EPSON America Inc., EPSON Free stuff, ripoff gift certificates, free inks, free papers, cheap printers, all lies Long Beach California

Why Epson America is so f***ed up... an email like this was sent around about 2 years ago. Since that happened Epson did nothing but fire those mentioned in the email. Did they improve to help the employees, which would obviously prevent such an email from being sent in the future? Of course not... honestly, do you think Don Saunders (on the 9th hole green) is really concerned with how the employees are being treated? Or is he concerned about getting a larger paycheck?

Management & Head of HR never DID answer my question, rudely ignoring it. If they both got the bonuses, which I can more than assume based on the uncomfortable silence when I asked them both, and the folks in Long Beach all got their bonuses ($1000 each!!!! And by the way this was told to us BY the people IN Long Beach, it's not rumor), then why did the Mural call center not receive a bonus? The two mentioned it was because Epson Canada's revenue was not too great this year. What I don't get is the fact that management and I worked in the same building. Are THEY Epson America? If so, why was I not?
If this is the case, they're telling me that every dollar I made for the company goes right into the American pockets and not the Canadian's. MY HARD WORK got the people in Long Beach a bigger bonus!!!!!!!!!?????????!!!!!!!!!!!
Nevermind the fact that we can't take off Canadian holidays, yet we're supposedly working for a Canadian company. They also had me sign my letters "Epson America". Let's also consider that Epson Canada is not a real company in fact it is a division of Epson America.

The sad thing is the reps ARE probably going to end up getting the bonus... they just had to push my buttons by telling me "It is a bonus that you should not be expecting, that's why it's called a bonus. Some years it's given and some years it is not."
Thanks!!! That explaination really did help the situation, considering I'm a 4 year old mongaloid. A yes, no, or maybe would have been fine, you snake. And to follow up on this I've asked people that have been in the call center since the beginning and they said they received a bonus EVERY year. So I guess you lied.

How Epson Canada is struggling (as they say) is beyond my comprehension. Last year Epson laid off 25 people from Long Beach's Customer Relations, these people were making up to $19 per hour in US dollars. To replace them Epson hired on 14 people in Toronto at $14.66 per hour, Canadian to do the exact same work. That move saves Epson at least $19,340 (Canadian $$) PER WEEK!!!!!!!!
Epson also opened up a call center in Oshawa paying these poor stiffs $9/hr to do the same work that people are getting paid $13.50 to do only a few miles away here in Richmond Hill. They did not give Oshawa email access so they can never find this information. Last year there was a meeting to show us how GREAT Epson is doing. #1 in projectors, #2 in inkjets, #1 in scanners, etc, and a total revenue of $12 BILLION for 2002.

Epson used to offer raises for every new application reps would support. Mac training? $0.50 raise! Scanner training? $1 raise! Etc... Now Epson has no incentive whatsoever for reps to continue working there. In fact management specifically told me "If you're looking for a job that you can excell in and climb the ladder and get raises for your hard work... this isn't the job for you and I suggest you look around." Then they fired me. A lot of reps have made the decision to keep their scores at an average 60% and no higher simply to avoid being trained on any new application. Really, what is the point of working three times as hard for the same amount of money. But now it's mandatory no matter what scores they have. Epson also cut annual raises to a pathetic 2% in 2003 which is the lowest they can legally go which basically means if they could pay reps less, they would.

During the 2003 blackout we were forced to stay in the building in case the systems came back up. There was no air conditioning or ventilation or lighting. People were throwing up and coming very close to passing out. Epson figured that if they were going to have to pay them for the day, they may as well have them stick around until the end of the shift and make their day miserable. Or have you feel forced to leave early and not get paid. The mayor's official comment on the blackout was "Leave work & school, go home and stay indoors". Epson argued that.

An employee requested a Leave Of Absence so she could attend school. Response from management was "How will your education in Law benefit Epson?"

Bomb threats are ignored. No reps are informed. Also during a fire drill the fire exit stairwell was locked forcing the entire call center to use the West stairwell.

Why is it that management knows so much about HOW to handle unreasonable customers yet we've never seen or heard them take one? We hear the same excuse... "I USED to take tech and CR calls". Yes, that was back in the early 90's. When the call center was made up of about 20 people who handled ALL the calls. Have they ever considered that things may be a little different now? They're quick to scream "there's 15 calls in the queue" yet never one to pick up the d**n phone and give a little help.
Geetha attended 2 weeks of CR training in May 2003.

I was fired for speaking my mind through email. My comment was "when it's convenient for them to be Epson America, they will be. But when it works in their favor all of a sudden they are Epson Canada." I sent the email to who I thought were my friends in the call center. It turns out one of them decided to send the email around to everyone which eventually got back to management.
You really are the most pathetic, lowlife, piece of f**king nothing I have ever met. And I beat myself up over trusting you after you did this to me the first time, you c****ucker.
My question is why did management fire only ME and not the person who forwarded the email around to the rest of the call center????

Literally more than half of the CR team left Epson after only 8 months of being hired on. This is obviously because of the workload, stress level, and lack of decent pay and support. Nevermind the fact that people all around are getting paid MORE to do the SAME job only because they started when Epson USED to give raises, and I don't just mean CR when I said that, I mean all departments.

There ARE a handful of team leads that actually DO their work. But some teams' reps actually RECORD on file exactly what their TL does during the day. Here's an example;
9:13am - arrives late, sets up workstation, leaves building.
9:41am - returns to workstation. surfing internet.
10:35am - surfing porn sites.
10:50am - administrative work.
11:12am - takes jacket and leaves building.
12:40pm - arrives back. online shopping.
12:55pm - reads a book.
1:40pm - leaves building.

It must be nice to have a job where you can get away with that THEN reprimand your team for being one minute late from a break. A power trip brought on only to show management that you still work there.

Fortunately for me I never had a problem with my team leads.

There are people who completely abhor this company and everyone running it. This is well known by everyone and even management mostly because they're not afraid to speak their mind. Even while training. BUT THEY never wrote an email about it and sent it to a handful of friends. I did... so I got fired.

People are openly high everyday and even offer to sell drugs to mates. People openly cut up Epson's management and policies... and get away with it. One was accused of more than one count of sexual assault, lied about it, then admitted yet no reprimand. How?
The office politics are so obvious and clear-as-day that you give the "little people" no choice but to despise them all. Don't wonder why 90% of the people in training classes won't last 12 months on the phones.

In 2003 I was also reprimanded for receiving a dirty email. You read correctly... I received it. I never opened it on a call and I deleted it right away. Because management got a hold of it, they fired the sender and reprimanded everyone on his mailing list. You try and figure that one out. They informed me that from then on all of my incoming and outgoing email will be monitored thorougly. Seems like an invasion of my privacy if you ask me, and I did nothing wrong.

There's no commission offered by the company. In 2002 a rep sold over 100 projectors in one call making the company over $200,000 in a matter of minutes. Not so much as a "thank you" was given by Epson.

Every year Epson holds a focus group meeting for the staff to bring up questions and concerns that they have about the company, and get answers from management. One rep from each team of all departments attends. A week later the minutes are released and posted in the lunch room.
Customer relations asked a total of 14 questions like "can Epson save money from summer BBQs and put it toward mouse pads and keyboards with wristguards?". Personally I asked 4. Not one of the 14 questions from CR was mentioned in the 3-page document. The minutes were only for the "relevant" questions & comments which included "can you please go over the dress code and explain what is not appropriate?"
I find it hard to believe anyone would even ask that question.
However, one question AND answer was not addressed in the meeting but somehow made it to the 3 pages. "The 1st floor washrooms are dirty all day." and Epson responded with "we will speak to Menkes about this issue and have it resolved immediately." It seemed to be the most important concern in the document because miraculously Menkes renovated the 1st floor washrooms while the document still hung posted in the lunch room. Does this make sense to anyone? It is too obvious that the renovations were already planned. Management PLACED that comment and response in the document only to create an alibi for when someone questions the purpose of the focus group meetings. Eventually someone will question the meeting when they find their comments were ignored too. "Well we DID fix the washrooms as promised in the meeting."

I heard a rep received a plaque for working with Epson for 15 years on the SAME tech support job. Ask the rep if they believe they deserved more even if they never did indicate this to anyone. Epson you should be ashamed.

This job is not a career move and if you disagree then you're a complete moron and you'll never amount to anything. This job is for people who are looking for something just to pay the bills until they have enough $$ to start a business, or until they get the job they've been waiting for.

Using management's method:
If we take the total minutes Don Saunders visits each month and multiply it, he's actually been in the call center for 3 whole hours each year!!!!!
And if we take the time that Management uses to wander around the call center trying to look busy and add it up over the months, we have 1300 hours each year!!!!!

I used to work for Epson in Toronto. Saying that Epson has any sort of decent customer service, generally, is a lie.

Sure, there are a few reps who genuinely care about the customer, but when 90% of the people you work with can't be bothered learning how to troubleshoot a product, or what *real* customer service is supposed to be, it gets very tiring cleaning up after their messes.

Three quarters of the reps don't follow proper procedures, and half of *those* probably don't even know what the customer service or troubleshooting procedures ARE!

I tell you, after working there, i'd never purchase an epson product. Every other company i've dealt with in any capacity has much better customer service and technical support.

I say if they're going to keep sending free samples to the same address (they're supposed to log all the calls, and probably don't bother) then tough! You're not CONNING someone if they willingly give things to you. It's not Frank's fault they keep rolling over to play dead.

Frank, if anyone is F*&^%$ up, its you!!!
Here you are talking about how Epson rips you off when indeed you are ripping Epson off!! Its a shame that the Customer Relations Dept. at Epson has refused you free supplies......why don't you try purchasing them sometime you tighta**!! How can you possibly knock Epson for giving you "Free stuff all the time"? As far as Sal, Eddie, Virgil, Judith and Bibi in the CR Department they are all pretty smart if you ask me. Why the F^%$ should they continue to send you of all people free things. They are not being hardasses or dicks, they are just doing their jobs. If anyone is a d**k, it's YOU and you just let the whole world know it!!! I do have to thank you on advertising how great Epsons service actually is. Why don't you go to HP or Cannon and see how good their Customer Service is??? Now that you have brought this to my attention, I will personally make sure that you NEVER rip off my company EVER again!!!!

Here's some facts directly from SEVERAL different employees themselves. Including a letter from an employee when he left.

1) Adecco, Epson's employment agency, receives $22 per hour per representative. After paying the $8 Prostitution Tax and Government Taxes, you would be a smarter w***e to put on a mini skirt, shave your legs, and setup shop on Toronto's Red Light District.

2) I am CANADIAN and should NOT be forced to work on CANADIAN holidays.

3) Bomb threat warnings are announced DAYS AFTER the incident occurs. Rhetorical question to the person(s) who made the decision to withhold this information: Are you semi-retarded or half-retarded?

4) The monitoring process is plagued by corruption. During November and December of last year, I increased my quality scores by bribing two monitors, one quality czar and my team lead at the time. The team lead in question no longer accepts bribes or "appreciation", because he realizes his reputation and pride will better "survive" by making sexual advancements on the female species of his team.

5) Spying and covert invasion of private E-mails gives management a hard-on. In 1989, former Epson employee Alana Shoars sued the company for invasion of E-mail privacy and did not lose. History repeats itself with the eQuality Witness program whose real function is, "monitoring the accuracy and efficiency of your company's E-mail messages...as well as analyze how effectively your CSRs are using the software". I wonder if Witness saw me send naked pictures of Donald (the dickhead Regional President who shows his face once every 2 months for 20 minutes) to www.chikswithdiks.com?

6) Way more than half of the employees are drug addicts. Mostly cocaine and pills. The amount of illegal narcotics distributed and abused during work hours would make Cheech and Chong jealous. Solve this epidemic by forcing everyone to urinate in a cup, which should be easer than monitoring our E-mails, scheduling our breaks, chaining us to our desks, and treating us like slave labour.

7) It is cheaper to depreciate highly skilled and talented individuals. People do not leave this place because call centers are not suited for them. Smart people leave because any self-respecting human would not subject themselves to the ethically deficient morons whose main goal is increasing the number of zeros on their executive paycheque.

To all of you who made this experience easier, I thank you. I have no personal attacks; I'm not leaving here for my dislike for the people here.

This is a great way to get your foot in the door, yes. But don't for a minute think that any of the so-called skills that you have obtained here are applicable to anywhere else in the IT profession. Unless you get to training or god forbid Team-Lead (a term created only to make it easier to pay the supervisors a "Team-Lead" salary), the only skills you will achieve grant you a job as a receptionist that knows how to connect a cable and install a driver. Wow.

For the longest time, I wasn't even allowed to use all of my potential skills. There's only so many times that you can read the boring Epson sites before you have nothing to do, sitting at the phones with hours of downtime in-between calls. As such, one must find creative and new things to do. We don't even have access to the Internet. That's wrong and none of us are responsible enough to use it, right?

I don't want this to be taken the wrong way. This is to expose the fact that not only this company is so unprofessional that they can't set up a real firewall, but furthermore that we are not granted the intelligence to be able to use it. The Internet is a "RESOURCE", and any modern company relies on it to be professional. Epson, however, is so scared that the quality might go down as a result that they'd rather sacrifice professionalism for ignorance. They can't afford to loose anyone to poor quality, so they just don't give you the option to act professional. There is no trust, something Epson could focus more time on rather than free soft drinks and barbecues. During down-time we can't read books or magazines (unless EPSON-related) yet the Team-Leads use their Internet access to shop and look up sports & porn.

In closing, Epson, you must learn to trust your employees and not treat them as the disposable garbage they have. Epson, you must stop setting your sites to keep an employee no longer than 2 years, to actually make careers here. You've got some great employees, ones that without which this company would not survive. Lastly, and most importantly, have a goal. There's nothing worse than working for a company that doesn't have a clue where they're headed. Goals are contagious, in that people will strive for company goals as well as personal goals. All of these things go hand in hand. Don't patronize your employees with meaningless focus group meetings in which you intend to care for an hour or so, and not intend to follow through on anything. You need to give your employees more than just the opportunity to "vent".

Let me get this straight, Epson is apparently a company that still values customer satisfaction. You take advantage of that virtue and strongly encourage others to rip them off as well. What a sorry human being you are.

In case you are not aware, this site was created to stop rip-offs and you have the balls to brag about ripping Epson off. Skum con artists like youself cause the rest of us who are honest to pay more for products. You and your family and friends are pathetic.