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ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

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Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#91

Post by alasdair_ »

jonathanmarcus wrote: post #55

We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits coll…

I, too, have a small company and so far I'm definitely not impressed with Zenefits.

A trivial example: we have roughly fifteen contractors working for us. I had them all sign up for Zenefits so we could pay them (and track 1099's appropriately). Come the first of the month, we tried to pay the contractors, only to discover that we had a cap of $2,500 TOTAL for any given week.

This isn't mentioned anywhere obvious and caused huge problems for us. In the end, we had to Paypal everyone money at the last minute.

Next up was trying to pay a founder as the sole employee in a single state. No matter how much we try, we can't seem to figure out how to make this happen - the Zenefits software assumes that we need a tax ID for the state but the state itself insists that we don't need one (since it's a solo founder, working from his home, there is no LNI and no income tax either).

Then there were the countless issues with email addresses (an infinite loop that seemed to be caused by the fact that I used an email address with a plus symbol on it)

The support people are very nice but so far none of them have managed to actually resolve an issue for me.

Anyway, not impressed.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#92

Post by efuquen »

jonathanmarcus wrote: post #55

We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits coll…

So are you against or defending the defamation lawsuit? Because nothing you said really had anything to do with that.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#93

Post by CPLX »

mark212 wrote: post #86
CPLX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2. That's crazy talk. You can double the length of a lawsuit in one simple stroke just by having your attorney say "Sorry that week is bad for me can we do [date]" every time there's a continuance or adjournment. You can set return dates for any motions you initiate to…

no, actually you can't. It is not possible in ND Cal to "set return dates for any motions you initiate to the last date permitted." That's just not how motions work in ND Cal. And responding on the last hour of every filing deadline is what everybody does all the time. That's why most deadlines are fairly short (30 days, e.g.). The real driver of court delay is the judge, not the litigants. I've had judges routinely…

> Then one party or the other will move for reconsideration and it's another six month delay.

Exactly. The exact vagaries of how each clerk sets calendar dates and whatnot wasn't my point. My point was that I have never seen a civil litigation forum in the U.S. where either party doesn't have half a dozen methods that can effectively double the amount of time it takes to get through the same procedure.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#94

Post by JoelSutherland »

alasdair_ wrote: post #91
jonathanmarcus wrote: post #55

We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits coll…

I, too, have a small company and so far I'm definitely not impressed with Zenefits. A trivial example: we have roughly fifteen contractors working for us. I had them all sign up for Zenefits so we could pay them (and track 1099's appropriately). Come the first of the month, we tried to pay the contractors, only to discover that we had a cap of $2,500 TOTAL for any given week. This isn't mentioned anywhere obvious and…

I too run a small company and am a Zenefits customer. We've now done ~15 payroll runs with Zenefits and only 3 have worked without my manual intervention to fix a problem at the last minute. I don't think this will be the only lawsuit in their future.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#95

Post by jasonlotito »

gravity13 wrote: post #85
ahlatimer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of that answer was edited out. He had "(n.b. -- we are revoking the questioner's offer to work at Zenefits)." Which is a reasonable thing to do, I guess, if you feel the person isn't all that interested in working for your company, but it isn't all that reasonable to say in a public forum. Edit: Here's a link that has the quote about rescinding the offer: http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-…

lol I didn't know that. Meh. It's something I would have done myself in the same situation.

You would have shared publicly that you are revoking someones employment offer because you found them seeking career advice on a Q&A board?

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#96

Post by baakss »

joshstrange wrote: post #77
jonathanmarcus wrote: post #55

We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits coll…

> Zenefits doesn't have any intrinsic rights to ADP's system. Zenefits doesn't want or need intrinsic rights to the ADP system. They do need (and deserve) the same level of access as a human working for a client using ADP. They might provide little to no value or be a worthless company but NONE OF THAT MATTERS. The client paid for ADP access and has every right to use whatever means they deem necessary to input or ou…

Similar argument for those who bot in video games, not that it works.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#98

Post by rhino369 »

DannyBee wrote: post #13

Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning. The defamation they claimed happened is that Zenefits "alleged that ADP intentionally sought to cause harm to ADP’s clients solely to gain an unfair competitive advantage against Zenefits.” Even if you argue this is defamation per se (and not per quod), about a matter of private concern, they'd still have to prove "4. That [name of defendant] failed to u…

>There is a near 0% chance they can prove a lack of reasonable care here. Plus, they open themselves up to discovery on any memos, etc they've written about this decision internally, which almost certainly show the statement is truth.

But discovery cuts both ways. They could easily find a Zenefits email that says "lets blast them for this, who cares if it is true or not, it's about perception."

I agree they probably won't win, but never rule out a smoking gun.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#99

Post by chetanahuja »

geori wrote: post #67
randall wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever had an insurance broker before? They're like the same thing but without the easy software.

Your local insurance salesperson probably has less bargaining power than Zenefits, so your rates with them could be higher.

Nope. In our experience, Zenefits has no special deals and absurdly high pricing for health insurance for small companies. You're far better off going with a PEO (e.g. Trinet etc.)

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#100

Post by wj »

JoelSutherland wrote: post #94
alasdair_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, have a small company and so far I'm definitely not impressed with Zenefits. A trivial example: we have roughly fifteen contractors working for us. I had them all sign up for Zenefits so we could pay them (and track 1099's appropriately). Come the first of the month, we tried to pay the contractors, only to discover that we had a cap of $2,500 TOTAL for any given week. This isn't mentioned anywhere obvious and…

I too run a small company and am a Zenefits customer. We've now done ~15 payroll runs with Zenefits and only 3 have worked without my manual intervention to fix a problem at the last minute. I don't think this will be the only lawsuit in their future.

Having used both ADP and Peak Payroll at our company in the past we have experienced a lot of manual intervention at both. Usually things get ironed out until some/any out of the ordinary change causes problems that end up taking a payroll or two to correct. Basically I'm saying that all payroll providers seem to have these problems.

We're back on ADP after our company was bought as that is what the parent company uses.

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