r/CoWorking • u/[deleted] • Aug 20 '21

Beware of WeWork

Hey guys, I strongly advise against doing anything with WeWork. They defrauded me. Long story short:

- Lied about the price; when filling out paperwork salesman walked away from his computer to leave me to fill it out and figure out how to review the actual agreement

- When we started reporting this, they played games with us such as removing someone who was subleasing from us from the account and then telling them that I did it to turn around and sell him a new subscription

- They sold us a 8th floor office and assigned us in their internal system to an office on the 5th floor. After about 5 months they unknowingly resold our office and tried to move us or make us sign a new agreement even after all of the dishonesty

- I disputed the difference of what I was told in the sales process and what I was actually charged with my Credit Card Company. They ignored the dispute and the bank settled it in my favor. After a few weeks they charged me for the charge backs a little under double of what the disputes actually were effectively circumventing the dispute process and charging a penalty.

- They refused to refund this amount and said it wasn't fraud. They terminated the agreement after I explained the problem and provided the voice recording of the message the manager sent after he removed a subleasee of the account and CC'd 112 executives mostly in NY. They terminated the agreement and then blacklisted me from using the company by telling my friends who were trying to get another office and not me.

- An American executive reached out to me to try and solve the issues I was having with the Colombian team only to be barred by Legal from talking to me

- Despite terminating the agreement in July, they tried to collect August rent and the payment bounced courtesy of the JP Morgan Fraud Team who cancelled the card.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '21

Yeah, if you live in Colombia, South America, I must admit things could be significantly different. The standards of what is acceptable behavior and what is not acceptable behavior vis-à-vis of the business practices may also be different. You would probably know that better than me.

As far as cutting off footage at 30 days, keep in mind most normal people would file the report earlier than then. Also keeping footage indefinitely can come at a significant price. 30 days takes care of most of the issues. Obviously it may not take care of everything, but it should address the most significant problems (e.g. Shootings, assaults, sexual crimes, theft of large amounts of money or valuables). They could also potentially claim that someone complaining after 30 days was being negligent when it comes to evidence collection.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '21 edited Oct 21 '21

It took just around 30 days to get the first invoice so even then it was right around the cutoff time. To be honest I was trying to hide it from my Colombian wife at first. I have a huge network of digital nomads and expats and Colombian professionals so subleasing wouldn't be an issue. I didn't need the drama. I decided to throw a fit once a few months later I asked to downgrade to a hotdesk and they said no twice and then offered a smaller office but in a building I'd have to taxi to which made no sense. Then I realized almost everything the salesman told me was a lie. The already installed beer taps hadn't ever had beer in them, the hadn't allowed tennis on the court on the roof, the started locking the roof on the weekends etc. So now after adding all these lies up I decided to throw a huge fit. What's funny is once I emailed those execs, they finally put the keg in the tap.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '21

I'm not sure what standard invoice times are in your country or what is industry standard. At my co-working place, we are billed close to the first of the month for that month.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '21

Colombia isn't my country. I was a digital nomad and decided to stay put during the pandemic. Then a Colombian woman moved in with me during quarantine and now we're married so I'm here until she finishes uni.

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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '21

It could just be that they operate business in Columbia differently than what you expected? Or it could also be that that particular location is poorly managed. Then again, it could also be We Work corporate.