The Wellington Agency Reviews (%countItem)
The Wellington Agency Rating
Address: 12008 South Shore Blvd STE 209, Wellington, Florida, United States, 33414-6396
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On 03/17/2023 I was contacted by "VIP Senior placement specialist" in regards to a Personal Assistant position in New York City. I was told by the Senior placement specialist that this is a “live out” position with 5 working day per week (weekdays only with occasional overtime) 9am-5pm, 4 (four) days in NYC and 1 (one) day at the additional property of the employer. Meaning going to the property in the morning and returning in the afternoon; health stipend is offered as per job listing, yearly bonus, etc.
After the interview process while negotiating the compensation the Senior placement specialist told me that the employer doesn’t offer a health stipend. I replied that as per the agency official job listing it says in the job description that the employer offers health stipend. At my insistence she finally contacted the employer and she came back with only 1/3 of the amount that my health insurance cost for one year. The amount was not considered as a health stipend it was added to my compensation and on that amount I had to pay taxes as well. The Senior specialist had not advocated in my behalf and get the health stipend as per the job position.
1. The Personal Assistant position was advertised as “live out” position not as “live in”, but I ended up ”living in” at the employer residence, meaning being at the workplace 24 hours per day, sleeping at the employers residence for several consecutive days during the weekdays and weekends.
My working hours were 40 hours per week with occasional over time. However, my working hours jumped up to 60-65+ hours on weekly basis without any additional compensation and working job duties that were not my responsibility. Literally I was “exploited” by the employer.
2. I had to the job of the Chef, cooking for the family and housekeeping staff. These job duties were not indicated in the initial job description posted by Agency or as my responsibilities. I lost thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.
3. While at the new job side I found out that the employer was employing for many years a housekeeper that was abusive/toxic and a bully. When I started to work the housekeeper has been abusive to me, mistreated me several times in several different occasions, screamed at me, and called me different names. The Senior specialist was aware that the family employs an abusive/toxic employer on their workplace, but she chooses to not disclose to me at the initial interview. I had to endure and work in an unsafe environment, while the employer was aware of the toxic/abusive work environment and choose to ignore it.
The working conditions got so heavy and unbearable that I refused to continue to “live in” at the employers residence that was 2 (two) hours away from NYC. I left the job site (on 08/18/2023) and texted several times the employer, but the employer didn’t responded and as a result I was terminated.
When I reported all the unfair mistreatment/exploitation of the employer to the staffing agency owner and asking her to talk to the employer’s office to advocate for my unfair work exploitation and recover my lost wages, her reply was that she doesn’t think that will help. She literary said “If you have any issues contact the employer family office”.
The agency owner didn’t do anything in my behalf, to protect my work rights, in contrary she blamed me for everything that happened.
The Wellington Agency knowingly and deliberately misled me and deliberately choose to not disclosed the actual working schedule and hours, the “living in” working schedule, the unsafe/toxic/abusive working conditions/environment at the employer residence, misleading me about the health stipend, not disclosing other job positions that were not my responsibility as a Personal Assistant which I found out when I was working on the job site.
The owner deliberately had not advocated nor helped me to recover the lost wages for job duties outside my responsibilities.
The Wellington Agency staff, owner and staff has contacted me, recruited me and placed me in a job position that wasn’t real, it was real only on the job listing; the agency intentionally and willingly misled me about the actual PA role, work schedule, living in position not live out position, other work “positions” attached to this role, employer benefits, toxic working conditions/environment.
I have resigned from my previous PA position that I had for the past 7 years for a PA position that was not real and “too good to be true”. Now I am loosing every single week my wages from my previous employer all because of this Agency carelessness and unethical conduct. The agency makes 20% commission from the candidates annual income.
The agency had not put any effort to find a new PA position as promised by the Senior specialist. Over two months past since I was terminated and the agency had not contacted me once with a new PA position.
One star to give this agency is too high!
Nanny violates the contract, agency fails to find a replacement in 15 days. They do not reimburse the agency fee.
In October 2017 we contacted the Wellington Agency, in January 2018 the first nanny we choose never shows up. The agency refers us to one of the candidate we had already pre-screened, surprisingly they did not have new candidates.
On the 30th of January, we move on and sign a contract with the new nanny and pay the agency fee, which is the 18% of the annual gross salary agreed upon the contract. The salary was 60.000 $ gross salary the agency fee was 10.800 $. After 35 days the nanny quits suddenly, no warnings. Moreover she does not respect the one-month notice she agreed on the contract. She just ceases to show up at work, no replies to the messages , no communication. The reply of the agency is " I am sorry" .The day she quits ( 6th of March) I contact the agency in order to start interviewing new candidates. Up to today ( 21st of March) the agency has failed to offer me a good choice of qualified candidates. They have only one candidate, the same one we screen the very first time and ruled out in October 2017.
Their policy is that after one month of contract they do not reimburse the agency fee, but considering the low qualified candidates they offered, their lack of offering other candidates after 15 days, I think the agency fee of 10.800 $ should be reimbursed.
I am seeking the full reimbursement of the agency fee of $10.800. They fail to find qualified candidates ( please see above) and support family from the contract violation of their candidates. They also failed to find a timely and qualified alternatives as they promised in their contract. After 15 days they only have sent me one candidate, the one they already had in October 2017 and we had preferred not to interview. They do not reimburse the fee after 30 days of existing contract, the nanny quit after 35 days...
Contact Name and Title: *** President
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: ***@thewelingtonagency.com
I'm very disappointed to see my client take this kind of action before giving our agency a chance to replace the original housekeeper. Our agency agreement is pretty much the standard in the industry, and actually one of the best as we offer a 12 month replacement policy. We offered to start the process immediately even though our client failed to provided the agency with the family/housekeeper work agreement, which clearly states in our full executed agency agreement, No refund or replacement policy shall be given in the event there is a late payment, and or no signed work agreement on file. We still began the process in good faith. Ms./the client needed to make adjustments to the current job description as it was a "Nanny, Housekeeper, and cook position. I explained to her several times that it was not attractive to a nanny or a housekeeper. Too many jobs and responsibilities for one person. We we went back and forth for over a week. The feedback on the current job was negative, so I advised Ms. to hire a housekeeper and let the nanny focus on nanny duties. She agreed but cut back the hours from 40- 15 hours per week. We went in circles but we continued searching for candidates last week. We sent one and she didn't want to interview until we sent several. Finding a nanny for a family is never an easy task, we cannot just pull one out of hat. There are many factors when going through the candidates. She was not flexible at all. It typically takes between 3-12 weeks to find the right person. The housekeeper who was employed by the family gave 2 weeks notice for a few reasons I won't go into here, but the family knows a couple of the reasons. We are in business to assist families with their staff needs but we are not miracle workers, and we don't advise families to combine jobs duties that should be divided into 2-3 jobs into one position. We did NOT know upfront the amount of childcare that was involved. Housekeeping and cooking with some childcare duties were mentioned. (We were told the mother would be mostly in charge of the 3 children by the dad who initiated this search originally)
Ms. has decided to go this route, giving my agency bad reviews, and now making a claim to the Revdex.com. We have done everything we agreed to do, but it was not fast enough for Ms.. We will not offer a refund as we were past the refund period and we never received the signed works agreement. I have attached our agency agreement. I would be happy to send our emails if that will help to give a better picture of the time frame, and our goals.
We have not to my knowledge had one complaint in the past 10 years.
Thank you
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I thank Ms *** for her reply but I do not accept her response. I address a few points.
Ms *** writes the agency fee cannot be refunded because:
- 'we were past the refunded period': the refund period is 30 days, my nanny quits after 35 days. Since this is the second negative experience with the same agency in two months, I would have expected some flexibility and have the agency fee reimbursed, or at least I would have appreciated to be offered this solution under extenuating circumstances. For the record: the first nanny does not show up, the second one quits and does not respect the one-month -notice. For privacy reason, I am adding as an additional document the email I sent to the Agency regarding the second nanny 's job performance.
- 'there is no signed work agreement on file': the Boston coordinator, Ms. Ilyse Frisch, got the contract via email and had no objections on the terms. The contract was then signed by my husband and the new nanny; regrettably we did not send the signed contract to the agency. It was a very hectic time, I acknowledge it was our responsibility to do so. Having said that, I also feel that the agency should have facilitated this transaction and keep asking for the document, if the above mentioned contract was so vital to jeopardize the possibility of a refund. Ms. Frisch wrote on Tuesday the 30th of January saying she was going to call. She never did.
Ms. writes that" the clients did not give the agency a chance to replace the original housekeeper" and that "they offer the standard contract in the industry." Please note that this does not necessary means the contract is fair to the customer, moreover in such situations time does matter: while the agency took time to look for other candidates, I was suddenly with no help. Since the day I notified the agency the nanny had quit ( 6th of March) to the 21 st of March, the agency offered me only one candidate. The same candidate I had already prescreened in November 2017.
Ms. writes "we went back and forth for over a week" regarding the job description for the new (third) candidate. The agency asked me to modify the job description because the previous one was "too much work for one person only." Even though this is highly disputable, I did modify it as Ms. suggested. Given all the above mentioned changes, plus adjusting to two different nannies in two months, I believe it is incoherent that Ms. writes "She (Ms.) was not flexible at all."
I am asking a refund because not only I am not satisfied with the quality of the nannies they provided, but also I would have expected that the agency would have tried to the best of their possibilities to have the employee respect the terms of the contract. The nanny does not show up at work right after she receives the monthly salary, not respecting the one month notice and the agency replies " I am sorry." After investing time and money on the agency, I found myself in exactly the same situation I wanted to avoided in the first place: no help. We decided to work with the Wellington Agency to avoid emergency situations like this one and to be provided with qualified candidates. The Agency failed two times to provide qualified candidates, as a consequence, my confidence in their ability to provide a qualified candidate began to fade and I was concerned that I would eventually find myself and my family in the same situation in a matter of a few weeks again.
I would like other customers to be aware that if the nanny/housekeeper quits, the family may lose the agency fee, since the agency does not always have a pool of candidates available or the other candidates the agency eventually proposes - hopefully in a timely matter- might not be a good match. The agency can always say - as they did in my case - " this is too much job for one person" - or the " family is not flexible at all." At the end, the family remains with no help and loses the agency fee. I wish future customers will be aware when signing the contract as it is.
I finally decided to complain with Revdex.com because the agency did not stand up to what they promise.
In their website they guarantee: " best most qualified staff from our extensive database of pre-screened and experienced domestic staffing personnel and household helpers."
In my experience, the performance of the nanny was not professional and qualified for even a minimum of child care. Also, the agency did not have an extensive database of prescreened and experienced domestic staffing in the Boston area. As part of the agency fee, I was certain they did, I was proven the opposite and I would have certainly liked to be informed otherwise in advance.
Best
The clients did not follow our policies from the beginning of this placement.
1. Must have authorization to hire from agent/or agency (we did know that the housekeeper was working until Jan. 30th when the housekeeper, not the client informed us. - see emails
2. Must have a signed work agreement from the clients to the agency( We did not have a signed agreement from he client and requested one several times) - see emails
3. Refund policy is only for 30 days and must have paid fee on time and sent in a work agreement (no work agreement received and the hk was employed for 7 weeks) - see emails
4. We offered a 12 month replacement policy to the family and they gave us 2 weeks and we only had a partial job description.
5. Clients wrote negative reviews with in 2 weeks of trying to assist them- Average time to hire is 3-12 weeks sometimes longer
6. Housekeeper gave 2 weeks notice and was employed for a total of 7 weeks. She explained to the client she couldn't handle the older son, it was too much for her. - Her job was Housekeeper of a 8500 sq ft home, laundry, and ironing for 5 people, preparing meals for a family of 5, and caring for 3 children. She thought the "stay at home mom" was going to be more hands on with the children but that was not the case. She had a very difficult time with one of the boys and it was causing too much stress for her. (This was a concern from the beginning but the family would not communicate with us) we had no idea what the housekeeper was committing to in her duties as we NEVER received the details that she agreed to. That is why the agency requires a work agreement upfront) This was the clients response to the housekeepers concerns brought up by the placement agent on: X-XX-XX
" we are not planning to adjust Jeane's (hk) contract rather, we will have others come and help for the additional work to be done. "
After speaking with the client on March 8th she told me that the housekeeper was wonderful with the household duties, but not as a nanny. I advised her to keep her as a housekeeper and find a part-time nanny, but she wanted someone else. I told her the job as is was not attractive for anyone looking for a position. I told her the job description was really for 2 people not one. We went back and forth about the position for 2 weeks and finally she agreed to split in 2 jobs but that wasn't until 2 weeks into the search. This client did not give the agency a chance to find candidates.
Unfortunately when you refuse to communicate with agency, the agency that is trying to assist in a successful placement it ends up falling apart. That is why all of our policies are stated CLEARLY in bold in our agency agreement. See attached
see attached emails in regard to all points in question by client.
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Ms *** is misrepresenting facts and does not focus on the main point of my complaint.
Ms *** writes: "Her the nanny's job was housekeeper of a 8500 sq ft home, laundry, and ironing for 5 people, preparing meals for a family of 5, and caring for 3 children."
This sentence is a serious distortion of reality :
-The house was empty, no furniture. She never "prepared meals," she just chopped vegetables so that I could cook. Maybe she cooked meat, once. Her schedule allowed her to spend 4 -5 hours a day completely alone in an empty house and 3 hours a day with the kids and me: I was doing 90 per cent of the child care plus cooking during those hours.
"Caring for children": The housekeeper was never in charge of the children, she did not stay with the children ever alone because I did not like her attitude. I had to change my own job training in order not to leave the kids with her.
She ( the nanny) was not overwhelmed by the job, infact, she complained to a friend of mine that I "was all the time all over the kids not allowing herself to do anything". Friends saw her poor attitude towards the kids (See email). Ms Marcos told me she did not have enough to do.
Also the following statement written by Ms *** is false: "we the agencyhad no idea what the housekeeper was committing to in her duties". As you can see from provided documents, the agency had already received, read and approved the contract with Ms Beck, the contract with Ms Marcos was exactly the same. So it is false and petty to say they were not aware of the job description of the housekeeper.
Anyway, the truth is that the housekeeper left not because "the job was " causing too much stress" but because she could not relate with my son. This is supported:
-by Ms *** herself that in the email of the 21 st of March: She did leave because of your son. We know that. ( no workload /stress mentioned)
-by Ms Marcos: she said it was herself the reason to leave.
Therefore, I simply cannot accept Ms *** allusions to the fact that " staying at home mom " was going to be more hands on with the children but that was not the case." This is a petty lie and misrepresentation of facts I would not expect from a professional as Ms *** claims to be.
Please note that it is also unbelievable that a "highqualified" nanny cannot handle a nine year old boy: Marco is a shy, quiet, good- mannered boy who spent time doing homework and reading by himself. Ms Marcos could not stop teasing him and yelling " I love you". Marco was simply bothered by her attitude.
Ms *** misses the point of my complaint: I am not debating the reason the housekeeper went away. The main point of my complaint is that the Agency did not stand up to its promises and refuses to offer a refund given extenuating circumstances.
Infact, in their website the Wellington Agency promises to provide the " highest quality assistance" in " finding the right staff"; they also promise to match "your family with some of the most experienced and finest candidates the industry has to offer". With regards to my family, they simply fail in their goals as I explained above and in my previous comments.
They promise "unlimited resumes", which was not the case in my situation. We paid $10.800 for agency fee and their offer for a replacement was limited to one candidate , whom I had to take based on need. After only seven weeks when the nanny quits abruptly and without respecting the notice, the agency fails in noticing this and once again only one resume was offered to me as a replacement. The same resume was already offered to me a few months before, no new candidates were available. Even with different job descriptions they failed to keep up the promise to offer ' unlimited resumes". After paying $10.800 for a low qualified nanny I found myself with no help at all. This is just not conceivable. Moreover, in a phone interview Ms *** admits that the availability in Boston for housekeeper/nanny is very difficult and they had to join effort with another agency, Nanny Poppins, to try to find someone. The agency should have told me about this difficulties before accepting my fee. I should have known in advance the difficulties the Agency faces in the Boston area, but they never mentioned it before I signed the contract with them.
The agency uses petty legal excuses to avoid paying the reimbursement: the nanny quits after 35 days, instead of 30, as the contract says. The agency claims that we (the family) did not send the signed contract and they did not know the terms. It is true that we failed to send the signed contract with the second nanny but the Agency had received the exact same contract with the same terms and conditions few weeks before! They even accepted their agency fee based on that. Please find the signed agreements. between us (the family) and Ms Beck and between us ( the family) and Ms Marcos.
On a final note, families refer to an Agency and faces the fee in order to :
- Find professional nanny;
- Avoid headache and waste of time to find a replacement.
The Wellington agency failed in both. They claim I refused to communicate with them: after two unprofessional nannies in 40 days (nannies not respecting the contract and the basic rules of education) plus waiting for 2 weeks for receiving at least one new CV, I could wait no more. Please note that time matters. We are new to the city, relocating back to the US with young children and a high demanding job, we hired the Wellington Agency to give us a professional support in finding reliable help, but we got additional stress and instability, plus a waste of time and money.
I am asking a refund because the Agency did not fulfill the promises described in their website:
-Nanny(es) were unprofessional;
- Nanny proved not to be the right match for my family;
- I was never offered " unlimited resumes" by the Agency.
- The agency did not disclose upfront the difficulties they were having in the Boston area to find housekeepers/nannies. I was aware of this challenges only after paying the fee and when I was in need of a replacement.