Concentra Web Solutions Hammadore, Inc. Offers Writing Work on Freelance Basis & Refuses to Pay or Negotiate Athens, Georgia

Joseph Gringeri and his company went under and failed to pay content writers, like myself to whom he owed thousands of dollars, under contract.   Joseph has a temper problem and can not be trusted.  He is a monster in my opinion.  

I have been working for Concentra Web Solutions for about 6 months. I have been treated fairly, kindly, and have been paid on time every month. When asked for an edit they told me exactly why and gave me 24 hours to complete. More than enough time and more than fair. I have zero complaints. I think Joe and his whole staff have been very professional. They told me exactly what they expected of me and I follow the rules.....easy enough. Anyone that gets the chance to write for Joe at Concentra should jump at the chance.

Since I have begun working for this company 5-1/2 months ago, I have always found them to be consistent in their payment schedules and writing requirements.  If I ever have a question, they are very easy to get in touch with and have several methods to do just that.   If there have been any problems with my schedule, they have worked with me to complete my work and still meet deadlines.  In short, I would highly recommend this company for a work-from-home writer because they have been nothing but a blessing for me and my family! 

I am a contractor working for Joe Gringeri at Concentra Web Solutions. I have been writing for the company for around 8 months now. My experience has been consistently positive. I have found Joe to be fair and equitable. He works hard to do his job which from my perspective is to find work. My job is to do the work. We have experienced a tremendous uptick in workload since I have been writing for Joe. I personally have been pushed to my limits each week and sometimes beyond. Joe has been fair with me and offered to reduce my workload if it is too much, an offer which I have recently accepted. He does expect us to get our work done on time. In exchange, he pays on time. In fact, the past two months we have actually been paid several days early. If he has the funds from his clients early, he is more than happy to pass them along to us. I have never had a problem getting paid for my work. I must mention that I have been late on deadlines, and I have been able to work out a solution when I let him know ahead of time. There was a situation when I did not let him know, and that was my fault, and he let me know that wasn't going to fly. Our work is time oriented and our customers expect timely delivery. This notion of getting ripped off is foreign to me, because I have had a consistently positive experience working as a contractor for Concentra Web Solutions. I would recommend to any web content writer that this is a good place to get some work in and make some money.

This was filed by Gwendolyn Noles.  Gwen is a writer who responded to a craigslist ad I posted last fall. Gwen provided great articles but unfortunately we had a work slow down a few weeks after she began contracting with us.  As such, I told her we would not be able to continue giving her assignments. Gwen immediately lashed out stating that she would sue us if we didn't pay her, that we lied to her, and that she was used to being abused by firms she contracted with. Gwen seemed to have a very negative attitude and jumped to many irrational conclusions.

At this point Gwen was no longer used as a writer.  I felt pretty bad for Gwen and given the state of the economy I figured that maybe she was just really stressed out and having a hard time.  I've been given some second chances in life and as such decided to contact Gwen again in April to see if she would like to give it another shot.

Upon contacting Gwen she immediately replied that she was interested in working for us again. I assigned her articles and for several weeks she produced very high quality work. I am a big believer in feedback and repeatedly told Gwen we really liked her work.

Around the end of the month Gwen submitted her weekly batch but didn't tell us about it. I sent Gwen an email the next morning telling her that articles were due on the date and time specified and they all needed to be turned in on time.

Gwen responded erratically with an email stating that if I didn't like the quality of her work she would move on to the next contract. She stated that it was 'only 1 or 2 out of 60 articles' that she needed to finish. Gwen had uploaded the files but there were a couple that she needed to correct and reupload. I explained to Gwen that this wasn't acceptable.

We have folks waiting on articles who start publishing them bright and early Monday morning. So if we get a batch of articles and there are a random one or two that are incomplete this creates a quality issue and a tracking issue because a) the articles could get published before  they are corrected and b) tracking multiple versions of files is a time waster.

I felt, and still feel, this is a simple concept - you commit to a deadline, you deliver on time. IF you are going to be late at least have the courtesy of letting us know BEFORE hand. Instead Gwen became irrational and told me she didn't want to be micromanaged. This escalated and I reinforced again and again that we like the exceptional quality of Gwens articles but that the articles MUST be turned in on time OR that we needed to know AHEAD of time that the articles would be late.

Gwen eventually sent me an email that stated she wanted to 'rewind', that she understood and that she wanted to move on. Perfect. This is what I wanted too.

Then, a few days later I received the following email from a person I had never known of or spoken to before. Keep in mind that we require all of our contractors and employees to sign a very specific non-compete. We protect our data, our systems, and our content vigourously, yet Gwen completely disregarded that. Given the circumstances I can understand why she gave my email address out, but there was no reason to start handing out usernames and passwords to our secure and private project management system.

Here are the emails I received from Gwen's 'friend'.

****************EMAIL 1*****************************
Dear Mr. Gringeri,

I am the partner and friend of Gwen Noles. It is my understanding that she has been writing for you on a contract basis. I regret to tell you she has been in a serious accident and she is in the hospital.

Gwen asked me to send her apologies about her work this week. She stored her articles on her flash drive. The flash drive she kept on her car ring was crushed in the accident and the articles she was going to submit this weekend were lost.

I realize this is none of my business, but I care about Gwen, so I'm making it my business. She told me a little about your interaction yesterday and let me read your e-mail last night. I was shocked at what you said to her. She wrote a huge number of articles for you in the past several weeks and I know they were pretty much flawless. So, she went back in yesterday morning to correct two articles. Whats the big deal? As a manager myself, I can tell you that Im more concerned with the quality of the product and the profits to be earned than a few matters being remedied at the last minute.

Do you really think it was worth berating her about that and saying that you didn't care if she submitted 2 articles or 50? The difference in your profits, if nothing else, on her work, would be quite different if she were less efficient.

To quote you directly, you said, "The bottom line is this is not acceptable whether it is 1 or 50 articles that are late.

Do you really believe that? Wouldn't you lose a hell of a lot more money if she only submitted  one article on time?

This was deeply upsetting to Gwen. I spoke to her briefly after all this went down between you two yesterday. That's the last time we spoke before she headed off to market and got into a head-on collision with another car.

Anyway, I want to say this to you because I think you were wrong. Gwen is alive, thank God, but you mistreated her, and whatever happens, she won't work for you again.

She will, however, expect to be paid in full. I will be sure of that. Since she's going to be in the hospital for a time, I'll check her e-mail to see you pay her.

So, the final thought I have is this: Since youre getting zero articles from her this week, youll get to test your theorem. Wouldnt it have been better to get all 50 or however many articles than the zero sum you will be receiving this week? Isnt it better to earn 98 percent of your money on the articles you get from the author and sell to vendors at a high rate than to earn zero dollars?

This week, fate seems to have stepped in to test your theory since you are getting zero from her and thus earning zero on the articles.

Jack Szasz

******************MY RESPONSE**************
Jack,

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about Jack. I'm so sorry neither of you understand the concept of meeting a deadline.  And I'm sorry you're naive enough at your age to assume you understand my business and its requirements when you know nothing about either.

Take care and good luck,

Joe

*********************EMAIL 2**********************





Jack Szasz

********************MY RESPONSE********************
It's sad that you have this outlook on life.

You and Gwen will be hearing from my lawyer. In addition to violating her non-compete and non-disclosure agreements she has possibly caused other damages. You have also illegally accessed a computer system without permission, and as you sent me an email directly, there was no need to.  Unfortunately for you, this little number is a federal crime.

Guess they didn't teach you any of that at Harvard.  Too bad.

I hope you have a good lawyer. If you think I'm tolerating this you truly are out of your mind.

Good by and good luck,

Joe

*********************EMAIL 3**********************
Too bad for you too.

She in no way broke her agreement. She has not shared with or shown
anyone the work she has written for you.

The only thing I know is your name, the company, and the website.

If you feel the urge to sue someone over this, be my guest.

**********************MY RESPONSE*********************
Wrong Jack. You accessed our project management system to which she was given a username and password. Per her contract this is a violation. Per state and federal statute, when you accessed the system you violated laws - regardless of whether you hacked in or if you had the credentials - you weren't supposed to and you used it to attempt to cause harm to my reputation and staff by twisting words. 

Yes, I will be suing you, Gwen, and I will also make every effort to have you arrested.

You are a sick, sick individual to say and imply the things you have. Honestly, how dare you. 

I contracted work. I set a deadline. The deadline was agreed to by both parties. The deadline was not met. I informed Gwen this was not acceptable. Gwen didn't like this and read into it. I reiterated and further explained my position.  I reinforced the fact that I thought Gwen's work was great.  You have chosen to pick and choose and paraphrase pieces of emails to create some type of sensationalized drama.  Well good for you.  I'm sorry your partner was in a serious wreck, but the blame does not lie on my shoulders.

Good luck to you,

Joe


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Additionally 'Jack', posted the following message into our project management system and attempted to send it to the company: