Hey all!

Has anyone worked for Cast Retail?

I was just offered an assignment with their company and do not knoe much about them.

Thanks!

Paul

I have never heard of them either. Their website is pretty slick and mentions that they have field audit capabilities. The ownership of the website is obscured by being registered to a third party, but the domain name was originally secured in Nov 2007. Do you have any idea how they found you? I am assuming you had not previously signed up with them.

You are right, wed site is slick as is the email offering jobs.

I received an email that they were refereed to me by "another shopping company", I do not know who, that is why I am a little concerned.

They are offering me a job checking a Pre-Paid card display at a major retail chain. It all seems above board and the pay and choice of dates is acceptable.

They call you "Cast Members" and offer a selection of stores in my area that do have the pre-paid card displays. They indicate that all jobs completed in May are paid on June 15th.

I am going to give it a shot. What do you all think?

Paul

Info:
Creative Agency Services Team, Inc.
5317 Fruitville Road / Suite 96
Sarasota, FL 34232
(877) 550-CAST
www.castretail.com

I am registered with C.A.S.T. and as far as I can tell they look legit. I believe I found them on NARMS which is where I look for merchandising companies and was offered the same jobs in my area for a large retail location. A "mart" of sorts. The pay rate is alright if you can do a bunch in a quick route but it's not enough to warrant the effort since they can be somewhat far apart.

The work sounds legit and the payment time frame sounds legit, since you are out of pocket nothing and only spending some time, I would give them a whirl. Let us know how it works out!

It seems that the job offered should only take about 30 minutes and the shops that I will accept are close to my regular jobs.

I am only going to sign up for 3 and see what happens. You are correct Flash, I am only going to be giving some time, and I will be near these "marts" anyway.

I will keep all posted.

Thanks for the replys' I do not want to get stuck with jobs that do not pay

I am glad also that I found this board, it is great to be able to hear from other veteran shoppers!!!

I have worked for CAST for over a year and I think they are great, they usually pay $10 a job. Sometimes more. they pay better than alot

If anyone is looking for work, PLEASE, go somewhere else. Cast Retail, IS NOT a very reliable or trustworthy company to work for.
While vacationing at a friend's house, we witnessed first hand how this company really treats it's Independent Contractors ( IC ).

Here's what happened to her: Jane started out working a few jobs a month & once she got comfortable with the company, decided to take on a few more jobs. That's when the trouble began.

Cast sends out dispatch notices, offering their IC's a way to make more money. Jane decided to take on another another contract, with a local drug store in her area. She found several stores in her area on the Cast Dispatch List that she could easily handle.

She was granted the stores she had requested. Each email was to have all the information an IC is supposed to need to complete the task at hand. (but the information was not complete) The name, place, address & store number of each store she was suppose to visit along with the necessarily forms, photographs & a complete set of instructions.

She printed up all the information that she had access to & headed out to do the work. After completing a few of the stores she had received, she got a call from one of the dispatchers telling her, she had to go back & re-do one of the store visits over again & was told that she would be paid for the 2nd visit.

She was furious & argued with the dispatcher, she brought to his attention a problem she had encountered with the dispatch email. There was a section in the dispatch email that requested a username & password, which Jane didn't had have, because she had never been requested to set up an account, also the word 'Regional' was left out. The sentence read, Planagram ## is to be used. There was no direct notation to her, that she was in the ## Regional Area for the drug stores. So how was she supposed to know which one of the several regional planagrams she was to print.
Those mistakes were corrected. Jane completed her visits & submitted her reports after revisiting the stores she had completed so far to make sure she would be properly paid.

A couple of days later, she had successfully completed the visits & submitted the reports along with the requested photographs online. The morning after she went to a local copy center & faxed off the documents. A fax confirmation page was received which she placed in her file folder for safe keeping.

Like clock work the following month her check arrived. But it was short. By $220.00 dollars. She was furious. Jane contacted Cast & spoke with another dispatcher & was told that her faxes had not arrived.

Quickly, she faxed just the front pages of her forms in as instructed by the dispatcher, this time using the CastScan system. She was informed that the forms were received & assured by the dispatcher that her payment would be processed as quickly as possible.

So she waited... and waited...several days went by, before she started to call Cast back. She left message, after message none of them were returned. One person did try to find out of the check was ever processed, but she never called back to confirm it. Finally my husband called Cast to asked for the name & extension number of the CEO that's when we found out that the check had been sent out the week before. Before the woman rudely hung up on my husband which upset Jane & I, because Jane wanted to handle things herself.

So the check finally arrives & it was short, by $20.00 dollars. Then it, her wallet & checkbook were stolen from on top of her desk during a dinner party that she gave at her home...for my birthday.

She contacted Cast & requested a Stop Payment on the check, so now she's going to wait.

Jane has received an email which states: "Per your request I have stopped payment on check #### issued 9-2 for $200.00 due to a theft you reported and reissued another check. Additionally, it has been brought to my attention that several members of our dedicated staff were recently harassed by a caller demanding payment on your behalf. He called everyone including our Director of HR to complain about how our company operates. The Independent Contractor agreement we had was with you and we will not tolerate rude harassing communications from a third party. As I understand, the issue was simply that we had not received your faxed documentation and once received a check was issued. Based on these recent events we will not be continuing to offer projects to you."

My husband made only 2 calls, one to inform Cast he was not happy, with the way Jane was treated & the other was just to ask for the name & extension of the CEO to inform him/her that there is a problem that should be handled by him/her. The person that was rude was the HR Director, when she hung up on him. He DID NOT demand payment. He just tried to bring it to their attention that a person should be paid promptly for work that had been completed.

So now, we wait & see....

It is completely unnecessary to copy the same complaint multiple times (and multiple times even in the same thread).

I don't want to sound too skeptical, but nclmnt11 has posted three times to this forum. Technically, one post three times. I often wonder what is up when someone posts once and only once. Will I see this very message cut and pasted on other boards? Likely. If you look back through this thread and its twin, you will see a few users who seemed to register just to post about this company and disappear.

nclmnt11, I hope your friend gets this straightened out. It sucks when companies don't give clear guidelines or pay schedules. If there is a lesson to take away from this, it is to never do a merchandising job if you are unsure about the planogram. Rework is such a waste of time.

I am also skeptical because this is now a third party report. We are relying on Jane to be accurate in her report to nclmnt who is then reporting to us. This is an awfully long retelling for something that did not happen to the individual telling the story.

I do agree that if Jane was the one with the issue, she should have been the one contacting the company to resolve it. Working through an intermediary such as your husband leads to communication difficulties because he was not really there and can't answer the question. As a business professional, it is that individual's responsibility to deal with the issues that occur.

You mention more than once that she was furious when dealing with a dispatcher. This is not always the best approach to solving a problem.

It does take a month to get paid, but I have always got my pay without any problems. It is a different way of offering and reporting, it is all done through a Email. I think this helps them to pay you better, very few companies pay $10 or more any more. It has always been easy work.