Is The Barrister Blog for real?

I came across the Barrister blog on Blogger this morning. Apparently someone connected with Barrister Global Services is so upset with all the complaints posted on the Internet from frustrated and angry techs, they launched an all out frontal assault on them, claiming the complaints against them are all fake and the complainers are – scammers?

The word scam is used so loosely throughout the blog and the grammer is so poor, it was difficult to determine if the blog was simply talking about complaints that claim Barrister was a scam or if they were calling the complainers themselves scammers for calling Barrister a scam. In short, the blog is just weird. But I digress.

The blog was purportedly created and maintained by someone named “Jessica”, who, according to her own profile, seems to be employed by Barrister.

The Barrister blog, called Barrister Global Services Network Complaints Scam, was apparently set up on the popular blogging service Blogger sometime last August. The last entry in the blog appears to be as recent as last month.

The blog is devoted to “debunking” the “myth” put forth by complaints posted on various blogs, forums and complaints boards across the Internet (mostly by techs who previously performed work for the company and were not paid or were not paid on time) that Barrister Global Services is a “scam”, and claims that any and all such complaints about Barrister posted on the Internet are fake.

Unfortunately, due to the poor grammar used in the blog posts, the blog itself comes across as somewhat questionable. With all of the grammatical errors, it is difficult to take the blogger seriously. Add to that the assertion that all the complaints made by their detractors who call Barrister Global Services a “scam” are fake (without any real explanation as to how the blogger arrived at that conclusion), well, that comes across as unprofessional at the very least.

For instance, in one of her early blog entries in August, 2010, Jessica said this: “After going through internet I found that most of these scam posts are made by Barrister critisizer and competitors.”

Well, yeah, most of them do criticize Barrister. That part is obvious. As for whether or not they are competitors, technically speaking, everyone in this business is a potential competitor or partner, depending on your relationship with that entity.

Also, technically speaking, Barrister can compete directly against their own techs at times. That’s the risk of working with a national as a contractor – particularly a middleman national, as Barrister itself is in some ways. If you perform work for Barrister you may potentially find one of your own customers serviced by Barrister on a warranty call sometime. In such a scenario, are you the competition, or is Barrister? Well, if the customer was originally yours, technically, it’s Barrister.

In a September 2010 entry, Jessica wrote this: “Barrister Global Services complaints are not based on any truth these are all of not fact based. Any type of such complaint which had been been posted any where on internet are of no use.”

However, she provides no evidence whatsoever to back up her statement or explain how she determined that the complaints against Barrister were fake. Without such evidence to corroborate her statement, how do we know she is right? Do we simply take her at her word?

On the other hand, a number of techs, many of whom are members of The Force Field, have done business with Barrister Global Services and have proved themselves to be reputable sources of information. Ask any of those techs if they would do business with Barrister today, and, with very few exceptions, they would probably answer almost unanimously with a very emphatic “NO”.

Like I said earlier, the blog is just plain weird.

This is an excellent lesson to every tech business regarding the use of blogs to promote their company or improve poor customer relationships. Blogs can be very powerful tools in the management of public relations, if handled competently. To do so, you first need to know who your audience is and how to talk to them rationally in order to establish yourself as a thought leader and win their trust and confidence in you.

Now, if I were Barrister and I wanted to create a blog for my business to address the complaints of my detractors and do “damage control”, I would first make an effort to acknowledge the issue, engage in real dialogue to find out why the complaints exist and then commit myself to doing whatever I could to rectify the cause of the complaints and improve my relationship with those techs who are unhappy in a genuine, honest attempt to set things right.

That’s how you fix a PR problem. Many companies have done it, and have often turned a detractor into a loyal defender. It’s all about respect for the customer, attitude and approach.

But the person who created this blog thought it best to take the low road instead and went after the techs who complained about them, engaging in an online smear campaign in an obvious attempt to paint the detractors as some sort of organized effort to take down Barrister.

Instead of trying to fix a PR problem by communicating with techs thoughtfully, rationally, and changing the way they treat techs in general, they are trying to make themselves look like the victims and discredit their detractors. This may work in some political arenas, but in business it is a very bad move. It just makes Barrister look very unprofessional, and worse, serves to only confirm the claims made about the company by their detractors.

The real question is this. Is the Barrister blog just a defensive response created independently by a frustrated Barrister employee, or is it a real blog founded and sanctioned by Barrister Global Services itself? If it is the former, Barrister may need to check into it to ensure that it does not damage their already questionable reputation further. If it is the latter, well, I think the blog only makes matters worse for their image.

If Barrister Global Services wants to come across as an intelligent, professional company, so far this blog isn’t working in their favor.

14 thoughts on “Is The Barrister Blog for real?”

  1. Senior Tech, CEO
    Yeah, same experience here. I sell and service HP laser printers and needed a warranty call so signed up with Barrister. Took a couple calls for them, so far, 2 months, no payment. One call they mis-diagnosed and sent wrong part before dispatching to me. I went to site, diag correctly, went back. They only said I would be paid for 1 visit (flat rate, you know) then still didn’t pay even that… the techs are good, (they r us) but like me, suckers to do business with them. I’m a former IBM technician and have had my own business since 1982. I’m writing off my $150 –

  2. bas68848
    I just got ripped by the “Barrister” and the only recourse
    anyone has is to file a complaint of tax fraud, record
    tampering, etc., or whatever matches your circumstance.
    You file with state and federal tax agencies with the
    statement that since Barrister tampered with the
    records, you as the taxpayer, cannot pay taxes on
    what you actually earned because Barrister changed
    the record and now the state and fed tax agencies do
    not get paid, i.e., their “tax benefit is in jeopardy”
    from Barristers actions.

    At least that is what I am going to do.

  3. Senior Service Tech
    😥 Barrister Global still owes me about $1000.00 in unpaid service fees. They got one complaint from over hundreds of service calls I performed and it was from a customer that just did not understand how technical repairs worked but the customer insisted that I was trying to avoid completing the job in a practical manner. What is amazing is that even after Barrister told me they were “upset” about my work, the very next day they took the action to repair the computer by having it replaced which, is exactly what my diagnostic was that made the customer confused.

    I worked with Barrister Global Services for more than 2 years. Only because I am a seasoned tech and can fix anything without an issue, so I was confident I was above their petty business ethics. During a large roll-out I worked with a dozen techs who all had nothing but bad things to say about BGS. One person told me that he was waiting on them to get the record straight about a large sum of money owed to him. As one comment states above, there is an email address specifically for money problems… yes, this is a bad sign/red-flag. Barrister will hold money you should be getting by means unethical to any service company.

    They cut me off from service calls one day with no notice or no real reason and I never heard from them about a reason. I am glad they decided that my 25 years in the business of computer, laptop and printer repair wer not important to them any more. AVOID WORKING FOR BARRISTER GLOBAL SERVICES AT ALL COSTS. They pay the lowest in the industry and have the least professional or experienced employees and tech support. average pay is $35.00 per job (what a joke) or less than $20/hr for roll outs and projects. Way below market fees!

  4. Barrister Doesn’t Pay
    I did one cabling job for the Barrister bastards 75 days ago, only to be told that I made left a mess of old computers behind. I only did the 4 cable runs, as requested. The jerk from NCR left a huge cluster of garbage and blamed me.
    I traveled 50 mins each way, paid my assistant, spent $35 on long distance calls to the US offices and now they won’t pay. I will never work for these pricks again. 🙁

  5. A reflection of their company ethics
    Unfortunately JT, using a personal assistant who lacks both the writing skills and professional acumen to handle complaints and issues well from both customers and techs is not helping them.

    After reading your comment, I visited the blog again and read some of the comments to her posts. With an exception of the spammers and a couple of posts that were apparently planted by the company, the majority of respondents re-affirmed what I said in my blog. Barrister is a prime example of a company that does not understand how blogging and social media work or how use them properly to improve their reputation and brand.

    The general attitude displayed by Jessica seems to reflect the attitude of the company and its owner, one of arrogance and disdain for the techs who actually provide the services Barrister offers and charges to its customers.

    Think about it. Any company that has so many payment complaints and issues that it actually has an e-mail address dedicated to collecting them is a company that has a serious tech relations problem. That isn’t just a red flag. It’s bizarre. Based on that alone, Barrister seems like one messed up company.

  6. Real or Not
    Looks like someone either bought out or got paid off to rework the blog of which the author of this article mentions. Barrister is nothing but bad. Just give them a try and you will not find a single thing good about them. they pay less than 45 a call. That in its self is not worth the hour and a half you will spend on the phone and doing paper work. they are in the habit of creating no-pay clauses in there system and should be in the habit of paying their technicians (contractors) rather than going out of their way to find an excuse not to pay them. Also they are liars. They hear anything bad about you (most of the time customers can easily complain about anything—true or not) then you will not get paid.

  7. Barrister is the worst or the worst!
    I have done some work for barrister recently and I can tell you all the stories you read are 100 percent true. They send out work orders that parts are not on site or at a UPS depot. If the tech doesn’t call UPS to check on the status of a part they will was a trip to the depot. They will back charge you for parts without ever talking with you first. They will try their best to not pay you for any work you perform for them. So don’t ever take any work from them. Like I said they are the worst of the worst and the lowest pay terms in the industry at just $45 for a break fix. I really hope they go out of business soon. No one deserves to not get payed for services rendered.

  8. Contractor
    I agree that Barrister is less than Honest in their business ethics with Techs that they abuse. I have had no luck in being paid for the work I have performed on their behalf. Their payissues and respond to RFS request and other emails must point to a real CLOUD Server

  9. Barrister Contractor
    Everyone should just hammer that blog with negative comments faster than they can delete them. Barrister sucks big time. Liars and Theives! I hired subs to help them with a big contract and they only paid half the WOs leaving me with lots of expenses and a big loss.

    Some techs are researching the possibility of a class action lawsuit against them.

  10. Technician
    I felt the need to comment on your post. Apparently Jessica is or was the official Barrister complaint police. I’m still not sure where they found her, but based on her spelling and grammar my guess is it wasn’t from an Ivy League institution. Perhaps she is feeble minded enough to actually believe there is a nationwide conspiracy of “scammers” who are “scamming” Barrister. I find it unlikely that someone with Jessica’s astute intelligence actually believes that hundreds of random ex-employees who have never met one another and live in different cities decided to complain at different times about not being paid.

    They are the dumbest, rudest, nastiest, unprofessional group of folks I have ever encountered. Unbelievable.

    I myself have been victimized by Barrister and can’t fathom how these unethical crooks are still in business.

  11. Barrister scam and ripoff artists.
    I am done working with these scam artists, only when they have burned all other techs in the area and they call and call about a particular case that no one else will go back on, due to the fact the original tech got burned, most likely they sent the wrong part or just a main board and a power supply is needed, and only before but not after, ever ever ever!!! will they get you your additional money for being there any extra time,your CRS will say go ahead keep troubleshooting, we will pay you for your additional time on-site, well at that point she is lying to you, she is lying to you, she is lying to you, same goes for their tech support dept. they are lying to you it is yet to be seen if I will get additional monies for correctly diagnosing an issue after the parts sent were not enough to fix the issue. And I was told by my CRS she could submit a request for more pay, this has never ever brought me more money ever. Not in the last 5 calls that ran over due to wrong parts sent.

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