Fremont Consulting - San Jose, California

Shelley Bates

If I would provide a negative star, I could! I was initially contacted in Mar 2019 by Fremont. They were trying to staff a position for a contract with a client and asked for my help. Over several months, what was described as work that would start at 20 hrs a wk and then quickly progress to 40 a wk for their client, over a several months never even got to 20 hrs a wk. The client had a rule that their expectation was for the contractor to come up to speed on training of specifics of their software without pay. Fremont agreed to pay for a certain amount of hours of training. I invested the time to try to learn their product in hopes of getting at least 20 hrs a wk assigned to me to work, but it never progressed to that point. This was over a 6 month time period from the initial engagement with Fremont. I had very minimal amt of hours that I could invoice and could not invoice until there was assigned billable work from the client. Needless to say, this situation didn't work for me. Once I realized that I was not getting anywhere with substantial assigned work to be able to invoice, I emailed Ash Seddeek at Fremont and CC'd the client thanking them for their time, but stating I would no longer be supporting them. I emailed my only invoice for all of that time I interacted with them to Ash on Sep 10, 2019. I was informed that I would be paid net 30 to 45 days through direct deposit into my business account. It is now 11/12/2019 and I have still not been paid. I have made countless attempts to email Ash to get this resolved and his response to me is that Fremont is having a cash flow issue and says he won't get paid until Dec 12, 2019 and doesn't intend to pay me until after then. I think having to wait over 3 mo to get paid actually a small amt ($1612.50) is totally unacceptable and bad business behavior to project their cash flow troubles onto me when I was accessible, cooperative, and did my part to support what I could over such a long span of time. Now today I am told by Ash that there was a mistake in billing the client on their end and that's why I have not yet been paid. Terrible business practice and truly seems like total run-around with such varying responses and endless excuses! Might I add that I have been very consistent in emails to Ash asking for when I would receive payment. I find it hard to believe that they could have forgotten to bill the client with me communicating so much. I feel totally used and am having to deal with their financial woes as they project them onto me. I have been in my field for 18 yrs and contracting for the past 10. I will ensure that I inform my colleagues to never do business with Fremont Consulting.