. On the 9th of March I started filing complaints to multiple agencies.
I have recently been told that the person left to deal with my situation herself has filed multiple complaints against the company for non payment as well. I again reported my situation to the owners of the newsletter, which they promptly removed the company from their newsletter.
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