No, no one has ever received a proper list of chargebacks and the criteria of them. Sometimes a brief email about a select few or a meantion of it on the weekly conference call. To date I am aware/been hit for/or had fellow techs hit for:
$20.00 of not calling in an ETA, On site, and/or Closeout.
$50.00 for failure to closeout at customers home or not allowing customer to speak to closeout csr.
$50.00 late arrival to an appointment without prior approval from dispatch
$100.00 No call no show (missing an appointment and not telling customer in advance, must be customer since I've seen hits for techs talking to babysitter, friend of customer, etc)
$50.00 each for no DTV shirt and/or no DTV sign on truck and/or no DTV badge
$100.00 for Loss of Job (anything that causes customer to cancel once you have arrived)
$50.00 for not having your inventory turned in by 6am CST each monday.
$50.00 for any rescheduled job without prior dispatch approval (so even if customer calls you and asks you to come later or next day, you still get hit)
Then theres "admin fees" for late paperwork or in incorrect order that are anywhere from a warning to loss of pay on entire job. Service calls, regardless of fault are rarely paid. Only about half of the CCK installs are paid even though at closeout of each one the 88-xxx code must be given.
There is a rebuttal process, but in 9 months there have been 14 rebuttals submitted and only 2 paid. Including jobs where additional travel pay was promised, put in notes by dispatch, and on work order. So far I have done alright at staying away from getting hit with many of these. Ive gotten a no badge fee (husband was home for install, wife came at end and did closeout call and when asked if I showed badge, she responded "I dont know I wasnt here"), no call of ETA fee (was on hold for entire drive to next job so by the time they picked up I was on site), and a no DTV attire fee (wearing blue t-shirt only - so i really did deserve this one). I have had technicians get hit with everything else on the list and have seen firsthand that there is no weight to the claim, just a simple two or three word listing on pay detail with a negative number. In my early days of the game I did cable, hsi, telephone in Omaha and KC. In that game you have an owner / manager you see daily and could stand up for yourself and nothing like this list ever happened. Now you are lucky if you ever get to meet or see in person the one that writes your paychecks. Multiple coverage states means multiple loopholes and a bigger scam for the little guy. When you stand up for yourself, or even ask what you can do to help expedite the process to get paid, you get told things like....well better the devil you know, or if this is your notice then I accept becuase I am tired of your nagging, or he who has the gold makes the rules, and go ahead and get a judgement and then wipe your ass with it. Of course the installer is the only one to suffer from a chargeback. The primary makes money on them and the second passes it onto the installer, so why would anyone care to fight. One would think that since we work for the second sub, they would fight for us, but why would they rock the boat and risk any of their free money when it is easier to just replace the installer. Sadly enough it is just the way it is and will never change and I am slowly getting used to losing 10% of my pay with full knowledge it will never come back. As long as there is enough work, the final paycheck is enough to soften the blow of insult. Generally though there's not even enough work to make a single living for a single person, so every penny is noticed and hurts and while I have always been the type to fight on principle no matter what, I find myself having to eat crow and feel very belittled so I can at least make sure I am still working.
And in summary, thats why they charge back, how they do it, and why we are powerless to it. Took 13 years to understand it and just over the weekend it has finally made sense to me. There's no honor, loyalty, principles, or even morals for the majority of the people in this game. Sadly as you move higher on the food chain, the loss of all those qualities increases significantly. I used to praise my choice of profession by saying "he who does the best work the fastest makes the most money".....well that is not the case anymore. It has become "he who covers his butt the best and shuts his mouth the most makes the most chargeback free money". Enough with the ranting since this thought process can be applied to almost every aspect of life and is thus the root of what the world is coming to.
Re: $50 charge back for not showing id!
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