Bad experience with CLC

[Gopala]

I got excited reading about CLC on this forum so I contacted them and got hired. After one week, I quit, I couldn't bare to work another day. I'm starting this thread because there aren't any on the cons of CLC. I want people to know about the other side of CLC, if they're great side truly exists, so they can know what to expect taking on a job with them. On their site, and on this forum, every description of CLC is that it works for newspapers and helps retain existing subscribers, etc, and is not cold-calling, etc. But that is not what I was trained to do. Apparently they have different "campaigns" and I was on one called AdChemy, for some website called Search For Degrees (this is not a newspaper). They said we'd be calling people who'd requested information about colleges and we were to do a survey with them that would match them with colleges. We'd then send the person's contact information to the colleges and the admissions advisers would contact them. This sounds fine and dandy except it turned out to be a little bit different... First of all, the MAJORITY of people, and I mean like 95%, that actually answered the call (there were a lot of answering machines, fax tones, businesses and offices with an automated greetings having nothing to do with an individual, wrong numbers, disconnected #'s) had never "requested" this information from us! A lot of them were very mad because they'd been receiving numerous calls from us, despite the fact that they'd asked us to take them off our calling list! It hurt to be yelled at, and cussed at by people who are rightfully frustrated at our "spamming". Some people I'd reach were elderly, in their 80's, 90's, or underage ( 8 year olds? ) disabled, or worse - dead. Why are we bothering folks like this? In emails from our CLC manager and others, its clear that getting people to do the survey is more important than the person being really interested. We were advised to plough through without giving people a chance to say no or even get a word in. These are called "sales calls". During the training we were told we weren't "selling" anything, we were offering folks free education information which they'd requested. BUT its obvious that CLC wants its agents to push people through the survey, get their info to colleges who are probably paying for that. There are bonuses for people who make a certain amount of "sales calls". We were told not to put too many people on the DO NOT CALL list. Why would they ask this other than that they want to keep folks on the call list as much as possible? This is a strange campaign and I don't know what the other campaigns they have are like, if there are any. This campaign for sure is pure telemarketing, in its evil entirety. I guess if you like telemarketing, then you'd like this job. But if you don't like getting hungup on, yelled or cussed at, pressured by your boss to make "sales" to uninterested, angry, unavailable, underage people, then this job is not for you. It wasn't for me, I only lasted 1 week. After emailing and calling about my resignation, NO ONE has returned my calls or emails for several days now. I am beginning to wonder if I will get paid at all for the time I worked. Has anyone else quit CLC and been paid or not paid?

[asiya1981]

I just wanted to know let you know you nailed this job to a T lol. If anyone wants to know how it is they should read your post lol. I quit to and nope haven't heard from them yet but I only contacted them once so guess we'll see. Let me know how it goes. I think it is made for telemarketers though or people who may be a natural at it so it works for those people. Didn't get any cursing calls though lol. I made it by laughing a lot of it off seriously that's how you will make it. I just didn't want to be let go because of the "sales" considering I had just started so yeah it seemed a little unfair of the company to do that to some people who really wanted to work but hey. I think maybe with the new policy now or changes about not maybe having to get the sales sooo much, they may keep more people and it'll be less strenuous on some employees. They had some nice people though just may need some changes to their system and info lol if they haven't already changed it. I just take it as at least I got some outbound experience and something better will come along(which did right after I left them . So just know that you are not alone and I'm here for you .

[txtesez]

I've waited for years to get on with CLC; finally with I have braodband they have some outrageous amount of gigabite that you have to have free. I'm broken hearted because everything there are no more real jobs on this forum; not that the forum is bad; cuz its not; its just there aren't any more jobs. So this doesn't surprise me about CLC... everyones in it for the money ONLY; they care nothing about people PERIOD.

[SuzyR]

I started calling tonight. I quit in about an half hour after I started. The people are really nice thier. That job was not for me. So much has changed in the last ten years since I have done this type of work. I got really nervous and I thought I wasn't doing this telemarketing stuff because I don't like it when people call me. The way I understood that the poeple you was calling was interested in hearing about the information. They wasn't it was cold calling and I think they would have more people to stay with them if they would tell people that before they were hired.

[asiya1981]

Just to update u I did receive my final check today in the mail. When I quit I removed all the software they had me install when I first started so they would definitely know I was done lol. You just have to go with whatever job fits you and if you tried your best then you should feel good. CLC really does fit some people but others hey believe me when one doors closes another one opens. So congrats to all that have CLC as their dream jobs and congrats to those who needed and had to quit because CLC wasn't for them. I do hope all of u former employees receive your checks also.Edited by: asiya1981

[Gopala]

Yes, the majority of folks I spoke to were not interested and had never
requested information from CLC's client, etc. Also, after I sent a
resignation email to both my Managers, nobody replied to me. I called
and left messages and no one called me back. I just wanted to know if
there was anything I needed to do to finalize my resignation and if I'd
be paid for the time I worked. Nobody has gotten to me after a couple
weeks, and I haven't received a check for the time I worked. This is a
really bad sign, when people you work for won't even email or call you
to say I got your resignation... or you'll be paid. I think that's very unprofessional disrespectful and makes me never want to recommend this job to anyone. Sorry!

[SuzyR]

I just feel like they lied to me about the description of the job. If they would have told me it was cold calling I would have not taken the job. At least I didn't waste to much time with them.

[Gopala]

They definitely lied about the job description... If I had known it was telemarketing, I wouldn't have taken the job either. If they don't return my correspondence and pay me for the time I worked, I'm going to file a report with the Better Business Bureau, etc.

[SuzyR]

Yea I would not blame you thier. How long has it been since you worked for them.

[asiya1981]

I'm not sure of who you would contact but BBB sounds like a start and I thought it was unprofessional too that there isn't response at all.I really hope everything works out for you and please keep us updated.