MASTEC reviews and complaints

Technician (Former Employee), orlando fl – December 9, 2014
Pros: None
Cons: Is all about there core numbers
DirecTV and Mastec have used deceptive business practices to gain an unfair business advantage against the very workers providing installation services. These practices include charging companies full retail value for equipment that was installed and activated in customers homes, deducting money from pay with no back up or documentation to support legitimacy, providing forged documents in an attempt to collect money from contractors for equipment not received by contractor.

charging for phone lines that were allegedly not connected at time of install with no regard for phone service availability at time of install or customer requests and/or denial of this connection. back charging contractors for faulty equipment that was beyond the control of the contractor (DirecTV of course having full knowledge of the inadequacies of their manufacturers), back charging contractors for problems as a result of customer error, collecting a large percentage of ancillary work fees despite the fact that the contractor provides all of the materials for the installation. refusing to pay out final invoices and numerous other deceptive actions.

Legal action is in progress, and reports have been filed with the Federal Trade Commission, The BBB and other Government agencies.

Core metric change everytime you start making money and lie to customers to sell protection plan or get writing up and loose your job.

f you are thinking about working for Mastec I would advise you to look elsewhere for employment.In this world than working for this corrupt company. During your interview you are promised the world, while in reality there are very few employees who make the money that you are promised from the start. I was told that first year income would be in the mid 70's. I don't know who ever made $75, 000 thier first year with this company but you are not going to make this kind of money with the work they are giving out here in the Waco Texas market.

During training you are paid $10 an hour and you are only working 35 hours a week, this lasts for 5 weeks. 2 days a week you ride along with someone to get hands on experience, basically you become a tool chaser for the technician and are expected to learn the entire job by doing this. Once you are released from training you are given nothing but installs, this is where you make good money. All of the senior technicians are given upgrades, this is where you do not make good money. Because of the work you are given and the work the senior technicians are given there is hate and discontent between the ranks of employees. Now from a company standpoint I can understand this because the new employees are paid less for an install than the senior technican would be so it makes sense to give the high paying work to the new guy.

You, as an employee, are expected to pay $40 a week for the truck to be able to drive it home. They say that this cost covers the increase in insurance to drive the company after hours, while not likely it is taken out of your check. If you get your backup, this is the detail of your work for the previous two weeks, watch it like a hawk because they do charge backs on a regular basis. If you do an install or a service call and someone goes back within 90 days you are charged back, even if it is faulty equipment which you had no way of knowing becuase it may have been working when you left the customer. These charge backs are $10 a pop and can rack up very quickly in any given pay period. Lost recievers are another way for Mastec to make money. They rely on an outdated service pack that they are able to type in a receiver number to see if this reciever is active. This computer program is not at all accurate. While I am sure that some technicians may be able to lose a receiver which is roughly the size of a VCR but it is not going to happen often, these are not something that you would misplace. For a regular HD box you are charged $105 and for a DVR you are charged $210, this is taken out of your paycheck, you are told to sign the release form or you will be fired. I am very good about my paperwork and have every work order since the day I started with this "business" and on multiple occassions I had to go back through my paperwork and show them that I had indeed installed this receiver and give them the address for this piece of equipment. Now that they have fired me they are telling me that I am still missing 2 receivers which they will no doubt take from my last paycheck.

The main reason for my writing this is to tell my story as to why I was let go. I was told that I was going to be paid piece pay meaning I would be paid for everything I do within the company. I was given a custom charge sheet that listed the additional charges for additional outlets, various types of mounts and other equipment. I was at a customers home and they needed 2 outlets installed so I charged them the rate that was listed on my custom charge sheet, the customer wrote me a check for the total amount and I went on with my day. I had no way of knowing that I had done something wrong here becuase I was getting paid for the work that I performed. I was fired for taking money from a customer becuase I was supposed to call in the payment and give the company this money. If this were the case what would be the benefit for me doing the extra work expecting to get paid for what I had done? When I was told about my improper actions I was told that what I had done was illegal. I tried to explain that I did not know what I had done was incorrect but was given a 3 day suspension pending termination. I was brought to my home in the company van, which I was paying a weekly rate to drive, unloaded my personal belongings and watched at someone who was not a supervisor drive away. Keep in mind that there were tools, a meter, and recievers tha tif they come up missing I am expected to pay for.

I get a call explaining that I was terminated after my suspension and was told that I need to report back to the office the next day to turn in my tools, meter, uniforms and an explaination as to the location of the 2 missing recievers that they were unable to find in my van. I explained that I had left the tools and meter in the van when I was dropped off but now I will be expected to pay for the lost equipment. As it turns out I will not be getting a final paycheck becuase I did not take everything out of the vehicle before I let them take it so that I would be able to keep eyes on everything that I had signed for intially.

The bottom line is that this is not a "business" that can be trusted. I could go on for hours about the way management treats their employees, such as having your superivsor call you a liar over the phone and yelling at you because he was not smart enough to look into an issue before he picked up the telephone and dialed your number, but this is not the type of behavior I will condone nor will I be willing to stoop down to their level. I am just putting the facts out in the open for everyone to read if you are smart enough to do a little research on the company that you may be thinking of working for. I only wish that I had done my research before I wasted these past few months of my life. If all else fails I did get my SBCA certification from these people and a little good experience. Most importantly I learned to do my research on a company before I even waste my time going to the interview.

As for the $40 for your Van, when you signed that you wanted to take it home, it lists that on the form, and this is an issue with your Site/Region, mine doesn't charge back for anything but Service in 30 and 90. I do pay the $40 a week for my van, but I as of now as a Orange Tech since I had transitioned recently from O&O to HSP, had to start at the low man part of the ladder, but I am making about 60K a year based on my pay so far over the last 2 months.

For your termination and them taking your van, I would have spoke up and forced them to inventory it right there before taking you home. This way the responcibility for that equiptment would be on them and not you, unfortunately this was one of your many mistakes, the other is if you didn't know about how to handle custom charges, why did you not call your Trainer or Supervisor first before handling the custom charge?

Another fav is repeat service calls.
If another tech has to go out to a house after you within 60 days, you get a charge back for a repeat service call for $17.00. It also goes against your so called numbers to keep your current pay rate. So every piece of receiver that goes bad, DirecTV sending software downloads that knock out everyone's local channels, lightning storms, customers dog's chewing cables, kids playing on the dishes, or random acts of god. We as techs not only get charged back hard earned money for stuff out of our control, we get demoted! Management's come back for that one is to leave your number with every customer and take care of it on your own time before another service call is generated. I guess 70 hours a week isn't good enough, I should now go out on my so called spare time and do more work without getting paid. Last year I was getting a lot more repeat charge back than usual on a couple of checks. I asked my supervisor to pull up each account to see the reasons for the charge backs. We found that more than half of them had never had another tech go back out behind me.

I could go on and on but this company already takes most of my time for not much more than nothing.
For what I and every other tech I work with see is this company is good at one thing, Scre^%$% anyone to get more profit.
That's what makes this country great, big business always gets away with it.

I been with this company for awhile now and the management is a joke. They pay is equal to less than minimum wage. I had a 115 hrs on one check. Yet somehow my pay was almost 750 dollars before tax... the management tells you to call if you have issues. The trainers and dispatch tell you to call the fts if you have issues. But then raise hell and yell at you when you do call them. Or don't answer the phone. They have a system called (rave) for good work done... kind of a kudos. Earn points for getting items like tvs certificates etc for doing good work. Customer satisfaction or whatever. But yet they never answer the phones or give any concern when a customer calls to compliment you. Rather they make no hesitation to tell you how much you don't do. They change the promotion guidelines every quarter so nobody actually knows how or wheat's going on. This company is a joke.

This job is the WORST! I used to work for this company for about a year and a half and as a "minority, there is a lot of nepotism and politics.
I came out of the newly formed Chicago market where the directors and program managers don't know anything about tower construction. The executive's has his inexperienced daughter working in admin' placing us in raggedy hotels.
Two a room, might I add.
As a result of over-budgeting and over-spending the field techs incentives have been ripped from us which is why we are placed in rooms with other techs while we're thousands of miles away from our families where all these higher end corporate heads get to dictate our job ethics of working in the freezing cold until 2am in the morning, from their homes.
They overwork their field techs only to shiest you in the end by hiring out GC's so their higher ups can raise on commission. The lower man at the pay-grades totem pole definitely finishes out at the bottom. Not to mention they take FOREVER to give a pay raise.
For or them to be a communications company, their HR department sucks. Several times I've requested to be transferred for advancement but due to their politics and "he-say/she-say", I and other employees have been shafted.
They violate their D.O.T. codes and regulations as well as OSHA. My next move is to report them to the the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
This company is not a job that grants stability or good work ethics.

I am married to one of the site supervisors at Mastec/Directv located in Duluth, GA. The marriage did not work out. So, my no good husband disconnected the service, damage the wires and left holes in the wall of my home. Days after my husband left a technician came to my home to reinstall. It took the technician approx 4 hours to reconnect me. He complained about the damages that my husband caused. By the way, before I married this guy I already had Directv and perfect wiring.

This company sucks and the trainer is sucks I trained for 1 week the next week they want us to take a test and we didn`t go over anything they just told us we had 3 chances to take it and if we failed we would be fired okay 1 how can you give someone a test and not go over it or study the info with the class 2 how can you call people dummy Mother F and you are a trainer and this is been done in Duluth Ga Office you know who you are bad for the Company that why its a high turn over rate

There seems to be no universal standards in regards to the correct installation of satellite tv systems. I owned a DirecTV and Dish Network Retail store for 15 years. We provided all of our installations. A major issue is no two installs are the same. DirecTV and Dish Network have done a decent job of "weeding" out the less than desirable contractors, however, as in any business there are always going to be a few who don't follow the program. I personally have installed nearly 2500 systems in my career. A typical 2 room install will on average take 2-2 1/2 hours. Yes, there are some which will consume less time, but many times I have spent 4 hours or longer on an install. We always went out of our way to conceal cable the best we could. Another issue is often times the customer service rep a customer is dealing with on the phone does not properly explain what is included in a Free installation. That was such an issue that I decided early on that we would not Install for another dealer for fear of what the customer was or was not told up front. We ended up looking like the "Bad guys". Unfortunately, I think that's something that will continue to be an issue. Remember when subscribing to satellite TV service you are going to be dealing with 2 or sometimes 3 different companies. The Sales Agent who takes your order, The Installation contractor and of course DirecTV who only provides the programming and collects your monthly payment.

I am having the same problem right now. It has been over two weeks and I have still yet to receive a paycheck. Everytime I call I get the run around and no one knows anything. I am supposed to be paid again in 3 days and I'm sure I still will not get that paycheck.

Does Mastec have a Uinon. Isn't staff solutions a Temp. agency?

I had the same thing happen to me. I live in the DFW and after training the were giving me up to five jobs a day. They said we had to purchase our tools through MAstec via payment plan.Then that next week they didnt pay us saying it was for the tools. A week later everyone from staff solutions was fired and that we did not own the tools, so they took them back. I called and called staff solutions and got no immediate response until two weeks later. They never paid us. I wonder is that grounds for a class action law suit.