I am assuming everyone has received the letter from Bill Freeman the founder and CEO of Freeman. What are your thought about his response to the pay issue.

Here is a copy in case you have not received it yet.


Dear Floyd,

My name is Bill Freeman - owner and founder of FreemanGroup. I want to communicate directly with you as to where we are with our present payment issues and what we intend to do to correct the situation. Firstly, I need to give you an unreserved apology for the issues and hardship for which I am responsible. As a company we are embarrassed and dismayed that we have failed to live up to basic expectations. That is not who I am and not the vision I had for this organization when I founded it.

How we arrived at this point is completely explainable, but not relevant to your concern of getting paid. So with the intent of communicating with you today regarding reimbursement and payment, I do not want to dwell on the chain of events that led us here, as it would be construed as an excuse. I do want to stress though that we are completely committed to resolving the issue and I personally am very aware of my responsibility in this matter.

I want to outline our plans for getting payment issues resolved. We have set ourselves the objective of achieving an eight week pay cycle by November 1st. In no way are we implying that an eight week cycle is satisfactory or our end goal, but we need to get to that threshold by November 1st in order to achieve a more desirable and competitive cycle by February 1, 2013 (which we will provide additional details on as that date approaches).

Plans for achieving those goals include the selling of property, short-term borrowing, and other investment options. In addition, we continue to source opportunities for new business within our training division. For this to work, it is critical that we retain our mystery shopping clients. To be completely honest, without our existing accounts, this plan does not work and while the monies will be repaid, it will be over a much longer period of time.

I understand the level of frustration that exists with you personally as well as the general mystery shopping community. For 24 years FreemanGroup enjoyed a very good reputation and during the last three years that reputation we previously enjoyed has been obliterated. This damage to my reputation affects me personally as well as the members of our FreemanGroup team.

In closing, we are taking additional measures to streamline many of our processes from scheduling, to assignment execution, to payments and reimbursements. With that said, we want to communicate with you in the most transparent a manner that we can. For questions regarding the status of your payment and reimbursement, you may email our team at payments@freemangroup.org. Again, we ask for your patience in receiving a response as we communicate with many of you daily and this letter will no doubt increase the number of inquiries we receive. If you are confident that all of your information and supporting documentation has been received by our office, no contact is necessary.

Finally, thank you for your previous support of FreemanGroup and my apologies again for letting you down,

Bill Freeman

I will say this for him, he is owning the problem. It is also refreshing that he is outlining the steps they are taking rather than offering excuses.

I think this is a good start if he does what he said in the letter. The proof is in the pudding.

I think it is unreal that he asks us shoppers to continue to work with them.. but then goes on to say that payment might not happen now until November or later?

You would have to be out of your mind to work with this company until they get their accounts payable under control !!

I don't know about any of you.. but I sure can't afford to PAY to go to work, and that is what they have done to me. I paid for two hotel rooms, and never got paid.

I would say that investors in the company would be due a profit/loss statement from the company, as well as a report of all accounts payable/receivable, in order to make an educated judgement on continuing to support Freeman and/or not pursuing legal action.

They have made promises to come current in the past that have fallen through, and I think some very significant goodwill has been lost since then, so what happens when some shoppers support the company and it still looses clients, and then fails to pay once more?

If Freeman is in a position to secure a loan, then do so and pay ALL overdue shoppers current, then ask for forgiveness at that point. As it stands, the short term investors mentioned ARE the shoppers!...and not by their choice.

I am currently owed money for a shop in February and did not receive the letter. Given that I have sent multiple e-mails that have gone without response, something would have been nice.

I will admit that I did know about the payment problems that they had when I completed both of my shops and did approach it knowing it was a risk. I did both tied to mystery shopping routes to help make them more profitable. I did the first shop and was paid at 11 weeks without a need for follow-up, but now I have been sitting since February.

I truly hope they are able to get there stuff together, but it will be a long time and a lot of positive reports before I am willing to take that risk again,

What I find interesting is that they post a time line and a possibility of "selling of property, short-term borrowing, and other investment options" classic bankruptcy language.

I do hope that Freeman is serious about paying everyone monies owed. I'm fortunate not to be one of the people owed money. Thanks to this board, I never shopped for them.

Once they pay one person, I'm sure this board will light up like the 4th of July. Freeman probably realizes that, so my guess is, they'll pay shoppers at the same time to avoid the 'he got paid, why didn't I get paid' situation.

Short term borrowing? I would assume that the company's credit is well below the score that would enable the company to get a loan at a decent rate; but, that's just my thought, and not my or the shoppers' problem.

The letter sounds like the company wants to do right, let's hope the company actually follow through on this. I like the fact that he took full responsibility for the snafu and didn't blame anyone but himself.

I sincerely hope that all of you get what's owed you. Is there a way you can charge interest if you've put the shops on your credit cards?

I received my letter after I got paid. I was paid for my shop in February on July 31 paypal of course. I must admit I used a little legal pressure.

After receiving the letter, I finally was paid for both of my shops. Good luck to the rest of the shoppers waiting to be paid. I would still stay on top of things with them, and bug them until you DO get paid. Obviously they have some money, since I am not the only one that got paid.

Thanks to all for your help.

I still wouldn't touch one of their jobs....words are cheap....

I'm not touching a single Freeman shop until May, 2013.

I want a demonstratable record of 60-day turnaround payments for at least 6 months.

I still have a shop that hasn't been paid (from January), but I never got this letter.

I would suggest email and call every day. I once was told by my grandfather, "the squeaky wheel gets the oils." So I would encourage you, and others to make a lot of noise!

ffrieszell,

Your grandfather is totally right. I did that and it worked for me and I did it with kindness also. I got paid for the shops I did back in April, got a payment at the beginning of August and one in July.

I saw this post and realized I had not been paid for a shop in February. I emailed them and was paid promptly. I hope the rest of you get paid promptly also. Try to email them and let them know you haven't been paid. Good Luck!

Make your wheels squeak. It may take time but it will work.

what email address did you use? I've gotten no response!

maboug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I saw this post and realized I had not been paid
> for a shop in February. I emailed them and was
> paid promptly. I hope the rest of you get paid
> promptly also. Try to email them and let them
> know you haven't been paid. Good Luck!

Email and Call I will have to look it up for you cinemmaphile. For the phone number I found that on the company web site. I emailed Kim.

This was the information I used.



Kim Scarcia // FreemanGroup
Measurement Accounting Specialist


T : (972) 479-1345 | F : (972) 479-1366
3501 Token Dr. Suite 100
Richardson, TX 75082
www.freemangroupsolutions.com

kscarcia@freemangroup.org

It took 8 months for me to be paid for the assignments I performed in December for Freeman. I was helped by another forum member, who offered e-mail addresses of every corporate executive at Freeman. I bombarded them with e-mails demanding to be paid.. etc.. and I was finally paid for both assignments.
Below is a list of the corporate e-mail addressses. Also, you can e-mail vgarcia@freemangroup.com, as he was the one who actually sent the payment to my pay pal account.

Good Luck !!

jboles@freemangroup.org, kwolff@freemangroup.org, pmoore@freemangroup.org, pobryan@freemangroup.org, pvishy@freemangroup.org, bavant@freemangroup.org, gmarquart@freemangroup.org, dhyatt@freemangroup.org, rscott@freemangroup.org, bgarbacz@freemangroup.org, wtarrant@freemangroup.org, bfreeman@freemangroup.org.

I used to shop for Freeman all the time and loved their easy hotel shops. I hope that they're able to get it together and get the business back on track. I used to love the company and I'd like to see them back to their previous history. I have shopped for them once since their financial issues and was paid within three months. I can't say that I believe I'll always be paid that quickly so I'm hesitant to take more work from them.

I am LOLing right now, as I had not received the Freeman letter until just now. Ironically, I sent an email in the wee hours of this morning to the corporate email addresses given above, explaining I had inquired twice about my payment status. It is only after sending the email early this morning that I received the letter from Bill Freeman. We'll see what happens. FYI, the vgarcia@freemangroup.org bounced back, so I'm assuming this person is no longer with the company.

I would suggest that you explain that "your attorney advised you" to get payment information or where you can send the legal documents. The seem to move faster when they know there is an attorney involved.

I'm wondering who they decided to send the emails to and who not, as I have not received one. I've done shops sporadically for them and never had a problem being paid.....after emailing them a few times.

As I mentioned before. I think the squeeky wheel get the oil. Complain and raise you know what and you will be paid. No one want a pain in the you know where bothering the flow of business.

I wish I had read this board before I signed up for a shop with them. I'm supposed to do the shop early September. Shall I cancel? I would love to hear what your opinons are.

Thanks!

Caveat emptor!

You would have to be INSANE to take an assignment from Freeman!! Haven't you read above how many people have had trouble getting paid.. and how many STILL aren't paid? If they can't afford to pay shoppers for shops done in February or later, do you really think YOU are going to get paid ???

Spikeconnie, I didn't know about the payment issue until I had already scheduled an assignment with them. I found out after the fact and I'm not one to take "flaking out"/canceling a job lightly. That was why I was asking for advice. Thanks.