After accounting startup Bench abruptly shut down on December 27 and was purchased in a fire-sale by Employer.com, Bench prospects are actually studying they’ll’t simply simply take their monetary knowledge and depart.
And a few are very sad about it, three prospects advised TechCrunch.
To recap: When Bench, a startup based mostly in Canada that raised $113 million from traders like Bain Capital Ventures and Shopify, shuttered, it left hundreds of companies with out entry to their accounting and tax paperwork. Days later, Bench introduced it might be acquired by Employer.com for an undisclosed worth in a last-minute deal.
San Francisco-based HR tech firm Employer.com focuses on payroll and onboarding, in distinction to Bench, which makes a speciality of accounting and tax.
On the floor, Employer.com seems to be a comparatively new firm: Its CEO, Jesse Tinsley, introduced his acquisition of the area identify in November for about $450,000. Tinsley is behind a bunch of HR, onboarding, and recruiting-related companies, together with Recruiter.com and BountyJobs.
Nonetheless, digging deeper, TechCrunch realized that Employer.com is a dba for Recruiting.com Ventures. Tinsley acquired Recruiter.com in 2023, when it was a Nasdaq-listed firm, and took it personal, in accordance with Employer.com CMO Matt Charney. That entity has been round since 2015, he mentioned.
In its consent kind, Bench described Employer.com as a “highly successful and profitable organization with a proven track record of acquiring and running companies over the past decade.” CMO Charney mentioned the corporate is actually worthwhile. Nonetheless, Employer.com’s lack of accounting and tax experience is regarding to some Bench prospects.
One Bench buyer advised TechCrunch that when he tried to get his data for 2 out of the 5 years that he was a Bench buyer, he was requested “to hit a consent button.”
“Within the text of that page they said if you consent, then you agree to no refunds, and I think that was a very slimy, low thing to do,” he added. The corporate then later modified the web page to take away point out of not having the ability to get a refund.
Under is a screenshot of the unique consent web page earlier than Employer.com up to date it:
The client mentioned he was capable of contact his bank card firm and get a refund for 2 years of service he had pre-paid for. However he was nonetheless sad with the therapy.
“It’s disappointing because I used to speak so highly of them and had clients working with them too,” he mentioned.
One other longtime buyer mentioned that Employer.com “showed a message” on Bench providing the customers a option to both proceed service and settle for up to date phrases or discontinue service and obtain knowledge. He selected the latter.
“A few days later I got a message that said that in order to export your data, you still have to accept the terms,” he mentioned. “In this case, I hit accept just to continue and deal with this general issue, but it’s relatively suspicious to force the users to do this in order to transfer out their data. Accepting these terms opted me into continuing to use the Bench services.”
In different phrases, it seems that Bench prospects needed to comply with switch their knowledge to Employer.com to have the ability to entry that knowledge.
Under is a screenshot of what the shopper, who had been a Bench shopper for 10 years, acquired.
The client determined that he didn’t really feel snug with remaining a shopper as a result of Employer.com “does not appear..familiar with really operating this kind of business.” He’s reviewing his choices for an alternate supplier.
One other buyer, Michelle Gayle, who serves as a enterprise advisor to Core Insights Group, mentioned she understood that her firm – which is owned by her husband – would be capable of obtain its knowledge after consenting to sure phrases.
She advised TechCrunch that the corporate up to date its consent web page, eliminating the choice to choose out of transferring to Employer.com. Under is a screenshot of the up to date web page.
“They have concealed the fact that this new ‘acknowledgement’ is the same as the previous ‘consent’ and it is backed up by a privacy policy that is not adequate for the financial services that Bench.com provides,” she mentioned. ”Moreover, they’re providing reductions on recruitment companies which appear tone deaf and inappropriate given this example.”
She went on to explain Employer.com’s privateness coverage as laughable.
“This policy has absolutely nothing to do with safeguarding financial data and when I tried to email legal@employer.com about this woefully inadequate policy, I received a bounce back message,” she added.
The above complaints are echoed on a reddit thread stuffed with feedback of dissatisfied former prospects.
For its half, Employer.com says prospects can entry their knowledge by offering consent, which authorizes Employer.com “to make their data available for download.”
“After consenting, customers can manage their data, including downloading, deleting, or continuing services on the platform,” Employer.com’s Charney advised TechCrunch. “Once consent is given, they can choose to continue with the same contract and pricing as before or cancel their service.”
As for patrons looking for refunds for advance funds they made that coated future companies that the defunct Bench will not ship, Charney mentioned they might want to contact the chapter trustee for Bench Accounting Inc. or try and request a refund by way of Stripe.
Submit-publication, Charney supplied the next quote relating to the consent round buyer knowledge: “Simply put, the only way that they can get their data at all is to opt into giving Employer.com permission to access their data, because the only other entity that currently has that data to begin with no longer exists and is in active bankruptcy proceedings. So if they don’t consent to give Employer.com access, then they’re not going to get that data at all. It’s really the only way we can make sure that any Bench customer, whether or not they choose to remain one, can access those records. We will delete all data of any user who chooses to opt out immediately after they download the data, and will not retain any of their information at all.”
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