College Pro Window Cleaning CPro, College Pro Painters. Scam, Worked for free, Lost money, car etc. Etobicoke Ontario

Okay where should I start with this company?

It all started with a guest speaker in my lecture, talking about the perfect summer job opportunities for students to make a lot of money. It seemed legit judging from the fact that the prof stopped the lecture and gave the speaker some time to tell us about this. I signed my name down, and completely forgot by the end of the class.

A month later I get a phonecall, from a GM from College Pro, he conducted online interviews and was really smart with selling the job. He told me I would be able to run my own business, be my own boss, and make thousands of dollars, and have all the freedom to do it. Ofcoarse being a first year student, living out of home, broke, looking for a great opportunity to get ahead I went a long with it. I must say these individuals are extremely smart when it comes to getting people to say yes! I just get filled with anger when I think about how gullable I was, but they just know how to cheat people, and completely manipulate them.. kind of like a cult attacking vulnerable students. 

My parents warned me, telling me to make sure it is what they say it is, and I continously told them it's okay I will be making money and it is legit. They told me I can make up to 20,000-40,000 just over four months of summer.. It just sounded too good to be true, but I was really sick of being broke. So I signed the contract and sold my life to them for a year, biggest regret of my life. 

Then they invited me to a training session, unpaid obviously. At training there were 30+ other students there, to my surprise I even knew a couple. This sold me even more. So the training took place from 7am-6pm, and the whole time they shoved financials and continously told us we need to dedicate our whole life to this company. Obviously at this point I didn't pay attention I just wanted to work and that's it.

In February, the struggle begins. All of us were assigned to a general manager, mine was Taleb Oubayan. They wanted us to call customers every night and go door-to-door every day for 5+ hours to get clients, without pay. However, if you didnt do it to their standards, or the goals they made for you they would give you so much attitude, lecture you, and give you so much s*** that I probably cried every time. But silly me, I took this for months... just waiting for my first pay cheque. If you questioned why we had to dedicate our lives WHILE being university students, they would just tell you wait till the money comes, and that we will get a bonus cheque for all this. To ensure we were working to their standards they scheduled a weekly meeting with the general managers over the phone, to discuss "our business." (funny, it not once felt like my own business). If you had an emergency and missed this meeting they "took $50.00 out of your paycheque," which was never coming. During exams, they yelled at us to perform even more, disregarding all other priorities in our lives, like this was the #1 important priority in our lives, essentially to make them money.

Also, while I was in Unversity out of home in another city, they forced me to come down to Etobicoke several times for unpaid training. Once again training was Sat-Sun 7am-6pm and 7am-7pm. In the training in June I realized these men were not good people, and there was something evil about them... I could not trust them any further... But I was trapped, in a contract. One of the students beside me was getting really sick, and they were extremely rude to her telling her she needs to pay attention or come back to repeat the training session. I told her to go home, and that this isn't worth it. That night she had tubes down her throat, and they called her saying that she was still obliged to make phone calls and book customers. Disgusting. At this training sessions, the CEO Jeff, would come in, flaunt his money, and assert his power on us like he is some sort of powerful figure, I did not like his vibe the moment I saw him like there must be something up here.

In April, Taleb forced me to come back to the city to go door-to-door all easter weekend. Upon my arrival I had found out my cousin was in critical condition in the hospital. What do you think my priority was? During that weeks meeting, he scounded me for having "0" new customers, and when I told him about my cousin all he said was "whatever." that was THE moment I knew 100% I was in a trap with devils that I cannot get out of. Ofcoarse they had it all planned out, if you quit you owe $2000 if you are fired you owe $2000, scaring us. I should also mention if any training sessions were missed it was a $100 fine. 

Then production season began, May. I spent $600 alone on the setup of this business, on roof racks, a vehicle, and ladders. Gas cost me $80 a week, and they assured they will reimburse me for it, ofcoarse another famous lie from these general managers. They pressured me to hire my own employees, put ads up costing me $30.00. To remind you, I was broke and this was my parents (who were skeptical from the beginning) investing this money into me, hoping I would come out with thousands of dollars. They offered very little ladder, and safety training. During training the ladder nearly fell on my face, and he just told me to stand back. When I started producing, I was dealing with the ladder all by myself. Unsafe conditions, and even nearly died a couple of times. How do you expect a 18 year old female to lift ladders, climb up them and clean windows at obtuse angles? Oh, and ALSO at training they assured us that we will only be cleaning 2-story windows, which I am okay with, but we ended up having to clean 3-story windows! Happy to say, I never went through with those houses, because it truely felt like I was going to fall to my death the first time I tried. 

Everyday, I woke up early, tied my ladder to the roof, picked up my employees, and went on to clean these homes. It was bad, and then it got better. I did not mind it at all, window cleaning is a lot of fun. However, I did jobs where I got $600.00 cheques, did an amazing job, and the customers loved me. However, all cheques I got I had to send to College Pro, and then THEY pay me from that. I worked my butt off, nearly died, worked through scorching hot days where I continously fell sick, and rainy days (they said we had to). I hired my friend who was also living alone, and was also broke and in need of money. I produced almost $9000 for this company, and was paid about $500, only in May. I worked till July, and I ended up paying my employees with all the money I had so I basically made $0. It's funny he didn't consider it my business, till my employees needed to get paid. 

Everyday, he would yell telling me I should be doing 5 houses a day, 3 was tiring enough. And not only doing 5 houses a day, he wanted us to go door-to-door while producing and then going home and making phone calls! WHAt! It got to the point where I am just like no, I will not do that, but assured I was not quitting. I still did jobs. I stopped producing in July when I realized I haven't been paid in weeks, and the pay I received was not even close to how much money I made for them. There are students who produced $40,000, $50,000 for these devils, and were paid back less than 10%. They just sit in their offices, calling us everyday yelling at us, pressuring us, and promising fake fortune. I ended up loosing my production vehicle to an accident, and Taleb told me that if I don't find a car I owe termination fee. I told him constantly that I am not quitting, I am too broke to find another car, I am struggling to pay tuition. I had many plans for my first summer after first year... I did none, I could not afford a single event I looked forward to for months. It angers me how hard I worked for nothing, just a lot of pain, bruises, near death experiences.

During closedown, Taleb sat me down and asked me for $2000, told em I did quit so I owe him money. One of my friends told me he even tried going into her bank account and taking the 2 grand for himself. There were people that worked till the day of closedown which was end of August, and he still told them they owe 2000 for not meeting expectations even if they made them more than $20,000. I yelled, told them if anything they owe ME, owe my dad back for all the trouble he went for me, and told them I will NEVER give them a single cent ever and just left the office. He texted me saying I do owe the fees once again, I will stand my ground no matter what. I know he can't take this to court because even if I signed a contract or "didn't meet their expectations" I worked like a slave, for free, I made my dad suffer who took days off work to come fill in for employees with a broken shoulder, we deserve some justice if anything. Now here I am months later, still broke and dealing with this. 

I truely want this company taken down, I don't want anybody to go through what I did, these people are truly evil, with nothing but bad intentions to take every little penny from you and your family that they can. They will work you like dogs, yell at you if you don't, promise you false fortunes, and after all your hardwork ask for even more money. These men are not professional, they sure know how to play the role though, but they will swear and use terms like "p***y, and other words I will not mention" and these words will be targeted towards us. I hope this helps anyone that is doing research before signing the contract. RUN!!! You will regret it and it will be a HUGE setback in your life, no where close to a step up. 

I have just written some of the stories of my encounter with this company.

College Pro does not deserve to run any longer. Some of the GM's names are: Taleb Oubayan, Ashley Damphouse, Paul Molinaro, Dave, and ofcoarse Jeff Besharah.