I signed on with Encore Nationwide several months ago. I was excited when I signed up for my first event. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun as I was going to be handing out food samples. However, when I got to the location, the store staff was completely clueless as to why I was there. They said they talked to a sales person at Encore, but nothing definite had been set up and there was no sampling kit for me to use. They said I wouldn't be able to work the event that day.
I've worked similar events for other companies in the past but never had anything like this happen before so I was obviously pretty confused. I called the off-hours "emergency" number for Encore (since it was a Saturday) and got an answering machine. I left a message and someone did call me back. The person I talked to assured me that I would get paid for the event and apologized for the mixup.
The following week I got booked for another event by Encore. I was a little hesitant to go, but decided to give the company the benefit of the doubt that something had just gotten mixed up the first time. So I went to this second event and the very same thing happened. I arrived at the store, but the store staff said that no sampling kit had been sent to them and that I wouldn't be able to work the event. I emailed the Encore event manager about it on Monday. She said she would get to the bottom of it but I never heard back from her.
Of course I didn't sign up for any more events with Encore after that. I haven't seen a penny of payment from Encore for either of the events I tried to work. I went online and saw that there were some other complaints about Encore not paying their employees so I thought I would add my own experience here in New Jersey. My worry is that there are some clients out there that may be thinking that their product is being sampled but really Encore is just pocketing everything for themselves. Not sure why a company would operate in such an odd manner unless they are running some type of scam.
I also read some of the comments by Larry Hess (Encore president) and he seems very egotistical and doesn't seem to have much respect for the people who work for him. Who wants to work for such a person? I certainly don't want him getting rich while ripping me off!
If anyone has a similar experience please share it so that no one else gets duped by this company, although I'm sure soon they will start operating under a different name (s).
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