Journalists, please see the official media statement here: http://cnw.ca/n2qul

I am Hoping to chat with former or current employees of Xentel.

We need your help with this important story.

Please email me in confidence jeff.keele@bellmedia.ca

If Whistleblow664 or anyone else has information about American callers making calls into Canada in the federal election campaign in April and May of 2011, please email me at smaher@postmedia.com.

Just audio recorded the sale of a Pirated Captain America DVD and some Lady Ga Ga CDS. One of the managers took a cut off the sale and asked for a copy of another new release still in the theater that the guy claimed to have.

BRAVO XENTEL!!
An entire sales floor of criminals and scum bags violating your company rules day to day and the people running the place condone it just so you can make a quick buck.

There are some good people at this office being held hostage by this insanity and already it has caused a lot of pain for people.

My recorder has a capacity of 300 hours and I offload it ever day to an archive.
ALL OF THIS, is on record.

I am currently working at the Madison Wisconsin Xentel office. There have been NUMEROUS incidents of violations of the company’s own policy, most of which are sexual harassment, lying to “prospects” on he phone about the fake charities we represent in Canada (since Xentel lost all US clients last year), coming in late, drug use and sales of drugs, (SANCTIONED AND EVEN PROMOTED BY THE MANAGERS), INSIDE the office by employees and managers at this branch BUT they are allowed to keep working there as long as they maintain a ‘line hour’ (amount of money they make per hour for the company) above $50 to $100 or more an hour. Much of this I have on audio with duplicate copies stored with friends. As an added bonus, THEY FORGOT TO MAKE ME SIGN THE CONFIDENTIALITY FORM!! Last week a man got fired for a violation of company policy. He was not able to maintain the preferred ‘line hour’. Yet several employees who have been able to have also committed the same violation and others against company policy SEVERAL TIMES with not so much as a write up or notice. This company is SICK. Not a single “charity” they represent spends the majority of what they collect on any sort of public service or puts more than they pay themselves into what they do. There need to be new laws that define how a charity qualifys for ‘non-profit’ status in Canada as there have been here in the US (Thanks to companies like XENTEL, AKA Curtesy health watch, Imarkeing solutions, Profesionaly speaking incorporated, health vision and all it’s other numerous shadow company names to keep the radar off the Xentel brand) it is unfortunate that it is the only job I can find and maintain right now. I am trapped. You have my email, PLEASE HELP if you can. If you are in Canada you may know the proper channels I can report this too. Here in the US things of this nature are much harder to report or get any help with. At least they cant do business here anymore and charities are no longer allowed to use this kind of telemarketing. I have spoken to HUNDREDS of Canadian citizens last week alone who have been repeat called by different ‘campaigns’ xentel has been running from our SAME EXACT call center number in Canada. Even AFTER having been registered on Canada’s DNC (do not call) list as well as though Xentel reps who claimed to have registered them on it. PLEASE, it would be hard but, put me out of a job!!

i also know the charity world very well, and understand that there ARE costs associated with any type of fundraising. the reputable charities use methods with the highest efficiency rate, because it looks good in their year end report.

sometimes fundraising backfires. it may cost $100,000 to do a campaign and they only raise $90,000 from it. so they loose out. live and learn, trial and error sometimes.

im not knocking any telemarketing company for taking a profit from selling tickets… for charity ot not. at least if its for charity, you know SOME of that money is going to a good cause rather than ALL of the money going to share holders. 10% is better than nothing!!

BUT with that said… if xentel is lying about how much funds are going toward the charity, then they can be shut down if enough people complain about it.

there are strict laws as to how much raised money must go directly to the cause and administration. for a charity to employ people directly and telemarket, a much higher percentage much go towards the cause. thats why they outsrouce it, because only 90% of that 10% earned from the ticket will need to go towards the cause. so on top of the 90% taken by xentel, the charity itself can use a percentage towards its own administration fees.

depending on how the money is raised, that number could be anywhere between 10-40% retained.

its not great, BUT heres the catch. people are buying a product for an event. they are not just donoating straight cash with nothing in return. if it was straigt cash, then there would be hell to pay.

if you bought that same ticket at ticketmaster, NOTHING would go to a charity. it would go to whoever the event managers are. unless it is clearly stated that it is a charitable event of which $xx will be donated per tickets.

xentel is at least concentrating on charitable events and not just selling tickets for any ol’ show.

if the customer buying the tickets understands this, then there should be no complaints from anyone.

it might not be the most prestigious job….but YOU made the choice to say ‘ok’ , ill work here. they employ alot of people. some of the company profits do reach a charitable cause.

there’s no reason for anyone to judge how others spend their money. if someone calls me with an offer and i accept it, or dont…its up to me to decide.

now, as a company in that respect i have n problem with xentel.

on the other side, if they are as shady as people say.. beleive me, when i start there and if i see this happening, i will be te first one to report full details to the media and BBB

And if the organization that uses their service to solicit donations are too lazy or dumb to see what is going on - maybe you should re-direct your contributions to an org that cares!

Next, I have worked in other call centre jobs before and never have I ever heard that if you don’t keep your stats up you are sent home. EVER! I have seen many a people end up having to go home, a rude awakening to those who rely on this job as their bread and butter. Don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying to keep lazy/incompetent ones on - but on the fourth night on the job, you can’t just tell that person they have to go home if they didn’t keep up the stats. Maybe 2 weeks provide a coaching session. At week 6, place them on a development plan to improve. At 3 month, terminate if they have not met their probation period. That’s how it usually works in the real world. But, I am assuming that there is an incentive to doing this. Perhaps bonuses are issued this way to prove mgmt is keeping overhead costs down.

There are some shady characters in that office. Admittedly there are staff that are nice to your face, but will stab you in the back. Some are genuinely nice.

I often felt that I was lying by omission. Plus, the focus was on sales/ sales / sales. Which yes, it is a sales job -however when it’s regarding charitable campaign, tact, is require to motivate staff - NOT fear of not completing a shift. The turnover is so high, it’s like grand central station! Plus, EMPATHY for the respondent was needed. They did not care if the respondent was on their death bed and it was the last phone call they’d receive in their lifetime - we were told we must Sell/Sell/Sell! If the ticket was purchased and their cc was verified - we did our job. That does not sit right with me.

Plus why are there not websites to refer respondents too? Just curious? It justs makes the employees in the bullpen sound even less credible! I’m happy I am out!!!! I would not recommend my worst enemy to work there. I have too much ethics to do that.

I have worked with charitable orgs before. I is better to give the money to them directly or volunteer your time. At least you’ll feel comfortable in knowing your donation / time went directly to them.

I love how the Xentel employees replying to the post contradicting the company. Quoting XentelWorker from January 16th 2011;
“I like my job it pays well.. ”
- Great I wonder what the percentage the company needs to take from the charity to pay you.. Go on..
“We are a NON-PROFIT charity organiztion and it were doing a good thing..”
- .. Ok you lost me I need info from someone that seems more viable.. and did you post twice cause the start of the previous message is very close to yours. That or you are just a nitwit lifer.

Ok ‘current xentel worker’ lets see how much Xentel takes to “pay their employees”..
“they collect 90 percent of all collections,the charity gets 10 percent,the rest goes to them”
- Wow, I didn’t see much of that at minimum wage.. You sure?

(From ‘XentelEmployee’)
“And by the way, using the numbers from an above post, if they raised $5,000,000 and gave 20% of it to the cause thats ONE MILLION dollars..”
- The cause that has to pay you for you services, and for the venue.. because if I remember correctly, when on the phones, you were not allowed to say “WE” are putting on the event, because that is a lie. They will not teach you to lie but they tell you to hide the truth.

What I’ve gathered from some of these posts (I read most of the ones posted by actual Xentel employees) is that the company takes in 80-90% of PROFITS.. making it a “non-NON-PROFIT” organization. Paying the employees minimum wage with terrible commissions ($1500 = $25 bonus). Where does the money go? I know I wasn’t able to afford to wear suits everyday.

Did I mention the exploiting of “poor little orphans” to turn a no into a yes technique that is taught from day one..

Yeah, how can you hate on Xentel?
(If you like liars cheats and theives!)

How can I hate on Xentel? They are lying sacks of shit. When I worked there they routinely told us to tell people, when they asked, that 80% of what they give goes to the charity. That’s horseshit. There’s no way xentel could turh a profit if 80% of the donation went directly to the charity. Xentel keeps the majority of the money - well over half. While the charities know this, the people giving the money do not. That’s unethical. These people would be giving the money directly to the charity if they knew how much Xentel really pockets. While it’s true that even if oen gives directly to the charity some money will go towards administrative costs, that’s still better than most of it going to the shitheads at xentel.

And many of these charities that xentel contracts with are not reputable and use names that sound like more repuable charities so people will give money.

The working envrironment itself is hell on earth. I hope there is a special circle of hell reserved for xentel management.

we collected money for The Shriner’s who really do good work, and produced some pretty good show’s as well. True there are people in any job whom are lazy and or not very bright, but you have those in any job.

Our live’s are so important that that we can’t listen to a pitch ? then we’re really getting very insular with no creativity. It’s getting into our music, eveything sounds pretty

generic with a brand name. When was the last time you hummed an new advertising jingle ( pepsodent dates back from the 70’s and maybe beyond.

Advertising makes thing’s work, tele-marketing is advertising, it employ’s lots of people, these people buy thier lunchs at your lunch counters ., work cloth’s from store’s, hobby item’s from hobby shop owner’s. They put on show’s which engage arena’s, which in turn employe’s a local population to run the arena.

Thing’s need to change at Xentel, and they will, but in the mean time, it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen in advertising, it’s a part of commerce, people make a living and it’s not porn production, or drug production. It trys to bring something positive to this earth.

Xentel DM (direct marketing) is a Telemarketing company that sells tickets, sponsorships, and donations to community events (the Firefighters vs Some NHL Hall of famers, or the Circus).

Now, Like it or not Telemarketing is an effective way to either raise money or sell a product. That is why Telemarketing is so wide spread. Yes, it is annoying to be called from a telemarketer when your busy; however, the very best telemarketers will not waste thier time harrasing people. There is no sale to be made, and thier compensation is based part on proformance. Xentel in my books is reputable because it is one of the very few pure sales jobs that have a BASE PAY + incentives. Almost every pure sales job is commision based, and scam the employees. If you work at Xentel, you WILL get a check on Friday.

Now, The Events that Xentel do are GREAT for the community. Not only are they raising money for orginizations like the Shiners, Local Police Foundations, and Boys and Girls Clubs, they also put on an affordable show that is good wholesome family fun - something that is rare. You never see the average blue collar worker taking his 3 kids and wife out for an entertaining event because he can’t afford it…well Xentel makes it possible for him to spend some time with his family, whats wrong with that?

Lets talk about the Charities.

No, the Charities do not recieve 100% of the donation contrary to what people think is the case when they give. But what most ignorant people don’t understand is that there are NO charities where 100% of the donation goes to support the cause. At least Xentel is upfront with what they are doing with the money that is being given over the phone. THEY ARE PUTTING ON A SHOW TO HELP RAISE MONEY. There are costs involved with putting on the shows and selling the tickets. And by the way, using the numbers from an above post, if they raised $5,000,000 and gave 20% of it to the cause, thats ONE MILLION dollars that otherwise would not have been spent helping less fortunate children. ALSO, just because only ONE MILLION DOLLARS got to the charity, they do some fantastic things for children in the community. For example, if you dont want to go to the hockey game that they do, you can sponsor children from Childrens Aide, Boys and Girls Clubs and many other orginizations to go to the hockey game, and SKATE with REAL NHL HALL OF FAMERS, how many companies ACTUALLY do stuff like that for orphans with nothing they can profit from?

How can you possibly hate on Xentel?

MOST PEOPLE DON’T DONATE TO CHARITIES TO HELP A CAUSE, THEY DONATE TO A CHARITY TO MAKE THEM FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES. IT’S A LOT CHEAPER TO GIVE TO CHARITY THAN IT IS TO VISIT A PLASTIC SURGEON. LOL!!!