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The following information was submitted to Terminix - Consumer Alert!, by people stating they are current or former employees or spouses of employees of Terminix, a subsidiary of ServiceMaster. Although I believe each of them (or I wouldn’t post them), the information provided is unverified, and you must judge for yourself if you believe them.

Florida 8/01-E1 (TE7-71).  Unfortunately, Sears agreed on August 17 to sell its pest control interests to Terminix. Having worked for Sears (whom I considered to be very good at customer satisfaction) for the past several years, I have been disheartened by not only the prospect of unemployment but also concern for what is to become of “my” customers. All newer termite contracts are going to be automatically converted to a Sentricon baiting station while older termite contracts there is no info about what will happen. I suspect that when these older contracts come due, customers will be told they must purchase the Sentricon baiting service or they will no longer have a contract. I believed in the Sears service so much that I had the service on my own house.  Terminix is supposedly going to be contacting me about employment with them after my official termination date with Sears, but I WILL NOT work for such a company. Rather, I’ll go into partnership with other Sears employees and open up a business competing with Terminix to provide customers with true customer service.  Should be easy considering Terminix’s track record.  Thank you for your web site.

? 9/01-E1 (TE7-72).  Ugh.  I looked at your web site, and it makes me sick.  At every instance, I have seen these practices go on. What is really pathetic is this company is stealing money and making people sick, all under the disguise of a company that honors God in all it does!  Give me a break. I can tell people who post here don’t just have a beef with Terminix, that it goes far beyond that to either being personal or ethically abrasive.

For starters, doesn’t Terminix TELL people what Dursban does?  Basically, it’s a residual powder which is supposed to be lightly sprayed into a crack or a small void. I’ve seen people haphazardly puff that stuff out of their hand duster against sides of houses and whatnot.  Anyway, Dursban has a residual life span of over four months.  Four months, and it’s a powder which is subject to being swept up by the wind and is EASILY airborne.  My field trainer sprayed some in a guy’s basement; and when we went upstairs, I could see a steady cloud of it floating around the ceiling. My problem is basically what happens when this gets into your system.  Does it rot away your organs for four months? Is it a carcinogen?  All interesting things employees AND customers should be informed of but never are. We just need to go by the label which says “CAUTION avoid eye contact and harmful if swallowed.”

To any customer reading this site who might be wondering what pesticides are safe, as a former employee, I’ll tell you... NONE OF THEM.  They’re made to kill things... they harm organisms and they do it whether that organism is human, insect, rodent, or whatever.

If you’re a Terminix customer, make sure you ask your tech what he used at your house. Dursban has a musky smell that tickles the back of your throat.  There’s no reason to smell that airborne, as it’s supposed to be a crack and crevice treatment.

But at least customers can sleep well knowing they have it 10 times better off than employees. The crap I was forced to endure and the stuff I saw go on was abominable.  I wish I could get into individual accounts from the branch I worked in; but I’m sure they read these, and those money-hungry pigs would probably sniff around for a lawsuit. But nothing bars me from airing what happened to me directly.

I worked the job for three months and finally got out on the road by myself to “make money” as they said. That was a joke. I tried to give my customers support the best I could. This sometimes meant spending over an hour at people’s houses explaining to them what I was going to do, what they had to do, and some small talk. There’s no sense in acting like a jerk.  The result?  Well, considering my route was in the middle of nowhere and I was more focused on giving my customers the service they paid good money to get, I couldn’t achieve more than 8 - 10 stops a day. (And that was only if there weren’t any Sentricon stops which took generally less time.) I was met with a scolding by my manager for not completing my routes, because you see it doesn’t matter whether you solve a customer’s problem. All that matters is you leave that ticket in the door that says you were there... and everything is supposed to be all right.

? 9/01-E1 (TE7-73).  I've just spent an hour going through your website and reading all the crap that is on it.  Amazing!  I never quite realized the full extent of the problems Terminix has until visiting your website.

I have heard numerous complaints as well as seeing some in my own branch.  I have seen where old customers are pushed aside in order to get new business accounts.  Terminix is all about new business at the expense of present customers.  The biggest daily concern is in new sales - pushing all the sales managers with an estimated daily budget and verbal abuse from the regional manager as well as the regional sales manager. The company also does not release members of management that they deem somewhat incompetent - they simply move the morons from branch to branch (this only applies to branch and sales managers).  As far as service managers are concerned, they really can't replace them as easily. Most of the qualified techs that work for the company wouldn't take the job - they usually make more than that and only work about 10 hrs a day, rather than the 12 or so for management.  Service managers almost never get a promotion; any new promotion comes from the sales staff.  They usually go to sales manager first, then to a branch manager - as long as they had outstanding numbers in resurrecting the sales department they inherited.  I have even been told on occasion to miss a regular, old customer in order to get to a new customer, and have done it. The reason is because of the way a tech gets paid - a commission/salary basis. If you were a tech, would you go to a $35 monthly customer, or would you go to a new customer who is paying Terminix $200-$250 for an initial service visit?  Because a tech gets paid up to 25% of a customer's charge, they will always take the one with more money. As far as people having problems with requests for extra service, there is one main reason - we don't get paid to do them. For example, a quarterly customer pays Terminix one time in 3 months for service; and we as techs also only get paid to go to your house only once in 3 months.  So if you had a problem with ants at you regular service time, we would get paid to go to your house. A month later, if you have a hornets nest that was not there last month and you call us to come out and take care of it, that tech is not getting paid for it. Any wonder why so many extra customer requests fall through the cracks each month?

Ohio 9/01-G1 (TE7-74).  My husband worked for Terminix until a month ago. Yes, the techs miss appointments, and a lot of them do NOT know what they are doing. Why? Because they are given false information from their superiors who are into NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS. They are supposed to make 14 stops in an 8-hour day, try fitting quality work plus driving time in there. You are lucky if you can stay 10 minutes per stop. He finished out last month, and they withheld his paycheck from him, too. He just picked it up today....a whole whopping $21 for 2 weeks worth. They say it is their “policy” when someone quits.  We are pursuing this further.

Georgia 9/01-G1 (TE7-75).  My husband also worked for Terminix until August of this year.  I agree many accounts were missed and the management does not seem concerned.  My husband was a Sentricon technician and was made to go out and service pest control accounts when he had never even been trained in pest control. All I have to say about Terminix is I would find a company that I could trust, and Terminix is not that company.

California 10/01-G1 (TE7-76).  I am an ex-Terminix employee, who still hears all the bad stories.  I think it’s very unfortunate that they are like this. Only for the simple reason that I am still in the pest control industry, thank God with another company; but all these allegations do give the rest of us decent people a bad name.

? 10/01-G1 (TE7-77).  I am an employee of Terminix, and I think this site is excellent. Please continue to let consumers know the truth.  As an employee, I can tell you that even we don’t get the truth.

New Jersey 11/01-G1 (TE7-78).  I recently resigned from Terminix after only seven months of employment with them.  I have spent the last 14 years in the pest control industry and, unfortunately, made the mistake of joining Terminix after coming out of a “semi-retirement.” It really is a shame that Terminix gets away with what it does; particularly, the Annual Reinspection Program. With “upper management” yelling to get these annual reinspections completed, which is part of the contractural guarantee that customers pay for, local branch management does anything it can to “make it happen.”  As a sales manager, I had a select group of sales/inspectors who would complete a number of these every month, but nowhere near the total number of inspections that were due. Branch management’s solution to this problem was easy! Just sit down at a computer, pull up the list of customers who were due an inspection that month, and “type away”... enter that inspection as being completed -- with no regards for actually completing the inspections and giving the customers the service they paid for, are entitled to, and agreed to under their contract.  So, the “numbers” look good, regional-level management gets off the back of the local branch management, divisional management gets off the backs of regional management because now these inspections are “completed”... and on it goes up the corporate ladder. Of course, the only “loser” here is the customer! But who cares? The numbers look good. But, what do you tell a customer when they call after getting a questionnaire in the mail from Corporate in Memphis asking, “How was the quality of your recent inspection?” and they call and say, “Heck, I haven’t received my annual reinspection in years!” What do you tell these folks?  Well, some fancy dancing around the issue and then scheduling it will take care of it!  So, I guess the customers who call get it done.  The others? Who cares? And, of course, if you want to discuss the sham of the Sentricon Service Program, well we could write a book about that!

Nevada 11/01-G1 (TE7-79).  Like a rat from a sinking ship, I jumped from the Las Vegas branch a little over two years ago. I am almost astonished to see that the problems we were having were not isolated to my branch. In short, the Las Vegas Office:

• Preferred to hire people with little-to-NO experience
• Was run by a branch manager that had NO experience in pest control.  This led to micromanagement and poor service for customers.
• Sales people were in charge of answering phones during business hours, resulting in techs not getting messages and ticked customers (“Yeah, I’ll have a tech call you...” click.)
• Techs lied to about effective treatment methods and chemical availability. Example: You can’t guarantee scorpions. LIE!!!...WITH THE PROPER PRODUCTS YOU CAN!!!
• If the company did not want to spend the money on the product, we would be told it was outlawed.
• If you paid a year in advance and cancel, good luck getting your money back. That’s straight from the branch manager.

The following entry was submitted via the guest book, with no name and no return e-mail address. I understand his need for anonymity but have no way to contact him or her to request help for anyone:

? 11/01-G3 (TE7-80).  I must not use my name and address, but I hope you post this. I was a former manager for Terminix and was lured to work for them by the statement “To honor God in all we do.”  I am a Christian, and it is hard to find a place to work for a company that you can be proud of; but when a company makes that type of statement, you think this could work.  Reality was a company full of “Good Old Boys” only interested in money.  Full of racism with only token blacks working there.  No concern for the customer or its employees and families.  When you have to travel on holidays, even Valentine’s Day, I have a hard time respecting that.

Sentricon goes much deeper than just Terminix. Dow and many others have a hand in the harassment.  Overcharging goes to pay a lot of palms.  I have not been at Terminix for three years now and have since started my own company. I left with no customer lists or other resources and vowed to do business the way customers want it.  Again, I hope you post this and understand  not using my name. You know how much they “Hassle” over $30 a month, imagine which most of you can, the “hassle” a former employee gets.

Florida 12/01-E1 (TE7-81).  I was an employee of Terminix for five years. My problem started when I was trying to transfer from Indiana to Florida to be with my girlfriend.  My branch manager told me I could not transfer unless he approved it, and I had to stay for another month in Indiana so they could get someone hired and trained to take over my route. So against my better judgment, I stayed.  Only to be told by my new branch manager to give them a two-week notice, and he would help me transfer. I did so.  He then went with my branch manager from Indiana and said to stay for one more month, then come down to Florida.  I worked at the Florida location for two months and got a call that my grandmother was not in good health and was not expected to make it through the week.  I told my supervisor of the situation back home.  He told me to go home, take care of what needed to be done, be with my family, and contact him when I get back home. I went to Indiana for a week.  My grandmother passed away the week I was there.

After the funeral, I returned to Florida to find out I didn’t have a job.  They said I failed to contact them and let them know what was going on with me in Indiana. My question is how stupid do you have to be to know what’s going on?  I went home for a family emergency; and the last thing on my mind was contact Terminix when they knew the reason I went to Indiana. Then to return home and be told I failed to communicate with them.  I did as my supervisor told me to do -- go home, be with your family, and come back to work after everything is over with your Grandma. That’s what I did, and now I’m unemployed.

Indiana 01/02-G1 (TE7-82).  Just started at Terminix as an inspector in “training.” I hate salesmen but my unemployment ran out and need something.  I have been given the big “making money” speech.  Right now, I am on a draw and hope to have another job before I am told to go out and sell.  I have been very optimistic for the past two weeks; and when I first was told about Sentricon and actually saw one, my first thought to myself was, “people actually pay $1500 to $2000 to rent this...” I sure wouldn’t.

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