|
|
| Ala. Prison Workers Question Telemarketer's Practices |
| By Birmingham News |
| Published: 06/10/2003 |
|
Business practices of a Birmingham telemarketing company that employs prisoners on work release are being questioned by former inmates and Department of Corrections employees. U.S. Disadvantaged Industries Inc. employs three disabled workers, paying them $7 to $8 an hour to package items bought in bulk. More than 50 other employees, mostly work-release inmates, sell the goods over the telephone. Former telemarketer Taffenee Frazier can recite the sales pitch from memory. 'We're the ones who take orders for products handmade and packaged by the blind and disabled,' she recalled. Though appalled by the prices a mop and broom set for $53, $30 for an ironing board pad and cover, and $39.95 for an American flag set she said she stuck it out three months. As an Alabama work-release inmate, Frazier faced disciplinary action if she lost the job. The corrections department's Birmingham Work Release Center arranges these jobs. At any given time, 25 to 35 inmates work there, and the state keeps 40 percent of their salaries to help offset the costs of housing and feeding prisoners. The more inmates with jobs, the more income for Alabama's beleaguered prison system. Eventually, Frazier said her conscience got the best of her. She said she was caught discouraging a customer from buying a product she believed was shoddy. 'It was older people. C'mon, have a heart, sometime,' Frazier said in an interview. Mayo Holloway Jr., a real estate developer and businessman who lives in Mountain Brook, has owned USDI since 1996, according to the Alabama secretary of state's office. Holloway said there is nothing deceptive about the telemarketing practices because all of the products are touched at some point by disabled hands. 'That's our goal, to buy something that's manufactured by handicapped. If that's not possible, we identify something that would be a good seller for us, then we package it,' he said. Callers never claim that USDI is a charity, he said. 'This is a for-profit company. But as a philosophy, we want to help people, and it's good business for us,' Holloway said. His company has an unsatisfactory rating with the Birmingham Better Business Bureau. The bureau has received five complaints from consumers, but USDI has not responded to four of them, a bureau spokesman said. Two of the unanswered complaints concern sales practices and two concern product performance. Former corrections officer Veronica Perry said women prisoners close to release and eager to go home were scared to complain. 'These girls are only doing what they're told. Because if not, they'll go back to prison,' she said. |
advertise
|
privacy policy
|
add URL
|
about us
|
terms/disclaimer
|
contact us
|
join our team
|
help
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think