ICS Merrill Bad Experience working at ICS Merrill. The stories you've read are true. It happened to me too. Jacksonville, Florida

I worked for ICS Merrill in NC. Just like previous workers, I was promised the Sun and the Moon to come on board with this company. $18.50 was a low wage to start but I was sure raises would come eventually. Not only do they not pay raises but just like other former employees have written, you really don't get the $18.50. In the cooler months you get little or no work and in the summer they want to work you 7 days a week. What I hated the most was having to drive 2 hours to a location, get no activity after 3-4 hours and then drive back home. Sometimes this would happen everyday for a week and you would end up with about 20 hours. Then it would happen to you again the following week and you would get a paycheck with a total of 40 hours pay.

A grown man can't feed a family on that. They rip you off with that billable efficiency crap. It works like this. The computer says that for every 30 minutes of video reporting, it should only take you 2 minutes to write that part of your report. If you take longer to do it then that, your efficiency goes down. If it goes below 70 percent, you could loose your job. So everyone lies and puts down the time the computer says it should have taken you to write the report. So if you had evidence with lots of details and it really took you 6 hours to write the report, the computer says it should have only taken you 12 minutes. So if you  worked 8 hours and it took you 6 hours to get the report done, you would only get paid for 2 hours and 12 minutes because you gave 6 hours away.

I call this organized crime. You can't get your co-workers to stand together and say you are cheating us because everyone is scared they will loose their jobs. So the investigators end up cheating the customer to get justice adjusting their times on the video instead of having some integrity and working the hours they bill. I have witnessed investigators doing this myself. Companies like Travelers, Esis, Zurick etc. think they are paying for top quality surveillance services. the truth is, they are just throwing their money away dealing with this group. The investigators are rookies or old washed up guys who can't get a job doing anything else. ICS Merrill is an advertising and marketing company that hires substandard investigators and pay them next to nothing which in tern causes them to cut corners because they stop caring. Don't get suckered into working for this group. You will be sorry. As for all you Insurance companies out there who think you are first rate because you think ICS Merrill is first rate, all I can say is "Suckers". 

And don't let me leave without mentioning the little punk manager I had over me. Patrick Greene. He was terrible. No people skills. He was the worst thing about the job second to not getting paid properly. They finally got rid of him but they hire a clown named Matthew Fosson. This guy had no clue. I really could identify with the stories written by the other ex-employees. I just hope this will help someone who is thinking about going to work for this company. Before I started I read stories on this website and I didn't believe it. I thought these were just angry people who got fired and were bitter. Now I know the truth. I didn't get fired. I quit and I have nothing to gain by making things up about these people. If they were a good company I would say that. But I can't because this group bites.