UniFirst
reviews and complaints

If I could give them a 0 I would. I have had Unifirst for 10 years and each year they are worse! I signed a new contract with the promise of better service. Literally 2 months after signing they went up on our rates, our uniforms are contantly wrong and or missing, they forget to bring our rugs. We have had the absolute worst service from this company. I have made complaints after complaints and nothing changes except th driver. I have recently turned in a cancellation letter and was asked to give them 60 days to make it right (which I didn't want to do) because anyone can do it right for 2 months and if you can provide good service for 2 months why not all of the time? Our colors are black and red and last week 1 of my employees got 7 pair of blue pants (with his name on it) they left no rags and didn't pick up the dirty ones and didn't have us sign anything. I called and thy didn't come back. They have forgotten all of our uniforms for 2 weeks before where my guys had no uniforms because Unifirst lost them and couldn't find them. I called and emailed the supervisor this past week and have not received a response! Since they won't respond to my calles or emails for them to fix last weeks service and to cancel my service without havind to pay out my contract , this seems to be the only way to get a response, maybe! Beware!

Dale Miller-Owner

Automotive Center of Slidell

Lulu Watkins

May 9, 2023, 10:48 AM (7 days ago)

to Travis, Charles, Selena

Good morning,

When are the dispensers going to be installed? We signed the contract on Dec 08th, 2022 at this point, almost five months later, we are still waiting for a dispenser to be installed we just received the lockers two weeks ago. The guys constantly wash their hands.

If it takes more time to get the dispensers, let me know so I can keep the other company bringing supplies and add more dispensers where I need them. I will return the supplies I bought. We can't use your paper goods and supplies that do not fit the dispensers we have from the other company.

Another issue that I have: I need to get the protection plan.

I was surprised that I got charged for returned uniforms for terminated employees because we do not have a protection plan I did not know about.

It is a lot of money besides the shirts after the first washed they got smaller, and the shirts do not fit some employees anymore.

To move forward, I would like to include the protection plan. How much is it going to cost?

Please let us know.

I have been trying to contact my salesperson and text him no answer. At this point, I do not know what I have to do. We switched companies because I thought we did not get good service, but I am starting to think I made a mistake in choosing this company because customer service is worst.

I hope it is someone that can help me. We are stuck with the contract for three years. What can I do to make this contract work?

Date: 2022 and 2023

Unifirst in the Portland Maine area has been losing our employee work pants and not replacing them. I work for AIM Recycling in Arundel Maine. The contract states that the guys get 11 pair of pants to rotate through each week as they put them in the dirty clothes hamper to be laundered through Unifirst. Except as time goes by the pants slowly do not end up coming back from being laundered. My guys here are down to 4-5 pairs and sometimes none are brought back after they leave to be laundered. My company is getting charged for 11 pairs of pants for each guy to wear, but they no longer have 11 pairs. Unifirst has not been replacing the pants that they (Unifirst) lost in the first place. There has been work week where there are no pants for them to wear. Unifirst needs to replace the pants that they lost, and not try to charge my company. Unifirst does not hold employees accountable. Each department blames the other department, driver blames the customer for not putting their pants into be laundered, the laundry blames the driver for not bringing them in, the loader blames the laundry, and the driver blames the loader for not having all the laundered stuff ready to go on his truck. Endless cycle of blame. I am putting blame on the whole Portland Maine branch, and the General Manager Ryan Beaulieu, for not addressing these issues. And I am tired of the run around when trying to talk to this company.

We are a small business with 5 employees, 3 who wear uniforms. We started services with Unifirst in 2015.

The first couple of years were good. The last 3 were bad. We were continually having issues with correct uniforms being delivered, billed for uniforms we didn't get, billed for new uniform patches after the uniforms were lost by Unifirst, and billing mistakes. This was almost a constant problem for 2 1/2 years.

We would continually get a different driver almost monthly, sometimes more often than that. We would call and make complaints, it would take them 1-2 weeks to resolve them and then it would happen again, over and over. Finally in December 2021, we tried to cancel our contract. We called multiple times and left multiple messages over the period of 4 weeks with not 1 return phone call.

We informed them that we wanted to cancel the contract. Finally after 4 weeks the branch manager called and informed us that we could not cancel our contract because it had already been renewed, which we were never made aware that it was up for renewal. We told the manager that we had went ahead and signed with a different company that was willing to make things right for us as a small business. The manager preceded to get very rude and hollering, telling us that we COULD NOT cancel our contract and if we went forward that they would turn it over to their lawyers.

They then proceeded to sue us through Arbitration in the amount that would have been billed if we had stayed with them for 5 yrs. What reputable company woudl do that to a long term customer or any customer for that matter? The arbitration started in July 2022 and ended in Jan. 2023 with a ruling for Unifirst.

Despite them having multiple documents that supported the reasoning for the cancellation.

Unifirst does not stand behind their end of the contract which is to provide adequate services. I would not recommend this company to anyone!

Hi was hired by Unifirst in NY. Has my offer letter signed and ready to go, came to the nj office twice to meet everyone and take van home along with study material. The next week i was told to review the material as they needed more time setting up my email and for uniform to arrive. I kept checking in to see what the next step is and was told to just keep reviewing the material and will have a zoom meeting during the week which times kept changing last minute. I joined the meeting that when from 9am to 1pm and Hector reviewed some material which lasted around 30 minutes and was told to keep reviewing. he needed to set up my official training course, Then crickets for about 4 days after several emails, finally the following Friday i received and email "This is a follow up email from call earlier in the morning. We appreciate your time at UniFirst but unfortunately are going to part ways with you. You will receive a formal letter from our administrator, which i never received.

very distasteful and i have not done anything to be terminated,

On multiple occasions one of our stores reached out to Unifirst with concerns: Not enough uniforms were being left, uniforms were dirty, route driver did not show up for 2 weeks, etc. Besides emails, phone calls were made and messages left unanswered. Finally a decision had to be made and a different uniform company was hired. Unifirst did not care to resolve the issue, instead they simply demand payment in full. Payment in full for what? Lack of service? Lack of clean uniforms? Who is holding Unifirst accountable for their lack of service? We plan to exhaust all legal remedies available to us prior to paying for a contract not honored by Unifirst.

i tried to reach out to management to let them know what was going on i reported as i should and even called in to speak with someone they didnt answer the phone nor returned phone calls when left it took this week to finally talk to someone and they tell me ive been terminated someone please contact me this is not right i have my proper documents for this mess i cant believe this is how they treat people.

Since the day we signed our contract we have had issue after issue between uniform sizes being incorrect being delivered uniforms for other companies lack of quantity on rags delivered yet we are billed for them all etc I placed a direct sales order for t-shirts and hats 6 months ago and I have been trying to get answers on this order for months and finally today a driver shows up with half the order yet I'm supposed to sign a bill saying I received all of them!

It's been one mistake after another.

The first week we received uniforms, we did not get racks to hang the clean uniforms on (we have 2 locations) and we did not receive any dirty laundry bins. The driver had no explanation and told me that he didn't even know if they had any racks to give saying "good luck" getting racks.

We ordered rags and did not get them the first week.

Also we had 1 uniform that was measured for and it was delivered in size 42 (pants) and the man is a 34/30...big difference. Now he has had to wait a week and the driver said he could not guarantee he will have it the 2nd week.

I then phoned the service manager and it took 3 days for him to return my call.

Now after week 2, I've got guys that ordered short sleeves that received long sleeves, which in a warehouse, doesn't work so well.

I find our driver runs in and runs out...doesn't even say hello, or ask if I have any questions or concerns...he can't get out of our location fast enough. In doing that, he is forgetting things and is not very professional.

Today I called and could not get a hold of my customer service rep, my service manager, or of course my driver. I don't expect to hear from them for the next 48+ hours.

So disappointed with the service we've received so far and to think that we are only 2 weeks in...is very frustrating!

We started our contract with Unifirst back in 2018 and since a few months in we started to have the issues of no uniforms coming back or torn uniforms not replaced. we would email or let the representative know about the issues and some would be addressed but 2 weeks later it was the same thing. just on 1 set of uniforms now multiply that by 2 companies averaging 45 employees. Unifirst had bought me out of GK and which was Cintas because of a buy out. eventually they are all the same. Unifirst eventually got to me after years of always the same issue. no uniforms, continued billing, wrong uniforms, ripped uniforms, uniforms in wrong lockers, mixed uniforms, etc... so they did not ever hold up their quality service promise as stated in the contract. Fast forward to 2021 i decided to formally through my attorney cancel our contract. They came back and wanted to correct what was wrong but by this time we are just completely done with any uniform company. i sat down with the sales manager and then with the sales manager and the GM of Denver unifirst. nothing was worked out and he said my only option was a buyout of my remaining contract almost 200, 000 for both companies. Even when i offered him to keep doing our toilet paper, soap and towel dispenser in exchange for a thank you and continued business they refused.
Now they are hung up on the idea that we never provided any written documentation stating the issues. even after i sent out 2 emails and my gals at the office would see the delivery guy every week and let him know that there was uniforms missing. and now their attorneys have told my attorney that they would take us to litigation but we did not have a leg to stand on. they are flat out bullying us as customers. we are currently standing my ground but of course it will take a lot from us. i really hope there was some other way to take them down. if in the end nothing is done and our companies loose just do not for what ever reason use any uniform company. save your money and for a fraction of the cost and problems, get your own uniforms.

Don't do business with Unifirst.

Good morning,
I just saw this and wanted to reply. I called friday afternoon and left you a message explaining the problem. I was informed that we will not be able to service your account due to logistics. If you would like to meet us at a current customer in calhoun or lafayette we can drop bill by $10.00. We will come the first week and install your account and deliver uniforms then we could services you through the other customer location.
If this something you are interested in please let me know,

Respectfully,
James the uniform guy

J. James miller
Senior sales consultant
Loc. 266, ga-tn
Unifirst corporation
www.UniFirst.com
Mobile phone: [protected]
Email: [protected]@unifirst.com

I guess i'm a bit confused. You were the one who contacted us. You were the one who came to our shop (more than once). Did you not know where you were?
After being fitted, we were told the uniforms would be in around 4 to 6 weeks. 9 weeks later we find out you cannot or will not service our account due to our location
Even though you knew our location. As far as going to calhoun or lafayette, no thank you, that is like a 20 minute drive one way on top of getting all the uniforms together.
Not worth $10:00 & you know that. I can't believe that would even be asked. Very unprofessional & so glad we will not be doing business with you as I can't even imagine
The problems we would most likely have had,

Copy of email sent to corporate a week ago with no response. I to am out on medical leave and have experienced bullying and retaliation for a medical condition where I loss a toe to diabetes last year and now I have lost another - terrible mangement at this location! and no help from corporate for the little guy!

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to corporate because I have reached out to mangement at location 292 on numerous occasions to help aleviate the tensions in the office caused by one co-worker and rewarded or at the very least protected by the oa and now I believe the gm as I have now went to him on more than one occasion and all that has happened is me getting a final warning.

Let me apologize in advance for the length of this email as I believe this will be my one and only opportunity to air out my grievances. I will try to touch on the major issues I have and should you require any follow up questions I will be at your disposal.

In late november or early december 2017after two years of being harassed and talked to as less than a human being by co-worker vicki novicki and watching our oa spend 3-4 hours a day outside smoking on her cell phone and then worse yet spending another 2-3 hours a day visting with with her husband in her office with him even sitting in her office while she discussed insurance and other issues with workers. hippa? I finally went to general manager chris pegram to complain because after the numerous complaints to oa melinda mobley nothing seemed to change. and although melinda had assured me she passed along all my concerns to the gm - I wasn't so sure & I had started to look for employment else where as I was tired of the horrible hostile work enviroment melinda had created with her partner vicki - I went to chris because I just didn't feel he had all the facts. vicki would rarely take a turn answering the phone but if by chance she did she would scream at the other office workers if the phone was for us and if a customer called in complaining and she was not the customer service rep she would shout out loud that's not my account pam made a mistake even if it was something the route rep had done - repeating it loudly over and over and over again until she was certain the oa had heard her. even as she could shout all of this at us when we took a call for her we would civilly tell her she had a call she would not even acknowledge us in any way shape or form most time leaving the customer on hold for the two minutes it takes to ring back and then she would finally answer the customer. her phone manners and etiquitye are still deplorable. she had also sold shirts to her sister under cost - which I considered theft fraud or embezzlement. so chris investigated this and after coming to his conclusion met with me and melinda to tell his findings all though he admitted the deplorable treatment had happened and in his words "we probably let it go on way to long" he planned to put a stop to it. no mention was made of the theft & he still emplied I was partially to blame for speaking up and standing up for myself. I was not! melinda and chris had heard and ignored vickis bullying of co-workers for more than 15 years and swept all of it under the rug. I can not say how disappointing this was.

Chris said to let him know if things didn't change so when vicki didn't acknowledge us I told melinda - right out in front of everyone. I was disciplined for complaining about it out loud in the office and not going to melinda in private.

On december 27, 2017 there was a day everyone was snowed in melinda took her 4 wheel drive around to all other three office employees houses and picked them up brought them to work and after work delivered them home safely with the exception of me who was not even made the offer it was retaliation and it was blantant and unacceptable by a member of management.

On feb 27, 2017 our scanner went down and was out of commission for two weeks. the day it came back in was tuesday march 13, 2017. on march 12 2017 it also snowed and not having anyone to drive me I left at 11:00 am when I felt I could still safely get home as I am originally from fl and have only driven in snow a few times. when I returned to work the next day the part did arrive however I was not allowed to make up the time I missed to make up some much needed scanning time two weeks of invoices sms ap vouchers, even though the very same week another office worker made up time for a drs. appointment. I will admit I was less than polite in my reaction even saying out loud and proud melinda was only "pissy" because I left early due to snow. she was insistant this was not true, however I was given a final warning from her and chris for again speaking out in the office. the same day I was given the final vicki and tee came in early and worked late to make up missed time, how can this be considered fair?

So on the next two occasions vicki ignored her co-workers first march 21, 2017 ignoring tee when she told her she had a call letting the customer set on hold for two cycles of being rung back before she picked up never acknowledging to tee she had heard her. the very next day when we were all on the phone or engaged with customers with the exception of v she just refused to answer the ringing phone. I went to melinda privatly and quietly and informed her on both these occasions although I am certain there is no record of these two instances as it wasn't done out loud with witness' I believe it was twice more swept under the rug. what really got me was that after 15-20 years of bullying her co workers to my knowledge she had not yet recieved a final warning, but that after two of standing up for myself and my co-workers I had.

Also in my tenure I have witnessed many other disturbing things melinda has done to other employees and other managers. she has a huge problem with plant manager anthony peterson and when I first strted there & was learning ap vouchers which tony turned in and we scanned and filed for him. when I started the aps had been severly neglected and not once but twice she told tony he was missing vouchers that he swore he turned in. I later found these, telling melinda and even admitting it was my fault for overlooking them, instead of admitting I had found them she simply tossed them in the trash can, making tony redo all the work. after that I dealt with tony personaly admitted I was human and took responsibility for any oversights or mistakes that had been made by me. to my knowledge melinda has never admitted to making any mistakes.

Her training methods were null, self training was and still is your only hope, but you better train yourself well because she will write you up for the smallest of infractions, although she really does make plenty of errors herself there is nobody to hold her accountable. she swore she told all of us vicki included many things even when none of us could recall she insisted she had told us and that we all had forgotten. she also speaks to us all like we are in grade school and she is our teacher, I don't mind being corrected and I accept constructive critisisum but only my mother can speak to me like i'm a child and at this stage of my life even she doesn't do it.

Also she hand picked which employees received flowers for an illness or death in the family. vicki's neice passed away flowers, pams stepfather of 35 years passed nothing. ed harris a route rep's mother in law died one week nothing - ed was very hurt by this even more so when the next week another route rep's bryant sapp's mother passed flowers - what makes this even more disturbing looking at it from unifirst stand point is ed is black, bryant is white. who is she to make these delicate decisions. this on the heals of telling vicki of all the mean hurtful people that she did not want to hire our last member of the office team tee ethridge that she only did so because she felt pressured to do so by chris and tj - tee is black and quite naturally as mean - spirted as she is vicki relayed this information to tee - melinda had also told me the exact same thing about tee and when asked I did confirm this information. let me be clear I do not believe melinda is prejudice however sometimes by some people perseption is viewed as reality. and I have heard her refer to black coworkers as those and these people, again I believe this is plain and simple ignorance on her part and not meant as malious.

In jan of 2017 I had to have a toe amutated, a result of complications with diabetes, when I returned to work more than one co-worker informed me vicki had said some pretty ugly hatefull things about me and how I ate and deserved to have my toe cut of. not willing to put anyone through the treatment I received I simply told melinda what I had heard and that although I could work with vicki - there would never be any respect or love lost between us. immeditaly she accused a certain co-worker of telling me and accusing them of doing so just to cause hard feelings. then had the gall to ask me to apologize to vicki for anything I might have done to offend her. quite naturally I informed her this would never happen. she still insisted kim jones told me this info she did not! I now feel she may retaliate against kim just because of something she believes that is 100% untrue!

Also you may want to audit melinda's pcard & ghost card accounts on two occasions I found repairs for a bmw in stacks of bills she gave me to call and pay by credit - card both times I asked her about these before paying & she said they were in there by error. i'm certain it was an error, i'm not certain if the error was getting in my stack to pay or being paid at all. what I do know is unifirst 292 has no bmws in its fleet. ms mobleys household however has or has had severai.

Again I apologize for the length of the email, even though I still feel there is so much more to tell I could go on indefinitely I must find a place to end. I appreciate your time and should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. right before I went out on short term disability in early april I had receieved two job offers both making considerably more money and was in the midst of making a decision on which to take when a medical emergency occurred. as I informed chris weather I return to work anywhere lies with the medical professionals, but at least now I feel someone who needs to know might actually find out what's really going on at 292.

We at TCB AUTO SALES [protected]) has been with Unifirst for a while now. The service we are provided is unacceptable. The rugs that we are provided are always dirty when they come back. Today 11/2/2017 they returned our rugs and there was stuck on gum. When this rug was picked up last week this gum was not on it. We also was suppose to get our toilet paper and paper towel dispensers back. A few weeks ago we told them to come get it because we were so tired of the sorry service we were getting. When we complained to the gentleman, Charles, he said that we would have to do complaints like this instead of going through him. I think that if the service is sorry you should be able to complain to them and them go ahead and handle it.

Uni first sales person came to our office and pitched their service to a team of service technicians. Sounded a little pricey but all our questions were answered with satisfaction. No binding contract, can cancel and lower the amount of uniforms at any time...

Well as our staff dropped we needed to remove some of our uniforms. They told me i cannot and that my contract stated i must carry a minimum amount of uniforms, and if i wanted to no longer use their service they would sue me for breach of contract and multiple of thousands of dollars. The manager Bill Bruno even threatened people who worked at our office (and they don't even use the uniforms) that he would sue them and they wouldn't have a job. I tried contacting the original sales guy many times and he never returned my call. They raised our prices continually since we had their terrible service. The contract was signed but the sales guy did not explain any thing about contracts or minimums. We are a small business and cannot afford all the extra uniforms (and there is a buy out on those too) . Any advice would be great but this is harassment and we were lied to from the jump. We will pay the pass due balance but we want out of this horrible situation.