Arise Virtual Solutions Inc., Willow CSN Incorporated Willow Charge High Fees for certification - Compensation changes once you are certified Miramar, Florida

I recently trained with this company for a position with a cruise line.  I paid several hundred dollars for the training.  This is a sales application.

I worked for the company 6 weeks when Arise notified all agents for this application that the current compensation structure of $.18 per minute talk time plus a booking bonus would be changed to a a "per call" rate of a $1.15 (base).

The biggest problem with this is the fact that we are still expected to keep up with the same booking numbers.  Because this application has somewhat out of date software, each booking has to be made separately.   For instance, you cannot go in and click "3" for number of cabins.  You have to bring up a separate screen for each cabin, do all contact information each time, enter all guests, enter dine time, insurance, and send all confirmations separately.  Most calls are for mutiple bookings. 

If 1 agent calls and wants to book seven cabins, it will take almost an hour to do.  That means you will get $1.15 for that call. 

Now there is a chance the next call might take only 1 minute and you would also get paid $1.15 for that call.  This, however does not happen often since the calls are routed so we get the sales calls and not the other calls that could take just a minute such as the cruise line website, or phone number etc.

The other problem is the technical problems that have nothing to do with the agents, but with the Arise applications.  For instance, the screens that we have to use to enter the data are always freezing or going down.  This means we have to start over entering information, thereby even more time on the call and we are not reimbursed for the failure of the Arise components.

Now we are not allowed to negotiate these rates.  We are told the minimum number of hours we have to work.  We are required to take their classes to train for the applications and we have to use their software.  Does this make us employee's, there fore having the right to a minimum wage, tax witholding, family leave benefits and other benefits.

Arise has told us they are realigning the pay structure in order make us more in line with the compensation the cruise line's internal staff receives.  However, when they realigned they never used the benefits the internal staff receives that we do not.  We pay 0 of our health insurance, 100% FICA, 100% Social Security, have no family benefits, pay 100% of our dental not to mention not having no 401 or other retirement plan in place.  They only used the per minute call rate and booking bonus in their metrics.

I urge all Florida residents working for Arise to go to your State and County governments and file a complaint about Arise and their business practices.  I urge persons from other states to do this as well, however the Florida complaints will be looked at first because the State of Florida will be able to subpeona Arise's business records more quickly than the governments from the other states.

Thank you for your time in this matter.