Fineline Solutions: Customer Service Call Centre, or Prejudiced Sweatshop?

Winnipeg MB Canada, November 18, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Recently, many 2014 former employees and clients of Fineline Solutions, a philanthropy based customer call centre, have been expressing reports and reviews of unprofessional managerial conduct within the company. An anonymous tip has revealed that their biggest clients, Canadian Red Cross and the US Salvation Army, had threatened to leave the company last summer due to employee maltreatment and improper management of customer service staff. Reviews from indeed.com indicated that mostly Pilipino individuals are hired and human resources get their records mixed up.

Before the end of October, a Tim E had posted additional information about Fineline on Yelp.ca claiming no one should work for them:

"Anyone who speaks against their policies and procedures is either let go or they leave. And when policies do change, communication is poorly executed for both phone or call-centre based procedures."

Tim Ekibus

“Unfortunately, the company provides services for homophobic companies such as Catholic Relief Services and the Salvation Army. Recently they had fired an employee for uttering homophobic remarks to a customer and others have been fired due to their religious status.”

“They are not green friendly as most of their paperwork and checklists are done on paper rather than computers. Even if computers are used, they are primarily used with primitive VOIP technology. Anyone who speaks against their policies and procedures is either let go or they leave. And when policies do change, communication is poorly executed for both phone or call-centre based procedures.”

Another source revealed that customer service representatives have been sharing e-mail information and not adhering to customer requests to remove them from mailing lists as every 2 – 6 months some repeat customers are calling in to have their information removed.

The following acts of mismanagement have been reported: delayed or no breaks besides lunch, procedure updates are consistently delayed on the call center floor, improper building maintenance besides washroom and floor vacuuming, only preferring employees of the Filipino race, only having schedules 2 days in a advance, HR will find any reason to fire someone, racial and sexual orientation discrimination, and consistent waste of paper for tasks where a computer can be used.

Some employees have eventually taken stress leave or were let go due to mental breakdowns while working in their supervisory or customer service rep positions. One employee with high seniority had worked there for ten years and her wage was only increased to 11/hr during her time there. She is currently on a leave of absence until further notice due to being unable to manage her stress and finances.

The biggest reason why people have left the company is that their wages are fixed over the last two years and only change when minimum wages is increased.

Tim E from yelp.ca has created a petition at change.org threatening Fineline to update their procedures or the information of maltreatment will be exposed to all their clients.

He encourages any person involved with any of the enclosed companies listed in the next paragraph to sign the petition to encourage Fineline to treat their employees better so the call centre and their clients can have a better impact on the world around them.

These are Fineline’s clients:

• Arthritis Foundation
• Amnesty International
• ASPCA
• Canadian Red Cross
• Canadian Cancer Society
• Catholic Relief Services
• Catholic Charities
• Children’s Miracle Network
• Ducks Unlimited
• Heifer International
• Humane Society of the United States
• The Salvation Army
• Oxfam America

Sources:

http://www.yelp.ca/biz/fineline-winnipeg

http://ca.indeed.com/cmp/Fineline-Solutions/reviews

http://www.change.org/p/fineline-solutions-stop-mistreating-your-customer-service-representatives