Here's something interesting I've noticed and simply wanted to comment on. I've reviewed the various employee review boards where employees can write in and give an assessment of various companies and I've noticed that Wingspan Portfolio Advisors has very 'suspect' reviews. I just read a review that gave the company five stars out of a sea of negative reviews and said 'excellent management'. Lol!
I read another review on indeed.com that listed under the 'cons' section "Good Healthcare". Why would 'good healthcare' be listed under cons?
Fake employee Reviews
I noticed a few years back that right after any critical review of the company was posted almost immediately five or six 'glowing reviews' would immediately post and very quickly after reading these reviews it became quite obvious to me these reviews were written by BUSINESSES. That's right. PAID SERVICES that exist to take to the internet to downplay any negative information.
Some of the REAL reviews are very insightful. They tell the TRUTH about the poor management and favoritism that apparently still exists at Wingspan Portfolio Advisors.
So much about this company from its constant press releases to even its job fairs are LIES in my opinion. What kind of company lays off a third of its staff to turn right back around in weeks and hold a massive job fair?
Notice we don't hear about these massive layoffs, (other than the very first one that occurred years ago) until we read the various employee reviews, many of them very current (from this year). Wingspan puts out 'News Releases' when it gets ready to hire a few people but it's very secretive about its super high turnover (mostly from layoffs and employees disgusted at the poor management style which includes nepotism and favoritism).
Major Nepotism
Moving on however..
Steve Horne should be the only one out there with real power and authority but he's given substantial power and authority to individuals with limited mortgage experience who are so powerful they immediately bring their kids and other family members on board. The payroll at Wingspan Portfolio Advisors is just a gravy train to them.
Justin Belter Pulled Strings For His Buddy and the 'Gods Of Wingspan' Act Up
For instance, I remember a young white guy who was still in college that was hired at wingspan portfolio advisors. There was nothing spectacular about his work. He didn't really work that hard and he always missed days.
This was during a time when the blacks were all 'contractors' or 'temps' being lied to constantly that if we worked hard we could be 'made permanent'. At a time when the young white employees were all mysteriously being made 'permanent' even though they had no experience, were sometimes right out of highschool and who just happened to have 'family members' in Steve Hornes inner circle.
However this young white guy who I was sure was going to be fired because he was always late, and seemed to miss every other day (and when he did show up to work he was often in jeans and looking disheveled) was suddenly gone from the floor. We all thought he was fired or had quit and then we all learned that Justin Belter had 'pulled some strings' as the guy was his 'friend' and had brought the guy on permanent in an easy 'newly created just for him' position that would allow him to craft his schedule to meet his own preferred hours. He had insurance and holiday pay and vacation time.
Yet the blacks were still slugging away, working mandatory overtime, being threatened if we became Ill or had a family emergency that would require us to miss work and many blacks were walked out or laid off.
'Fuck HR', The 'God Complex' Takes Over
The company's management, which at the time consisted of 'Friends' Justin belter, Kevin Conn, Jason Dickard, Melanie Pellegrino and David Payne didn't give a shit how hard we worked. These guys would hang out after work and at work too and had what I consider to be the 'God Complex' in that they could do whatever they wanted.
Their attitude was 'fuck HR' and 'fuck labor law'. "WE ARE GODS." The 'GODS OF WINGSPAN PORTFOLIO ADVISORS'. Even though the dummies were hired in with NO MORTGAGE EXPERIENCE and NO EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE and only Dickard had management experience. The power quickly went to their heads and it showed. Once promoted the employees they had worked WITH suddenly became the ENEMIES. This quickly made the work environment at wingspan portfolio advisors a very poisonous one. An unnecessarily stressful one.
Dubious Activity
Wingspan Portfolio Advisors at that time started doing the multiple repeated layoffs and hiring sprees many employee reviews speak on today. Wingspan's management started firing dozens of people at once, people who had been perfectly good employees, many of whom had earned awards and been recognized repeatedly for their merit and good work, at the same time suddenly hiring bodies to fill the seats. This was a practice that has continued throughout the years. I can't help but feel that this is done for a 'tax advantage'.
Milking the New Hire Tax Credits Through Repeated Layoffs/Terminations and Fake Hiring Sprees
Apparently the new hire tax credits reward a company handsomely if the employee at least makes it to a year of employment or is fired for cause (either or) and Wingspan portfolio advisors, in my opinion, has figured out a way to keep the layoffs secret while publicly promoting themselves through what appear to be constant hiring sprees while pocketing the new hire tax credit. This is smart. Although unethical and dubious and immoral.
Milking the Vendors
I recently read an employee review that also said wingspan portfolio advisors milks it's vendors by letting people sit on the clock until late in the night doing basically nothing. This review was either on indeed.com or Glassdoor. I remember it was the same when I worked for wingspan. Even though the work really wasn't there we had unlimited overtime, in my estimation, milking Bank of America for every dime we could.
Fake News Reports
I read an article online recently that spoke of how companies are using 'fake news reports' to cover up marketing schemes to get people to buy their products. I read about how a company will pay, for instance, a PHD student at a college or a group of researchers to 'claim' that a product has some special life saving abilities when in fact it was nothing more than a glossy advertisement.
Apparently, in my honest opinion, this is similar to what Wingspan Portfolio Advisors is doing by putting out these various reports that are seemingly from legitimate news publications (that many of us have never heard of) detailing how this company has supposedly broken one record or the other or exceeded some kind of industry standard and if you take the employee reviews that speak of constant layoffs and complaints of poor management together with these, in my opinion, phony reviews you get the picture that wingspan portfolio advisors is a very different company than the public image it desperately wants to project.
Picking The Pockets Of The Poor
This will no doubt enable them to continue to beg subprime, unwanted, highly undesirable accounts away from the major mortgage servicers and banks (the trash basically) to nickel and dime the poor people whose accounts they end up with to try and make at least some money.
I don't blame the bastards though I'd probably do the same. That still doesn't make it right.
Wingspan Portfolio Advisors Blogspot
The Infinite One
