Would you mind explaining how Cast is working out better for you?

1) Are they paying you driving time and mileage?

Yes, after the 60 mile rule.

2) Are you not experiencing application crash?

Of course I am. Just rolling with the punches, they'll work it out.

3) Are you able to connect with TOM or Support within 5 minutes?

Yes, I text him and he calls me or texts me back.

4) Are you able to make equal for same projects worked for Castforce?

Yes. More actually as Castforce didn't have 3 hr Loreal visits.

5) Are you able to work more than 6 hours every day?

Yes. They pay for all hrs worked.

6) Are you able to schedule jobs more than 6 hours?

Yes. Once you close out a job, you can reschedule a job from another day into the same day and complete the job.

7) Are you able to work outside of 9-5 window frame?

Yes. It seems the App wont allow you to schedule a job after 2 pm, so I just schedule multiple jobs for 2 pm. No big deal, you can complete scheduled jobs anytime during the day without penalty.

8) Are you getting the ​timely response from your TOM?

Yes. Usually by text. They are extremely busy so a short text works great.

Have patience... all restructures are a cluster **** until the bugs are worked out. It will probably take 6 months for this transition to smooth out.

I agree! I'm just rolling with the punches too! I haven't had too many problems with the application crashing, but it's just realllly slllooowww. I'm actually making more with Cast because when I would go into some CVS' S before I would spend 6-8 hrs in them "cleaning"up from the previous people that were there and only made the one offer and whatever more my manager could get approved. Now I get paid for every minute I work! My TOM doesn't get back right away but she emails me or takes care of what I need within a couple of hours. I haven't had anything urgent that I needed to respond right away yet so I can say anything about that. I am lucky though, she is the same Manager that I had at Castforce! The only thing I don't get is mileage. I try to stay within 15-20 miles from my home and I have been very lucky. I have 45 stores so far, but if you count all the back and forth I do all day I pretty sure that in a weeks time I would do 60 miles or more. But besides that I'm good to go and just gonna keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully there will be a light at the end of the tunnel soon!

Actually, the L'Oreal project started out with Castforce. They assigned us to certain stores to do weekly and I did them until them moved them over to Cast Retail.

The pay margin to time required was better under castforce for the cosmetic client. However, if you need to spend the three hours on it now you will make about $4.50 more for a three hour shift.

Me too, I did the L'Oreal continuity projects in well under the time they gave under Castforce because I work Walmart's for my other companies and I can go in the backroom and get whatever I want and stock it. The cosmetic dept. mgrs. know me from my cosmetic resets. And I did EVERYTHING they required unlike the current Cast employee here who is a major slacker.

Despite not being a merchandiser, I've found this thread interesting. I now have a question. Is the new system of an hourly wage along with having to stay the required number of hours more beneficial to merchandisers who are slower and would normally need three hours to complete a job and detrimental to those who could possibly complete the same job in one or two hours?

I don't do L'Oréal, so if the slacker comment was aimed towards me..... I do resets for gift cards at CVS, 7/11, OFFICE MAX/DEPOT and so forth. Oh, and I finish those within in the time frame give or take 15 minutes.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2016 02:21AM by dishopper.

Lisa,

Castforce used IC's and paid a flat rates per job. Cast uses W2 employees and pays by the hour. So it is apples and oranges. Labor laws are making it hard for companies to continue to classify workers as IC's, which is why most merchanding companies have switched to W2 employees. The merchandising companies want to control your work and work schedule etc, which isn't allowed in order to classify a worker an IC.

But yes to your question. Paying an hourly wage vs a flat rate does little to encourage productivity.

Absolutely detrimental to efficient people.
Beneficial to the slackers, but only for a time; it'll catch up.
Whoever up there thought I was talking about them, I was not.
I was talking about the two people in my area who work for Castforce
and are now handling the L'Oreal continuity program.
They are not even close to handling the account correctly.

I wish I would have known I could work more than 6 hours per day. I was told in no uncertain terms it was a violation of part time labor laws to do so. That might have solved my issues.

Nothing against you at all, Wild Bill. But it just steams me that they have all these different rules for different people. My quality was 100% when I had to quit.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2016 01:55PM by adlib.

Besides the app issues, and the ever changing work rules, it seems that it all boils down to who your manager is. I was dealing with one that never replied via email, or phone. Ever. I never heard from her, but, had 33 stores assigned to me without me knowing anything about it. All in an area I don't do. This was over an eight day time frame. If I hear that she is no longer there I may apply again.
I love flat rate work. I am loving some of the app based jobs. I did better with them this week than with my regular merchandising work.

As many of you have stated, the switch from Castforce IC to Cast employment was a major disappointment for me. After 4 years as an IC, I made the change as 2016 arrived. Previously, I had taken projects as much as 150 miles from home. With the change, I would only have stores within a 15 mile radius of home. AS I live in a somewhat rural area, this was to amount to one Walmart store. So, the change looks to have cost me 1/3 of my annual income. As most of you have experienced, change is one of the few constants, and companies always come and go. Still the Castforce/Cast issue was a major disappointment for me.

Well, here is a fix to an app issue I have encountered a couple of times this week. Numerous calls to support went unanswered and voice mails not returned, so despite that waste of time, I figured it out on my own, but still another issue they'll need to correct. Anyway, I visited a couple of CVS locations this week that I could not check into... outside the store, inside the store, across the street, etc... couldn't check in. And of course if you cannot check in, you can't report the work. Was pulling my hair out as I had perfect reception, a good connection, was synched etc. So I marked it up to there being an issue with the app server. Well, I tried again today and... same issue. Could not check in. So then I looked at the address, and instead of just the street address, the route # and shopping plaza name was listed.... so just for the hell of it, I clicked the 'map' icon under the job, and sure enough, with all the extra stuff w/ the address, the GPS was confused and actually had the store showing 3.5 miles away! Well, I drove 3 miles to around the spot where the GPS thinks the store is, and bingo, it let me check in. So back I go 3 miles, do the work, and then back yo the GPS location so I can sign out and submit the report. Totally absurd, obviously. This happened at another store for me too, and its the same thing, they listed a shopping plaza and a route #, so the GPS is confused. If your notes just list a standard address that Google maps can recognize, you should have no problem checking in and out, but if route #s, shopping centers etc are listed, most likely the GPS wants you to be somewhere else.... hope this helps anyone that has encountered this issue as well...

My girlfriend, against my better judgement, decided she would jump in the Cast mess. I told her that it will be a fiasco and I was right. First,she took on 35 7/11's. She was promised that they would be delivered at the locations and she could just go after her regular job and finish them at night and weekends. She asked multiple times to make sure that this would happen and her manager said yes. Last Friday we come home to 35 large boxes stacked all in our entrance way. Mind you, not small boxes, but very large ones. We had to dig our way to the door, our apt complex was not happy about it. She called immediately and of course no one answered, it was Friday afternoon. The jobs were to start the following Monday, so now our apt is full of these boxes. She left multiple messages and nothing. So Monday comes and she calls and emails multiple times, nothing. She calls the help # and gets transferred to her manager everytime, goes straight to voicemail. She calls and asks for the main manager, nothing straight to voicemail. So frustrated she goes to do 3 7-11's, she is turned away at 2 of them and takes 2 hours at the 3rd. The ap does not work because she is out of the allotted hours designated for the 7-11. Again, she calls and nothing. The next day comes, she again leaves multiple messages for the regional manager, again, nothing. So she attempts a couple of more jobs after work, same problem with the ap. This is the last straw, so she cancels all of her stores, calls again and tells the help line, they then transfer her back to the manager and to leave a message. Today is 3/18, we still have 33 large boxes scattered all over our apt, we finally get someone to call us back this past Wed, but not the area manager, but a regional one. We ask what to do with all these boxes and he says he will have someone come get them in the next couple of weeks. The kicker, we cannot throw them away or she will be charged for the shipment. Needless to say, this has been a total waste of time. DO NOT WORK HERE. They are horrible.

Wow, what a fiasco. I feel for you.
Doesn't the IRS say if you carry materials to the job they have to pay you for all your mileage and cannot deduct the first and last 30 miles?

I am not sure, but will look into it. Utah has weird laws and not for the workers.

All other companies I have worked to always paid dt and mileage from my home if I had to load boxes, etc into my car. I see more lawsuits coming for Cast.

I also found out the hard way that you have to put in the photos when it ask for them and they cannot be in your photo library. While waiting for the manager to get her computer to check her inventory, I thought I would go ahead and take the needed pictures but when I got ready to add the pictures from my photo library it would not let me do this so I had to go back and retake the pictures. I called about this and they said they are working on it so that we will be able to use photo library.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2016 01:46AM by ctalbert.

tsc84124 is a troll.

1st - 7-11's cannot be scheduled or performed on the weekends, Mon-Fri only.

2nd - Cast does not charge for missing kits like Castforce used to. There is no kit agreement anymore.

3rd - There are no regional managers. Only TOMS.

4th - No TOM is going to arrange delivery to a store location. Only your home.

5th - No 7-11 is going to turn away free help. They just point at the cards and say go ahead.

6th - No one is going to get assigned 35 stores that take an average of 1.5 hrs per store for a 2 week project.

About the mileage if you carry your own supplies. It is a myth a company have to waive the 30 or 60 ile rule, whatever they have in place. I used to be a rep for News America Marketing (which is owned by Fox Broadcasting and Robert Murdoch) And they had a 30 mile rule and believe me, you carry a ton of advertising and equipment around with that outfit. I had to fill my car up everyday.

Same for when I worked for Advantage, they had a 30 mile rule and they sent supplies to me to install in stores on a regular basis. I wish there was such a law, but there isn't.

I have worked for Advantage 8 yrs and if I have to load boxes, etc I do get paid from my home to the 1st store. It will put up a red flag when you report but they do pay you. My FS has reminded me to report the dt on certain projects.

I was told I could not use the hotspot by the person helping me set up the app when I had a problem with it. Another time, the person I spoke with said I could use it but sometime it would not allow the report to go through but so far I have had no problem

I stand corrected on Advantage then. My supervisor never informed me of that. I only worked for them 4 months as their schedule didn't fit mine at the time.

I have tried to search IRS rulings on this mileage debate and am coming up empty as to if it an actual law requiring employers to pay, or if some companies have bigger hearts than others. Can someone point me to a link of an actual IRS ruling on the subject?

Only Cali has a law regarding mandated mileage/travel pay.
The IRS just comes up with a standard mileage rate TO reimburse, without having to itemize each cost.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2016 02:57AM by spicy1.

Regarding the 7 11 jobs post there were some red flags for me but there were some consistencies too. With Castforce, I routinely pushed the evening and weekend limits, however one of the last last ones I completed the store was rather suspicious called their new owner and even wanted a pic of my liscense with my name since castforce provided no ID. I showed my ID to the attendant but we compromised on a screenshot of the paperwork for them to text the owner.

If I were to take those now I would stick within the guideline because it does seem the new system would keep you out during off hours.

I don't know about their new policy on kit shipments but I can't imagine Cast would just take the loss.

Also in addition to TOMs some areas do have Market Managers in a few select regions (this seems to be another one of their big keep it in the down low secrets)

I also do think they were desperate to get those 7 11's scheduled and that they would assign one person that many. I have had that many in the past. At this point they are taking as many warm bodies at the lowest rates they can get.

I looked back and I did 7 on Monday, 12 on Tuesday, 9 on Wednesday and 8 each on Thursday and Friday and 7 on Saturday; M,T & W being the 7-11s and Th & Fri and Sat the CVSs.

Sometimes I was given a hard time when it came to tagging the CVSs by whatever 'manager' was on duty but at the 7-11s I just walked by and said I'm going to reset the gift cards.....none of them said anything and signed my paper too without a qualm. I just told them they can write 'clerk' where it says manager if it makes them feel better.

Let's not talk about the twirp who set it before me and set the front ONLY (because that's all they had to take a picture of) and did NOT set the sides! Why I'd like ta'.....

It is always funny/frustrating going behind somebody else's work. I know when I first started I didn't have a clue about what I was doing. Those holiday cards were so confusing. I finally got the hang of it. There's a fine line between learning on the job and just skirting responsibilities.

@Wild Bill wrote:

I stand corrected on Advantage then. My supervisor never informed me of that. I only worked for them 4 months as their schedule didn't fit mine at the time.

Wild Bill I wasn't informed either until about a year and a half ago. I believe it was only because of a lawsuit against another company. They have to pay you DT once you start working so if you have to load your car and tranport the materials your DT starts from home. I'm only refering to DT not mileage. With Advantage you get the mileage when you report the DT. Is Cast even paying DT?


Commuting vs. Work Travel Time

FSLA rules require that a nonexempt employee be paid for traveling during work time, but not for time commuting to and from work. However, if the travel is required before or after usual working hours, some of the time spent traveling to the office may be compensable as work time. For example, if you require an employee to travel to another location on the way to work to perform a task, such as purchasing office supplies, from the time the employee arrives at the office supply store until he travels to the office is compensable work time.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2016 03:58AM by bethmar224.

It's because it is right after their Sunday ad and Sunday business and that is when stock get's replenished and Mon and Tues business is slower.

Spicy said "I looked back and I did 7 on Monday, 12 on Tuesday, 9 on Wednesday and 8 each on Thursday and Friday and 7 on Saturday; M,T & W being the 7-11s and Th & Fri and Sat the CVSs."

You are way faster then me Spicy if you did 28 7-11's in 3 days. This last round I averaged 1:15 per store to remove all the cards, hooks and paper for a 6 ft section (2 three foot sections next to each other) replace the paper, hooks and place the cards back adding the new cards brought in, then removing 2 dummy phones, replacing with the 2 brought in. Not counting travel time between stores.

About the kits, they can't charge you because you are an employee. As an IC they could charge you as they had you agree to a kit agreement before the kits were shipped.

I averaged 4 locations a day... but I am getting old to be fair. I am retired and do this to stay active.