jeffrey Singer

Review of Prodigy Services

Feel free to ignore the 5 star review from Mr. Mer...

Feel free to ignore the 5 star review from Mr. Merchant, he owns the franchise. Bottom line, be careful engaging any agency to provide aide for a loved one. I started working with BrightStar in September of 2017, and was with them through Mid July 2018. It was, at best, ok. My experience was plagued by aides who were constantly changing their schedules and the office letting me know last minute. There were never alternates available if the assigned aide could not make it in, we were never able to establish any consistency with them. Little background; my father is 82 and is suffering from a terrible neuro motor disease. He lives in a nice assisted living facility, but as his range of motion continued to degrade, we opted to get some extra help, someone to be with him in his studio 4 or 5 days a week, from lunch to dinner hours just to help him with simple things, and also to help the staff aides to transfer him from bed to chair, chair to wheelchair etc. We probably went through 5 or 6 people with BrightStar, often with long gaps in coverage as they often had difficulty finding back up help when the scheduled aide would bail. The worst part of the story is that their billing is terrible. They were automatically deducting their fees ($700 or more per WEEK) from my dads debit card, and sending me a copy of the paid invoice. recently, I caught them outright charging us for a day where the aide DID NOT WORK! When I questioned them by email, they confirmed that she DID work, until they called her, and she said she was NOT there that day. My faith had now been rattled. If that could happen once, how many other hours or days was I erroneously charged? I wrote the managers. By my estimate, they had helped themselves to about $35,000 from that debit card since Sep 17. I respectfully suggested they consider a partial refund, any financial gesture, to assuage my concerns. almost 2 weeks later, after no reply, I asked for a response. I was told that they were still reviewing their records, matching all time sheet with invoices, and that it would take more time. Almost 3 weeks later I had still not heard back. I emailed again, and in addition to my disgust as to how long they were taking to respond, made clear my disappointment that the owner, Mr. Merchant, had not gotten involved. How could this not have escalated to ownership? He finally emailed me and said he would have an answer for me by the end of last week. He actually did get back to me on schedule. He told me that after review, all of their time sheets match up to invoices, except for the obvious one mentioned previously. He said they would refund me for that day, but offered nothing more. Now, other than the first few weeks, I was never asked to sign any time sheets, nor was my father. Unless an aide is checking in from a mobile device or app that is GPS enabled, all they are relying on is a piece of paper submitted by the aide, filled in by hand and verified by no one! Bottom line, I would like to believe that BrightStar, and companies like it, do have good intentions in so far as we are trusting them to provide people to give compassionate care to our loved ones. I also realize however that at the end of the day, they are businesses. Unfortunately, while the women I liaised with there all seem nice, and were always apologetic about the problems I was having, they were really not able to do anything about it. I do not blame them, but I do blame Mr. Merchant, I don't trust him or his motives for going in to this business. I think he's a lousy businessperson, and in his field, maybe that says a lot about his character. He doesn't care about people, he cares about getting paid. Proceed with caution with this company, or any of the others that provide these services. Its a big industry, and getting bigger every day. Whoever you engage, stay on top of them. That said, I would not suggest you work with this BrightStar franchise