EZ Money / EZ Corp / Kesha Dickens Forced to prey on our customers by making them take the full full amount of loan regardless of if they could pay it back or not. When we did not do this they would find various "reasons" to fire their employees. Ft worth Texas

I worked for the company for over 5 years and diring the time I was there the managers above me were ignorant and greedy people, who did not do their work and were never held accountable for anything. On many occasions the upper management (area managers and regional managers) would have us do things that were illegal such as flyering cars in areas that we were not suppose to due to city ordinance. They would have us put signs up that were in direct violation of city ordinace also and when the city code enforcers would come in they told us to act like we di. Not know better.

When it came to customers we were told by upper managent to deny them based on what bank they banked with or to look at their bank statements and if they had specific other payday loan companies on there we were not to lend to them. This company at one point wanted us to fill out the whole application over the phone so that when the customer came in they just had to sign the application when it says on the application that they are the ones who are auppose to fill in the info. Also if we ever filled out the application and the customer defaulted on the loan we were reprimanded for it.

When it came time for the customer to come in and pay if they were even 1 minute late we were to call them and theN if they did not answer we were suppose to call or send an email out to other stores sometimes in our areas and most of the times in completely different regions. Their philosophy was that if the customer did not recognize the number that they would more than likely answer the phone. That shows you right there that the company does not respect their customers. At one point they even told us to call and text customers illegally from our personal phones, when one of the customers wrote to a govt official they bought pay per minute cell phones and rotated them to trick their customers into answering the phone.

If the customer was unable to make it in on their due date for any reason we were reprimanded as not being able to get our customers in. I had a customer whos family member was having a baby and they wanted me to ask her to come in, I had a customer who was in the hospital and they wanted me to go pick up the payment in the hospital room. if they did not show up on their due date EZ Money wanted us (managers) to personally deliver a letter the very next day to the persons home or place of work as an attempt to either embarrass them or make them feel threatened that we came to their work or home. Now I understand that there are times when people can not make it on time due to personal or circumstances that they can not even control. But if that was the case we were told to treat the cusuomers as if they were not going to pay, even though the customer has three days to make their payment when they come due. But if we (managers) did not get them in on time we were reprimanded written up and in some cases fired. Which led to stressed managers and the customers suffered because the managers were told that we had to "tell the customer when they will pay us". 

The company's growth model which is totally unrealistic since new payday loan companies were showing up everywhere, yet they still expected growth every single month as if they were the only payday loan company in existence. When a customer would come in we were told regardless of what the customer requests we were to put the loan through for the full amount. So if a customer came in wanting 100.00 we were to leave the set amount of 1500.00 so that when they were approved we would use the larger amount as a way to bait the customers which usually led to them not being able to pay cause they could not afford the finance charges because if someone needs to borrow money and is desperate why would they not take the extra cash this is extremely predatory and they had reports that would single out stores who were not forcing their customers to take the full amount and the managers were repranded or put on a "performance plan". 

I worked at a bank before and have always believed you have to listen to your customers and try to help them based on their needs and their requests, not just to "act" like your listening and force them out of the door with the max amount of cash. I had a customer who was a great long term customer who could not make her payment. We set up a plan for her to pay in two weeks cause she was trying to keep the info from her husband.  The day that she was suppose to come in and make her payment her account was ACHed for the full amount and showed as paid. She later showed up to my store she was emotionally unstable because she said that if her husband found out she was afraid what her husband would do. Being a long time customer I tried to work with her and set up for her to come back in a week and we set up a payment plan. I was later forced to email the then regional director Eric Welch and tell him what happened. Eric was completely insensitive and ignorant. Not only did he tell me that I should have not refunded her money but I was later written up for a situation that had nothing to do with me as his way of getting back at me. He is competely ignorant as to how things work at the store level and did not care at all for the customers well being, which is a quality that a lot of consumers look for when dealing with any company these days.

After that things got worse with new products coming out and good managers being switched out with people who would do the illegal things like calling people on their cell phones multiple times in row, baiting customers with higher loan amounts and trying to use any kind of income to qualify the customer for more money. I did not agree with the companies practices and continued to work and give the customers what they ask for and not force them into debt. They brought in Kesha Dickens to do a clean up and get rid of people who were not willing to do their illegal practices. Mind you my store was bonusing while I was there so I was successfully doing my job. Kesha came and instead of trying to work with me degraded and belittled me in front of my co-workers on conferrence calls and in E-mails. I reported her to HR because she made and ignorant homophobic comment on a call in front of all the store managers yet nothing was done. Instead they gave her the green light to accelerate harrassment towards me and any other manager that did not follow their non customer friendly practices. So I was constantly harassed and also one of the other managers Debra Forbes had called and told me that she felt her job was at risk because of a medical condition she has and when Kesha talked to her she said that "We can not have you going out all the time cause you could lose your job" when Debbie had sick time. Debra never went to HR with the info and so when they got my complaint they moved me from my well performing store to the store in Fort Worth that had all kinds of problems and found any reason to get rid of me. 

The whole reason I am giving you both points of view customer and employee is because customers somtimes think that people who work for companies are all the same. In most cases they are right but in my case I was singled out for not being deceptive or predatory.

Do not use EZ Money they do not have your best interests in mind, they see you as a dollar amount that is to be exploited until you are so far in debt or getting other payday loans just to pay others off. The upper management at this company really need to come to a realization that they are not helping people out they are the problem.  With people like Eric Welch and Kesha Dickens I can honestly say that they only see you as a number, they do not respect their employees nor the customers. You would be better off getting a loan at a bank.