An ex-Cox Communications sales employee has accused her former colleagues of sticking customers with unauthorized services and bogus accounts in order to achieve sales goals.
The whistleblower is identified by Arlington, Virginia, ABC affiliate WJLA-TV as Anna Wilkinson, a former Cox sales employee based in northern Virginia. She said her former co-workers are bloating customer bills with unwanted services and creating bogus customer accounts in order to take advantage of as much as $12,000 in individual sales bonuses.
"The customer never consented, the customer had no clue they had five to sometimes seven accounts in their name," Wilkinson told the station’s news team.
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WJLA said Wilkinson has filed a complaint with the Virginia state attorney general.
The station also quoted a current Cox sales rep, who it identified only as “Roger.” He said the bogus sales practices are widespread.
“Over in the northern Virginia area it is very large especially towards the end of the month,” he told the station.
Cox rep Todd Smith released the following statement: ”We have stringent ethical and privacy standards that all employees are required to abide by. In instances where those standards are not adhered to, we take immediate action that can result in employee terminations. If there is a situation where a customer’s personally identifiable information is believed to have been compromised, we notify the customer and work with them to rectify. Cox has fraud alert measures in place and have taken other steps to help prevent this from happening. Nonetheless, like many companies, we have had isolated instances of employees not living up to our standards of behavior. Recently we learned of a small number of employees in Virginia who violated our policies. A thorough investigation occurred and those employees have since been terminated. An internal audit was also conducted ensuring that no customers’ personally identifiable information was compromised. We take these matters very seriously, and remain committed to protecting the safety of our customers’ information through our business policies and practices.”