Originally Posted by PRobitaille

outrageous rumors

Really? All we need to do is a simple google search and miles of anti College Pro material pops up. If you want to REALLY clear the name of the company I would like you to provide direct documents and records that list the binomial probability distribution of making a profit! And the breakup of how many people have made what kind of money.

My problem with the company is 100% regarding the way you market yourselves and how only the naive first years are enticed. The Marketing strategy is unethical; For people who don't know better throwing around $10,000 at their face is just plain disgusting. I had these companies come up to every single one of my first year classes; yet none of my second year ones!

There is an obvious co-relation. I apologize if I suggested that these companies are an outright scam(well atleast some are some aren't) because I realize that in every entrepreneurial venture there is an element of risk involved. But the risks need to be advertised better and the average probable returns(or lack off) needs to be laid out in clear fashion; people need to know that they will be taking out a loan from the company and finding their own customers in a regressive cutthroat environment!

The MSU has clear guidelines regarding environmental ethics and I don't see why it is wrong to point out the marketing ethics of these companies. It is quite a similar comparison.

Also, I would trust the person who has posted once on here and has a real opinion, over the person who has posted 700 times, has an opinion on basically everything, and bases comments around belittling people who have had some first hand experience with the subject.

Yes the key word is "real opinion". And what these first time users are doing is not altruistic/"lets inform the naive masses against the evil rumor mongers" posting; they have been sent here; every single one of them. Atleast that's what Infer from "I have been tipped off to post here". For such a company with such a history of bad PR all over the electronic world to survive; I can imagine a policy or a plan regarding positive PR posts by contracted employees. I wouldn't be surprised if even the posts are based on a template. Which they appear to be since they are all similar and remind me off a public statement by a major corporation after a PR fiasco! Multinationals have millon dollar budgets for their PR departments; which keeps in check and fights against unethical practices; And they can be quite convincing! I wouldn't be surprised if this is something like that.

Just think about it for a second; why would a random collection of people on this forum criticize you guys and be skeptical of your statements?

Hey

This page will show you the amount of workers that make certain amounts of money with the company (yes, not everyone makes $10 000). http://www.gotoaction.com/benefits/benefits.html

Also, the risks are presented to those applying for these positions. The class presentations only give a short snippet of information. There is a longer process where all of the risks and benefits are presented and a franchise agreements is given to those interested in the job to read through over a few days before signing. I mean no disrespect to those who have had negative experiences. In fact I apologize to those people. I am a friend of one person who has posted on this forum who had a bad experience, and she knows I am sorry to her for this. I am only trying to give another side to the story and I am hoping that my post is seen as just that.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Kayla.Hurst

Hey

This page will show you the amount of workers that make certain amounts of money with the company (yes, not everyone makes $10 000). http://www.gotoaction.com/benefits/benefits.html

Also, the risks are presented to those applying for these positions. The class presentations only give a short snippet of information. There is a longer process where all of the risks and benefits are presented and a franchise agreements is given to those interested in the job to read through over a few days before signing. I mean no disrespect to those who have had negative experiences. In fact I apologize to those people. I am a friend of one person who has posted on this forum who had a bad experience, and she knows I am sorry to her for this. I am only trying to give another side to the story and I am hoping that my post is seen as just that.

Cheers

You must be kidding me right?!
You seriously think I or anyone who has taken a single course on stats or marketing or heck with any semblance of rational sense will take that page seriously?

That is not an acceptable "source" nor is it admissible evidence; Try getting documents from the home office that have been evaluated by auditors for the 2008 fiscal year if you want us to take you guys seriously.

How was that percentage calculated? What are the source documents? And those silly "hours worked vs earnings" graphs are just too funny!

That is exactly what I was talking about regarding your glossy shiny marketing techniques! Who on earth wouldn't take a job where earnings apparently start at $7500 and a massive number of people are earning $12000+

People ARE able to make that much money, and usually do, because of the way the company is set up. College Pro, and I'm assuming most companies of this type, hire university students as managers, knowing that they will be around for 4 years or so. When they graduate, their customers are passed on to the next manager, and the revenue from these customers is able to cover the start up costs. Where the big variation in profit comes in is the amount that each person grows their business. The people who are earning $12000+ are those who realized that the profit margins are a lot larger for new customers than previous ones, so they went out and actively got new customers.

People who are doing this as a summer job make more money than most others because they have the responsibility that goes along with owning a portion of a multimillion dollar company. As with any business, those who are in charge are going to make more than those who work for them.

If you want more information, go to an info session... They have plenty of documents to satisfy your interest.

Originally Posted by PRobitaille

People ARE able to make that much money, and usually do, because of the way the company is set up. College Pro, and I'm assuming most companies of this type, hire university students as managers, knowing that they will be around for 4 years or so. When they graduate, their customers are passed on to the next manager, and the revenue from these customers is able to cover the start up costs. Where the big variation in profit comes in is the amount that each person grows their business. The people who are earning $12000+ are those who realized that the profit margins are a lot larger for new customers than previous ones, so they went out and actively got new customers.

People who are doing this as a summer job make more money than most others because they have the responsibility that goes along with owning a portion of a multimillion dollar company. As with any business, those who are in charge are going to make more than those who work for them.

If you want more information, go to an info session... They have plenty of documents to satisfy your interest.

The irony! You are calling us out for misinformation andd once again you are talking on vague hypothetical terms! oh well! I have talked to people at the tables more then once(I was similarly enticed at first as well! But looking at the handouts I immediately knew they are not being forthright); they are similarly defensive and smooth talkers when it comes to "how can you validate the figures shown on the handouts you are giving me" question. I don't think I need to say more on this matter!

Originally Posted by Matt Wright

Hey folks,

My name is Matt Wright and I was an ACTION Window Cleaners franchisee 3 summers ago. If you want the truth about the company, with supporting documents, I will be in the SRA Office MUSC 204 on Wednesday at 1:30PM.

What you have to remember is that anything that promises you 15k a summer is not typical. I know people who have made 20k in a summer working College Pro or ACTION, but these people have either had AMAZING support, caught a big job, or had the best luck.

PM if you want more information. Or better yet, ask the General Managers how they get paid. It's always fun to watch someone squirm when they have to tell you that the more money you make, the higher their end of the year bonus is.

Come work for the MSU. It's a student union that actually gives you money for your labour.

OMG Matt, stop spreading misinformation and rumours. You obviously are not giving legitimate negative feedback, you are a liar.

Only the people with glowing, positive feedback for Action and College Pro are spreading THE TRUTH!

For real though, this is ridiculous. It's almost amusing that this company obviously has a policy of spreading glowing reviews and trying to discredit negative feedback, errr I mean MISINFORMATION AND LIES!

Matt as someone involved in the SRA how would we go about trying to get these companies banned from taking advantage of naive first years?

Originally Posted by sew12

Matt as someone involved in the SRA how would we go about trying to get these companies banned from taking advantage of naive first years?

I still think it would be a bit "extreme" for the MSU to try and ban them outright! But I do agree that we should ask or lobby them to be more forthright regarding their true statistics of risk. Another option could possibly be to not allow non university companies to advertise/talk during classroom sessions and apply that rule to every non university source; they can still rent tables in the MUSC though I suppose! Quite simply because they are not accountable to anyone on campus regarding their content even if we for a second igore their ethical standing.

I feel they don't advertise the risk and working conditions enough. If you look at the link provided by Kayla it actually adds upto 100%(earnings) and makes everything look glossy and awesome! There are no sources or methodology links(which is important for any publication with statistics in it) and that hours vs returns graph is just silly; it is so bad that it could even be called marketing fraud by a long shot(Can't think of another less serious word)! The problem is that the way the information is presented; first years(who are being targeted) will infer the wrong information from it. I have a feeling the contract they are apparently given would be similar! It is easier to manipulate human beings then alot of people realize!

Anyways the Executive board of the MSU will be discussing this on Thursday. I will update you guys regarding that discussion.

Originally Posted by PRobitaille

There's a big difference between negative feedback and misinformation. If someone has a well informed opinion, based on actually working for one of these companies, then they have every right to share it, good or bad. None of us has a problem with that.

The problem here is that the majority of people either haven't worked for the company and are basing their comments around outrageous rumors or are blaming the company for something that a franchisee did to them.

Also, I would trust the person who has posted once on here and has a real opinion, over the person who has posted 700 times, has an opinion on basically everything, and bases comments around belittling people who have had some first hand experience with the subject.

Please re-read the posts. People here are talking about their personal experiences with the company, or they are providing links to people who had personal experiences with the company.

And to the person who said "All the risks are explained after the class presentations" - NO. I've been to interviews and meetings for this company. They do not explain the risks. They don't tell you that like 1% of people actually make a decent amount of money. During the interview (which was basically "Are you able to write your name? Good, you're hired") they made the company seem like the best company in the world and that I would make $10,000 no problem. People only find out the insanely huge risks once they are already screwed by the company.

If McMaster cares about it's students, they'll do something about this. There aren't even words to describe how I feel about this company. I hope McMaster does the right thing. I really feel bad for these first years who don't know what they're getting into..

Do any McMaster students know who I can contact about this (the SRA, the MSU) ..? Thanks!

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Do any McMaster students know who I can contact about this (the SRA, the MSU) ..? Thanks!

As I mentioned in my previous post I went to the MSU office and talked to the VP Admin on Friday and he promised to include this within this weeks EB meeting. The Executive Board which is a few SRA members and the Board of Directors(Vp's and President) are part of the EB that will be discussing this this Thursday. I will post the updates of it over here. Any MSU policy regarding it will be dependant on an official "stance" the SRA takes; the earliest that can be done is the SRA meeting on Sunday the 18th of October. Obviously though before they can do that there will be a bit of research required; the BOD will obviously look into that and since this sort of falls under the Jurisdiction of the Operations Committee I can look into this as well(being a member)!

Mac students are welcome into the meeting.. you can find info here: https://www.msumcmaster.ca/content/d...,%20200 9.pdf

I'd encourage you to at least go and listen if you have experienced something to do with this topic.


Here's what I've written up (nicely and with research this time) about my experience:

During the summer of 2007, I had worked as a painter for the Westdale, Ancaster, and Dundas franchise of College Pro Painters. Recently, there has been some heated student discussion on the matter, concerning student financial safety, untrustworthy marketing ploys, and overall student safety. So, upon a request as a former employee, I am offering up my experiences and the resulting opinions for your consideration.

I had decided to live in Hamilton for the summer in a student house and take a full summer school course load. In order to pay for these expenses, I had to maintain a full-time job. For awhile, I was unable to find any positions. Then, I was called in for an on-site interview with the student manager of a College Pro Painters franchise. The interview was not very thorough, did not discuss any safety risks that would be involved with the job, nor did it even request a resume. I was hired on the spot. This, of course, made me somewhat uneasy but I was not in a position to turn down a job.

Training was minimal and focused on painting and safety techniques. Soon afterwards, a crew mate was hired who received absolutely no training at all. This went against the Occupational Health and Safety regulation, O. Reg. 145/00, s. 13.

The marketing scheme employed by the company advertises that you could earn sums up to $10,000-$20,000. In addition, they often infiltrate large classes promoting their business, using invaluable class time. By the end of the summer I only earned a sum close to $2,000. The payment strategy employed by our franchise paid per job, not per hour. An estimate would be made for each job, stating the number of hours it would take. So, for example, a job was estimated to take 20 hours to complete. If you and your crew mate were to each take fifteen hours doing the job, resulting in a total of thirty hours, you would still only be paid for the twenty hours, often resulting in a wage that paid less than minimum.

My biggest concern with this franchise, and also, therefore, the overall company, was their apparent lack of concern for safety regulations. There were many occasions where my crew mate and manager were both out of town, leaving me alone on a job site. When you are often working on rooftops or with ladders, you should not be left alone or at least have been ensured that two-way communication mechanisms were available. If a fall were to take place, I would have been left in a bad situation. This went against the Occupational Health and Safety regulations as found in O. Reg. 213/91, s. 14 (2) and O. Reg. 145/00, s. 11.

Many students have mentioned their horror stories with the company where as many others have tremendously positive experiences. However, I felt that in a lot of ways I was one of those students who had been taken advantage of.

Upon some investigation into the College Pro/Action Windows Company, I was unable to retrieve any of their health and safety policies nor any warnings of the risks involved, accurate data on the financial statistics nor any training policies.

And the experiences mentioned were only to name a few... I could probably find many more breaches of the heath and safety codes but the document is kind of long.

Clearly you're just spreading misinformation. How dare you have a valid negative opinion on this company.

Seriously though that is a good, brief write up from personal experience. It's fair and provides evidence that the pro-College Pro/Action Windows people here demand yet fail to offer in return.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Do any McMaster students know who I can contact about this (the SRA, the MSU) ..? Thanks!

Go to the executive board meeting. I posted the information about it in my last post. That would be your best bet. If you cannot, I would recommend bringing your concerns to any of those who will be attending the discussion. You can email them to Vishal at [email protected] ca or try going to visit him or the SRA office, second floor of the student centre.

Mad beef with college pro. I have a surprising lot of beef with people, even as a vegetarian. hah! lol That one was bad sorry


I just sent that blurb about my experiences to the "college pro representatives" and asked for a comment. Let's see what I get back (if anything)!

Originally Posted by temara.brown

Go to the executive board meeting. I posted the information about it in my last post. That would be your best bet. If you cannot, I would recommend bringing your concerns to any of those who will be attending the discussion. You can email them to Vishal at [email protected] ca or try going to visit him or the SRA office, second floor of the student centre.

Mad beef with college pro. I have a surprising lot of beef with people, even as a vegetarian. hah! lol That one was bad sorry


I just sent that blurb about my experiences to the "college pro representatives" and asked for a comment. Let's see what I get back (if anything)!

I work on Thursday morning, but I'm going to see if my supervisor will let me go. I would really like to be involved in this. I plan on seeing Vishal as well. Thanks for your help!

I really want to drive home the fact that they
a. waste lecture time
b. make it look like they are a legit company through the university since they talk during official class time
c. focus on naive first years

It's so wrong.. it's disgusting.