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Elephant Group Complaints - Deceptive practice-fraud!

Review all Elephant Group complaints

Elephant Group
Posted: 2006-12-02 by Christopher Trieble  [send email]
Deceptive practice-fraud!
Complaint Rating: 91 % with 11 votes
I was employed by the Elephant Group of 901 Hadley Road South Plainfield NJ 07080 at their Elkridge Md facility located at 6835 Deerpark Drive Elkridge Md 21075. I was hired on Monday December 20th 2006 at the rate of $12.00 per hour. When I received my first paycheck on Wednesday November 29th, the rate on the check showed $9.72 an hour.

When I brought this dispute up to a supervisor Ryan (no last name), he terminated me on the spot for disputing my wage. I know Maryland is at At Will State and any employer can terminate an employee for any reason or no reason, but this is totally unethical and I want to bring this to your attention.

We were also encouraged to lie and be deceptive to customers (telemarketing) to close a sale. I am a business graduate with a BA from Loyola College and an MBA from the Graduate Management program of MAP.

I have a labor attorney looking into this matter as well.

Sincerely,
Chris Trieble
410-796-2234
christer@charm.net
Comments United States Job & Career
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More Elephant Group complaints
Elephant Group - Deceptive Practice / Fraud

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 1084 days ago by Alex  [send email] +1 Votes
How true it is.
Conditions are not much better at the Florida location. We are encourage to slam customers with unauthorized charges to boost managers closing percentages. E-Club and the DVR upgrades are popular add-ons that customers get slammed with.

This company's management will eventually be its downfall.
 1083 days ago by John Vitz  [send email] +1 Votes
I had a run in with those Bozos at the Elephant Group as well. I wanted just the Amerca's Top 60 with a standard receiver, that's it.

Instead I get slammed with a DVR charge and E-Club membership charges which I did not authorize.

I called the 877 # 877-822-2418 only to be passed on to more 800 #'s and voicemail.

I finally got a real person and was put on hold for like half an hour and I was then told that the E-club charge was valid, I had authorized it and it would not be taken off.

I then called the 877 # again and said I wanted to cancel my service. I was told no problem.

A month later on my Bank Of America Debit card appeared a bill for $240.00! I was charged a disconnect fee for a service I wanted cancelled due to customer dissatisfaction and FRAUD!.

I am currently taking this matter up with local and Federal law enforcement.

John
 1083 days ago by Mark Andreati  [send email] 0 Votes
I had a similar experience with the Elephant asses. I ordered their DishNetwork with a standard receiver, no DVR, no E-Club.

Lo' and behold when the installers came the following Saturday, they installed a DVR. I had no idea it was installed until Bill the Installer explained the equipment to me. I reluctantly agreed to take the DVR and give it a try.

I was very disappointed. The damn thing is not easy to use and it would only record intermittent pieces of the shows I wanted recorded.

I called DishNetwork aka Elephant Group in Plaintfield NJ and told them I wanted this stuff disconnected and taken out of my home in Wilmington DE.

Well 2 weeks went by no technicians came out to disconnect this stuff. I call again, again I was told my 30 day cancellation period had expired and I would have to pay a $240.00 disconnect fee!

I was livid. I told the lady on the line that I had been calling the last 3 weeks to resolve this to no avail. Finally out of frustration I contacted my local BBB and passed this song and dance onto them. They are looking into it.

In the meantime, my bank is disputing all charges and I am lodging a complaint with the Consumer Protection Agency about Elephant Group and the scam that they are running.

Mark-Wilmington DE
 1083 days ago by Dan  [send email] +1 Votes
I agree with you all. Elephant Group aka Satellite Sales is a rip off! I would advise all discerning consumers to BEWARE or this company. They are a bunch of crooks!
 1074 days ago by Shannon  [send email] +1 Votes
My name is Shannon, and I work for Comcast. Elephant group has recently within the last couple of months has become an affiliate.

Elephant Group, in short, makes me ill to my stomach. When I see that a customer has gone thru Elephant Group for our services, my heart drops for them. Every single experience I've had involving Elephant Group has been HORRIBLE, beyond disgusting customer service - I've never been hung up on do many times in my life.

You get transfered everywhere and NOBODY will take responsibility for any issue... not only that, but they DO lie and they ARE incredibly deceptive... people think they are actually talking to comcast while speaking with these people... and they end up with horribly incorrect information because the reps, as I'm reading now, ARE encouraged to LIE to people.
it makes me sick & they really really really need to just disappear.
 1026 days ago by John Sukols  [send email] +1 Votes
I've read everything that's been said and I think the big wig that runs Elephant Group is a shyster and scumbag. In the future, any business that is associated with the Elephant Group is definitely one to stay away from. The $25 rebate they screwed around with me on will cost them dearly or at least the $25 worth of business - however, I'm sure they don't care. As soon as I am able to drop Dish Network that will happen and the Elephant people can keep their $25. Unfortunately, the Dish people will have to come out to my house to pick up their junk as well. Let me know if there's a class action lawsuit pending anywhere. Companies like the Elephant Group shouldn't be allowed to operate - they belong in jail with the Enron people.
 950 days ago by Tammy Jenkins  [send email] +1 Votes
If anyone knows of anyone who works for the Elephant Group now or who has worked for this company in the past (mostly the Florida area) and has a complaint about how they were treated please have them email me ASAP....

Thank you..
 866 days ago by James Esposito  [send email] +1 Votes
I worked for elephant group or elephantitus as i call it and it was the worst experience ive ever had... all these complaints are valid and i can tell you the place will eventually fall due to they're management... i found a better job (because anything is better than that place) i tried to be professional and give a 2 week notice and they fired me on the spot!!! they steal money from they're employees... i wouldn't even recommend my enemies to that place.
 817 days ago by Jennifer  [send email] +1 Votes
The Elephant Group should be faced with a judge and a jury. I would like to tell my story to one someday. My advice, don't believe any company that says they are a third party for another company. Buy from DISH Network DIRECTLY! WHY PAY A PROCESSING FEE TO THEM OF $19.99?

They hire people AND train them to do unlawful techniques.
They are liars, cheaters, and nasty people.
They monitor their calls and turn the call into a false sale.
They obtain personal information, name, address,phone number, social security number and credit card information and then they assume the sale.
Their all twisted... right down to the owner, sales manager, sales director and all the trainers. Buyers BEWARE!

901 HADLEY RD SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ
 781 days ago by Latina Shelby  [send email] +1 Votes
I have been hurrassed and threatened by the people at The Elephant Group. I was called and called and even after I told them that I already had and account with someone else. They then called me and threatened me after I told them that I did n0t want them to handle anything with my account that I wanted the other representetive to take care of my paper work and other things that needed doing and they had the nerve to tell me that they hoped that I wouldn't be sorry and asked me was I an AT&T customer and I said yes and what does that have to do with anything. Then they told me that They could do things for me that no one else could do and I said yes and what is that, I got no answer on the question. I then told them that AT&T could take care of anything that I needed doing on that end that I didn't need them to do anything for me and I wanted them to take me out of their system and not call me any more. He then told me that he had already processed my debit card and I distinctly told them I didn't want anything took from my account until a certain day because the money would not be there, he says UH OH. I said what does that mean then he says again that he hopes that I won't be sorry. I will take care of that first thing in the morning and he won't get nothing at all; no money no sale NOTHING AT ALL FROM ME!!!!!

Mad and Furious
 742 days ago by Tj Snead  [send email] +1 Votes
Here is some bottom line information on the Elephant Group. I worked in the Piscataway New Jersey office for almost 6 months. I have many years of experience working in the call center industry. There are good call centers and bad call centers. Elephant Group is a bad call center, very bad ! To start off with the training is horrendous. The guy who handles the training ( his name is Jelani ) is a nice guy but the training is completely inadequate. They don't tell you in training that the object once you are on the telephone is to not only sell Dish Network service, but to slam the customer and add on numerous other money makers along with the Dish Network sale.

If you are not familiar with the term SLAM, what it means is to sell the customer other products and services that they neither want or need, and to do it in a deceptive fashion. Most of the time the customer has no idea that they've ever agreed to these add on items. ( The Elephant Group calls them attachments. )

The first "attachment" is something called Homes Club. It supposedly provides the customer with protection in case their equipment breaks or is damaged. What the salesman don't tell you is that Dish Network already offers protection in case their equipment breaks and you don't have to pay for it. As a matter of fact, this Homes Club thing is such a scam, that when representatives from Dish Network recently visited the office the employees were ordered to stop selling it and to hide their Homes Club presentations until the Dish Network guys were gone.

Then there's Blockbuster. The employees are pressured to SLAM every customer with a " Free 2 week membership". Again the idea is to get the customer to agree to it without understanding what they're agreeing to. It's not free at all, in fact it costs $18.00 a month.

It doesn't matter at Elephant Group how hard you work. It doesn't matter how much Dish Network you sell. All that matters is how much revenue you can generate SLAMMING the customers with extra crap that they neither want or need ! The sales manager is some Jackass named Brian who walks around the office every day threatening to fire people for a million different reasons. I've never once heard an employee praised for doing a good job.

The biggest asshole is this guy named Joel Dickstein ( Yes beleive it or not that's his real name ! ) I think he's the vice president of the company. Of course he's way too important to actually introduce himself or make anyone feel at home. My introduction was when he walked up to me one day and threatened to fire me right in front of my co-workers for not trying to slam a customer into this Homes Club ripoff. ( He was apparently monitoring my call. )

We recently had one longtime employee go postal after being harassed by this annoying supervisor named Helmer. The guy went crazy, cursing and screaming and they had to literally call the cops on him. What does that tell you about Elephant Group. I could go on and on, believe me I'm only scratching the surface here. I would love some other former or current employees to respond to this post. I dare anyone from Elephant Group to deny that anything I've said is true. I'll be happy to respond. This place is a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.

TJ
 684 days ago by Chris Trieble  [send email] +1 Votes
I'd love to sue these people. Let's Rock!
 664 days ago by Anonymous  [send email] +1 Votes
I worked at 901 Hadley Rd, South Palinfield, NJ location for the Elephant Group (theres no office in Piscataway its actually in South Plainfield). I can confirm everything these people are complaining about. When I was hired I was told that on average employee on taking orders made $45,000/yr and if you were a good salesman you could easily make upto $60,000/yr. Being skeptical I took the job anyway to see what happens. We got a week of training and all throughout the training we were told that we could make a lot of money. After I started working it turned out that my pay actually came out to about $28,000/yr including 5 hours overtime each week. Thats 45 hrs a week for $28,000/yr.

We were constantly told of ways to trick customers into buying "attachments" they didn't need, want, or understand properly. They tricked people into taking services like Blockbuster Interactive. We told people that it was free for 2 weeeks and they would 3 movies mailed out to them and proceeded to ask them the name of 3 movies they wanted. If they objected, we would say "but its free" After taking their personal info, we told them that "it was free for two weeks and if they wanted it after that it would be $17.99/month" without telling them that they had to actually call Blockbuster and cancel within 2 weeks or they would start getting charged.

Thats just one example, there are many more. A manager told me that they spent a lot of their time just thinking up ways of wording sales pithes in order to intentionally trick customers into taking things while being technically legal. Also, during training we were taught that "the 2 things that motivated people the most are Fear and Greed" so we taught to use scare tactics like saying that if the Dish Network equipment broke they would be out of a lot of money so its in their best interest to purchase "Homes Club" aka "E-Club"

If anyone who was already signed up called to complain or had a problem, we were told to tell them to call Dish Network and hang up. When I would try to help someone or transfer a call to Elephant Group customer service the managers would get mad at me for "wasting time"

After a few months I found a better job and left because I didn't want to rip people off anymore and felt sorry for all the people who were getting shafted by these people.
 588 days ago by Danny  [send email] +1 Votes
I worked with Elephant Group for almost 30 months. I worked at the office in 3303 W. Commercial Bvld, Fort Lauderdale, FL. The first few months I was the top seller because in training class we were told that if we mentioned a part of the information and not the charges of something and the cust. agreed, that would not be a slam. Anyways, Elephant Group makes a ton of money each day having their reps just SLAM SLAM SLAM. I was actually afraid of getting comcast throught Elephant Group thinking that they would just make up some sort of charge in my credit card. *******To all future and potential customers***** WHY USE A THIRD PARTY COMPANY WHEN YOU CAN BUY STRAIGHT FROM THE REAL COMPANY WITHOUT BEING TRICKED INTO SOMETHING. Elephant Group advertises that they give $250 in rebate to those ppl that get the TRIPLE PLAY with comcast (tv, high speed, phone)... Well guess what? It's all just to catch your eyes and trick you! Don't be a fool! Call dishnetwork directly 1800 333 3474... Call Comcast directly 1800 COMCAST... Call directv directly 1800 DIRECTV... Make smart decisions people dont let this company rip you off. One day everything will catch up to them and trust me, this day so close.
 559 days ago by Jose Alonzaro  [send email] -1 Votes
You say sign direct? Don't get the rebate and
pay more? I signed up with them and waited and waited for my rebate. I finally got it. I saved $100 and now deal directly.

For what I got I take the trouble to get the cash
 551 days ago by Kevin  [send email] 0 Votes
This may sound unbeleivable, but I assure you that every word is true. If I wasn't there myself when it happened I might not beleive it myself. I've been working at The Elephant grour New Jersey office for about 6 months. Everything you read in these posts is true. Most of the employees hate their job, beleive me ! And ripping off and slamming the customers is the name of the game. But what I saw yesterday was like nothing I've ever seen before ...

They hired some new trainees. Yesterday was their first day out on the sales floor. One poor guy apparently suffered a heart attack or seizure of some sort. It was a horrible sight to see. Most of the employees were in a state of semi-shock, and to the managers credit he did a good job controlling the situation.

Unfortunately there is one white trailer trash female manager named "Jen". She is a complete piece of trash and hated by all of the employees ! As the poor man lay dying on the floor ( That's right, the poor guy died. ) She walked around barking orders to take more calls, get back on the phones etc. She seemed completely unfazed by anything. Making money for elephant group was her only concern ... Remember Jen ... Everybody gets Blockbuster !

Only when the emergency service personnell arrived and ordered the building cleared, were we allowed to stop taking calls.
This story is completely true with absolutely no embellishment ! MAY GOD HELP US ALL !
 489 days ago by J. Aloya  [send email] +1 Votes
I was there too. Like or dislike Jenn, she tried to keep
order and distract people until we got the order to evacuate the sales floor, which we did. If you saw the look on Jenn's face once she knew what was going on you wouldn't say what you did if you wanted to relay the truth.

Imagine, this call center is so bad it kills people! This was a
terrible incident the company's control. You said the general manger did a good job of controlling the situation, and I agree.
 441 days ago by Pat  [send email] +1 Votes
What is really surprising is that these people keep pulling the same scam over and over again! They just keep reinventing themselves. Their latest "brand" is saveology.com. Remember e-club, homesclub, homes.org? All the same: Elephant Group.

If you ever have the misfortune to land in one of their affiliate webpages while looking for Time Warner cable or Dish Network, you'll be in for a huge surprise when your credit card is charged with all these strange items that you never even heard of.

Take all the advice given here to heart: do not deal with Elephant Group and do not become a victim of their unethical tactics.
 420 days ago by Animalcruelty101  [send email] +1 Votes
I have read all of the complaints from customers who have called Elephant Group - I agree entirely. A good while back, I had ordered Dish-Network Services with unsatisfactory results (to put it simply). In attempt to cancel my services (willing to pay whatever fees needed to do so) I was only harassed, cursed at, threatened, screamed at and hung up on by any representative I spoke to. When I asked to speak to a manager, I was hung up on over a dozen times. I am a very polite and patient woman so I called again asking to speak to a manager. I spoke to a manager (who, not understanding or caring about my problem) then put me in touch with another salesperson. I was going to hang up but much to my surprise, the man's voice was kind and pleasant (despite his unintelligible foreign accent) so I stayed on the line with him. He was the only person there to listen to my complaint, take my cancellation fee payment and actually apologize to me for the unsatisfactory services and for the way I had been treated by the 29 other reps I had spoken to. I got his name (Dexter) and I called back later with complaints about E-Club. But I’d found out (when speaking to a manager) that Dexter no longer works there. Talk about mismanagement!!!
 393 days ago by John  [send email] +1 Votes
i also had applied for a job at 901 hadley rd. South Plainfeild NJ. I DIDNT GET THE JOB DUE TO A FELONEY I HAD GOT IN 2005 FOR A ASSULT CHARGE. I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THEM NOT HIRING ME BECAUSE OF THAT BUT THE WAY THEY DID IT WAS COMPLETEY UN-PROFESSIONAL I WAS CALLED INTO A ROOM WITH 2 MEN BOLTH I GUESS HEAD FLOOR MANEGERS NAMES --BRIAN MORAN AND LERON KAPOANO-- BOLTH WERE 2 JACK ASSES COMPLETE FUCKING MORONS THEY SAT THERE AND LAUGHED AT ME AND POKED FUN AT ME FOR THE 15 MIN OF BEING IN THE ROOM. I WOULD NOT RECOMMED THIS JOB TO ANY ONE THERE FUCKIN SCAMMERS AND WANNA ROB PEOPLE PLUS THE MANEGMENT THAT I MET AND SAW WERE FUCKIN TOOLS AND I HOPE BRIAN AND LERON WHEN THEY GET DONE BLOWING EACH OTHER READS THIS...I WROTE A LETTER TO THE VP ON MY EXP AND ALSO HAVE MY LAWYER THAT I WAS TOLD BY LERON I SHOULD HAVE NEVER HIRED BECAUSE OF THE OUTCOME OF MY CASE..I DIDNT KNOW SAVEOLOGY ALSO GIVES FREE LAWYER ADVICE FORM DIP SHITS..SO ALL IN ALL FUCK THE ""ELEPHANT GROUP"" AKA SAVEOLOGY.COM THE NEW NAME..I GUESS THEY CHANGED IT BECAUSE OF ALL THE COMPLAINTS I SEE ON THIS WEBSITE UNDER ELEPHANT GROUP..I WOULD LIKE TO PRINT THESE 2 PAGES OUT LIKE 100 TIMES AND THROW THEM IN THE LOBBEY SO ALL CAN READ...HAHAHAHA THAT PLACE IS A FUCKIN JOKE AND FUCK U BRIAN AND LERON

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