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| Minert & Associates Professional Urine Collector Ripped-Off by Drug Collection Company Meridian Idaho |
| 11th of Sep, 2006 by User139324 |
Now I ask you, why is it someone like Dave Minert would want to rip me off? Here is someone who has a law degree, was JAG attorney in the Air Force and was Deputy Attorney General for the State of Idaho for two years. Could it be he feels he can do just about anything he wants to his collectors --- without recourse, without explanation. At this point I have no expectation of ever seeing the balance of monies due me and my point for brining this all up is to hopefully save other collectors from not being paid what' due them. In Late May of 2006, I responded to an ad in the Seattle Times that Minert & Associates placed looking for a ‘mobile drug tester.' I met with Jeff Minert and we came to a handshake agreement that he would train me and I would immediately start doing their urine drug testing, alcohol drug testing, drug employee testing and all forms of drug random testing and drug employment pre-testing including dot drug testing and drug employment testing for Minert and Associates in the greater Seattle area. I was to start receiving a list of randoms, that's where the company picks at random X percent of their workers for drug testing per month. Plus, I was to do ‘post accident' drug and alcohol testing for anyone who has been in an accident as well as pre-employment drug testing. I named my new fledging company A3 Mobile Drug and Alcohol Testing. I acquired two decent accounts from the previous collector and was to be paid $20 per drug test and $10 per alcohol test Sounds good so far, right? Well it didn't take long to start to see the writing on the walls when it came to making money in this business. To be fair I think this could be a decent way to earn a living IF there weren't certain problems associated with this job function. As it turns out oneof the problems was inherent with the job function, another with just being in Seattle and the last problem was associated with Minert and Assoc. PROBLEM #1 - SCHEDULING: Jeff knew that I only wanted to work in the mornings. His answer was the scheduling was up to me and would almost always take place in the mornings. This sounded very good. The reality was different though. The only time I could actually schedule the random testings was during a very small window of shift change opportunity (around 30 – 45 minute) just before the employee goes on or comes off their shifts. Thus that long list of randoms Jeff showed me suggesting that was how things would go, now became the ultimate ideal ‘jackpot' of random testing. In reality, I was lucky if 2 of the 3 employees scheduled for random testing actually showed up for testing. This leads to my second problem; PROBLEM #2 - RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC: I'm really not a cry baby about driving in rush hour traffic. But come on ----driving 20 miles from Bellevue to Kent, then back again one hour later in the same rush hour traffic. It's one thing to drive through rush hour then back through it again after a day of earning a living-- it's entirely another to do this within an hour and a half, having earned $20 or $40, then having to pay for your own gas, spend the time and enduring the stress of the drive. Since most of my business was done just before the morning shift at 7 am. This turned out to be a BIG DEAL. During my illustrious one month career as a professional mobile drug tester (or urine sample collector) I found myself having to take alternative routes back home due to rush hour traffic jams that became freeway parking lots. This happened three times in my first month. Plus, add that I purposefully decided to have breakfast around my testing location on two other occasions, and you kind of get the picture. And, this is just one location down in Kent where I needed to go 8 times during this first month in business. Considering I was using my car, buying my own gas and driving on my own time, and now that nice $20 per collection income didn't seem such a sweet deal any more. PROBLEM #3 – REAL EARNINGS POTENTIAL: I asked Jeff was how much could I expect to earn doing this type of work part time. He said I could earn from $800 to $2,000 per month working just part time. It only took me two weeks to figure out I wasn't going to be earning anywhere near even the minimum he told me. Let's add it up. After I've driving to the site, collected the urine sample, driven back to Bellevue, dropped off any samples at the lab for testing, then home to scan and fax in the paperwork to Minerts office in Idaho. If I left home at 6 am I could expect to be back home again and done around 9 am. Let's say I ended up doing 2 collections. That equals $40 gross income to A3 or me. Less my expenses of say $10 (mostly gas) it now becomes $30. Now I start thinking maybe I'm better off having a paper route --- at least I don't have to pick up and deliver other people's pi** in rush hour traffic. Within three weeks after I fired up A3 Mobile Drug and Alcohol Testing I decided it was not worth it and I emailed Jeff the following on June 21st which led to†PROBLEM #4 – GETTING PAID FOR MY URINE COLLECTIONS: It's one thing to do all the work, spend money on the gas, endure the traffic, do a no charge drop off at the local lab, but having someone else decide you are not worthy --- that's the ultimate sin. That's stealing my friend. Dave Minert figures he can get away with this because 1) His collectors don't actually work under any contractual agreements that ties him into any obligations, and 2) since I'm over here in the Seattle area and he's back in Boise Idaho he knows as an attorney I won't be coming over there to file any small claims court papers to try to collect via a judge what's due me. Any collectors reading this, be aware that if a company like Minert can justify not paying you they can also justify selling your built up territory to someone else since you don't have a contractual agreement with them. Who's to say they won't simply let you build up the territory, then place an ad offering this great ‘opportunity' and have someone else pay them $X thousands of dollars for the right to collect in your area. All they need to do is simply send you a letter and claim they don't need your services anymore. Especially, if you are a collector from out of state, what's your choice? The legal system is difficult at a distance and you'll simply be out all your hard work, not to mention your livelihood. My advice: visit an attorney ASAP and have an agreement drawn up that protects your rights to the area you are building up. Don't let them cheat you by unfairly ripping you off. For a complete report on this visit ripoffreport.com and type in minert. Brian
Bellevue, Washington
U.S.A. |
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