Some years ago, and against my better judgment, I signed up with a local employment agency that promised me employment if I would pay the fee to get "registered." The man who convinced me to sign up with them was pleasant and persuasive, and very empathic and sincere when he looked over my resume and spoke with me about the sort of job I had in mind. He swore that they would find me a job or else refund my money if that was what I wanted. So I forked over about $200 to get registered, and tried to use the service.
At the time I did not know that agencies which charge you a big fee to sign up with them are a ripoff. Especially such a large fee. Legitimate employment agencies never charge a fee.
However, contrary to what was promised, I did NOT get a job through them.
The first problem was that you had to actually go to the office in order to look at what jobs were available. (This was eight years ago.) The office was a long bus ride away, and the telephone "Hotline" was often out-of-date. I went to the office several times to look at jobs listed (on slips of paper pinned to cork bulletin boards on the walls), and I also called the Hotline. Unfortunately, almost all of the jobs listed were either things I was completely unsuited for, or else were located in cities/towns I could not get to without a car. They did not have a proper website you could look up the jobs on (although they SAID they did, I was never able to use it properly because it did not work).
Time went by. I tried again, and the same man who had sworn I would get a job, expressed dismay when I explained to him what my problems were. He gave me a new membership card and number, and urged me to keep trying. Encouraged, I tried again, and now they had a website I could log into and check job listings, but again there was really very little available in Tacoma/Lakewood. It was probably not the company's fault that most of the jobs they had listed were located in cities that I couldn't get to, but they had been very misleading when they promised me that they DID have a multitude of jobs in my area - because they did not.
I was disgusted that I had paid nearly $200 for nothing.
Eventually I gave up again and looked elsewhere. I got jobs elsewhere over the years that followed, but let's flash forward to 2008.
On the job hunt again, I noticed some new ads I had not seen before that had been placed by Northwest Employment Services. I saw that the jobs listed sounded like they were of better caliber than before, and also there seemed to be a lot more of them. I thought that perhaps the company had grown since I had the membership, and that maybe, just maybe, I might find something if I looked again. One thing for sure, I could not afford a membership again. But what about my old membership to the company? Some places have 'lifetime' memberships and others have a term limit on them, and I simply did not know what their policy was or whether my membership was still valid. I couldn't even remember how many years it had been since I had given them my money.
Unfortunately, the info on my card was outdated and the website non-existent. But the phone number worked.
The first woman I spoke to was all right. I told her that I just wanted to know if my membership was still any good. She simply asked me if I knew what the membership number was so she could look it up, and I found that I needed to go find the card because it wasn't where I had thought it was (by the desk). She said to just call back when I found it and she or someone else would help me.
So I found it, and I called back.
This time I got a different woman. I could tell she was going to be a problem right away, for she was impatient to hear my question and wouldn't let me explain what I actually wanted. She made assumptions about what she thought I wanted after only hearing a few words, never even heard what my membership number actually WAS, and interrupted me to say that I could renew for "only" $165.
After they had taken almost $200 to deliver me absolutely nothing for the two years I tried to use them to find a job, I was hardly going to hand them another $165. Besides, I really can't afford that much right now.
So, I said in a very calm and polite voice, "I'm sorry but I can't afford that much right now."
I did not say, "I can't afford that much, so you need to renew my membership for free."
Neither did I say, "I think you owe me a free extension on my membership."
And I did not say, "You guys ripped me off for $200 last time, so why do you think I'm going to hand over more money now? You gotta be kidding me."
But apparently this woman assumed that I was saying all of these things. She immediately started to SNEER at me, telling me to call back someday when I could afford it, and hung up on me. It wasn't so much the actual words she used but the tone of voice she spoke them in. I never heard anyone sneer the way she did.
The woman had never taken down my membership number, and my question was still unanswered: was *MY* particular membership expired or not? So I looked over the card and the phone book, found a slightly different number and called back, hoping to get the first woman again.
But it was the same nasty one, who sneered, "is this the lady who wants to use our service FOR FREE?"
I said, "No, I just want to know if my membership has EXPIRED or not."
This time she took my number, and informed me that it was eight years old and had expired. I was shocked that it had been eight years (I hadn't remembered exactly how long it had been.) Then she started sneering and berating me, still assuming I wanted a free membership, snarling "is there anything ELSE I can help you with?" several times without even waiting for an answer before she hung up on me.
It apparently never occurred to this woman that if she had been nice to me, and as persuasive as the man had been who had gotten me to sign up in the first place, I might have considered renewing. How about explaining the ways in which the company had grown since my membership was valid, how about asking me what the reasons were that my membership had never gotten me some results, how about a smile and a comment about how a lot can change in eight years and maybe my skills had advanced since then as well, and why not come in and talk about it and maybe they could help me figure out what to do. I'm not saying I actually would have fallen for it, but the entire ATTITUDE would have been professional, and much more likely to get me to renew.
Instead, I was sneered at, hung up on, and treated in a way that NO ONE deserves to be treated. Even if I had actually said the things she seemed to think I was saying I would not have deserved to be treated like this.
I did some looking online and found comments by other people about the rude and unhelpful customer service people this company has, so apparently I am not the only one.
It is true that an entire company can't be blamed for the actions of one really bad receptionist, but I am filing this report for the following reasons:
1. Someone like her, who never actually reacted to anything I actually SAID, but made assumptions and acted on those instead, must treat others in similar fashion to the way she treated me. If so, there's no way the company does not know about it. If they know, and if they allow her to continue to act that way, they must share her attitude to a great extent and are not a company that people would want to do business with.
2. Their fees are rather high, in my opinion, and deliver nothing of value in return. From what I found online after my experience, I am not the only one who found them to be a waste of money.
So, job seeker beware. There surely must be better agencies elsewhere.
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