Paychex Sucks

Ripped off-Do a google search for Iron Forge lawsuit against Paychex, it looks like they are doing the same thing to you they did to them. It looks like he wants to start a class action lawsuit. Good luck

I can tell you first hand that at a company where you are taught to downplay (deny, cover up) any mistake that you make, because they are so political, it is nearly impossible for anyone to admit internally that they made an error. As a client it is that much more difficult to get anyone to admit to any error, therefore how can an error be corrected. I don't think that Paychex purposely steals from clients, with millions of transactions and tons of data entry there are likely to be errors, the problem is that no-one at Paychex is willing to admit to an error so how can they correct it. Golisano, in his inability to admit to his own shortcomings has created a horrible enviroment, Paychex has reached a tipping point and it is just a matter of time before they implode.

So would that be considered " lying by omission"? I think it does, and I'm sure there are many clients in the same boat...

I think that it is naive to think that a giant publicly traded company like Paychex is moral. They have a set of priorities built around building the value of the equity shareholders. I'm not saying that good service and stewardship is not on the list it just falls well below the need to release positive financial news and positive P.R. to the market, nearly all of that market is made up of people who are not clients.

Paychex had a 2.2 drop in the client base this last quarter, at 535,000 clients if their sales team brough in 25,000 client this quarter (probably a very low number) that means that that they lost 37,000 clients or around 7% lost business in what should be a low quarter for lost business compared to the quarter that contains January (when most clients switch services). That would mean that their overall lost business will be close to 30% for the year. How much will they need to cut expenses and increase prices to offset that??? They better do something drastic to increase sales and reduce lost business very quickly!!! Wait..... Golisano is in charge? At lease everyone will be drinking out of the same white styrofoam cups while the Titanic heads full steam ahead towards a giant iceburg.

If you are a loyal Paychex employee or client you should be ashamed of yourself!!! You're either stupid or you can be bought, they don't deserve it and your allowing it to happen.

I have never had to deal with a company as incompetent as Paychex is on every level. I have never witnessed such levels of ineptitude by employees. They are literally stealing my money for the quality of service they provide.

Paychex apparrently was my "employer of record" with a previous employer, without my knowledge. I just thought that they administered payroll and benefits. My direct deposit stubs have my employer's name, but my W-2 states PBS of Central Florida (Paychex Business Solutions), which prompted an audit of my tax records, due to the discrepancy, and now PBS refuses to provide a letter regarding the same unless submitted by my prior employer? They send the W-2 to me, but they will not provide a letter stating that they were the "employer of record" on my request, even though they admit it on the phone? Further evidence of the takeover of America by the corporate-fascist state. Fortunately, I rolled my 401K out of Paychex and into another employer-sponsored plan!

I certainly won't argue many of the problems people have with Paychex. But I will say as a current employee (sr payroll specialist), that we are very overworked and underpaid. The pay scale is based on general customer service when really we are comparable to a CPA in what we're expected to do. Our new software rolled out last fall and instead of paying a company like Oracle to create it, tweedle dee and tweedle dumb at corporate hobbled it together. It took over 10 years to finally roll out and many of us believe it came down to put up or shut up so they shoved out a subpar product. Not only is it poor quality for clients who enter their own payroll online now (most at full price despite doing most of their own payroll work) but makes for horrible days for your account reps who have to defend themselves against clients for phantom errors due to the bad software, wait long periods of time for the software to respond, etc all while trying to service an average of 300 clients per rep. I've been there over 6 years and it's definitely gone downhill in the last few years.

The other "realist" has commented again... luckily I agree with a lot of what he/she has to say, but I'll start calling myself "REALIST 1" from now on (not that anyone has read every single comment on this blog like I have).

I just wanted to respond to "Employers Guardian, LLC" and "Angry Dentist". Guardian, I'm not sure that anyone can take your comment that seriously since you are obviously using this as a platform to sell your own services. That being said, I'd be really interested to hear why you feel it's a conflict of interest for a payroll company to offer a 401(k) service. Angry Dentist, I agree it is hard to trust people these days. The majority of the population are NOT financially savvy. With sales reps and "financial advisors" out to make a profit, it's really hard to know who you can trust. The truth of the matter is you shouldn't trust anyone... that is to say you shouldn't BLINDLY trust anyone. I've analyzed about 700 401(k) plans and it's truly scary what I have found. It's all too common to find that the owners good friend, and financial advisor (or worse yet their insurance broker), has set him up on a fee-infested 401(k) plan to pad his own pockets. You really have to do some research and become somewhat competent on your own. I recommend talking to multiple financial advisors and 401k providers. Financial advisors can be a neutral party when selecting a provider, and providers can be a neutral party when selecting a financial advisor. I work for a 401k provider, and I have gotten to know most of the financial advisors in the Orange County and LA area who actually specialize in 401(k) plans (not someone who is licensed and knows a thing or two about them). You are most likely to end up in a plan with high internal fees with those advisors who aren't 401k specialists. There are too many plans out there like this. In fact, the people I speak with who are the most hesitant to change, are the ones who have the lowest understanding of their current situation (and are usually getting ripped off by the person who set them up in the first place). I guess it's true what they say "ignorance is bliss".

I agree with Realist 1 about "not BLINDLY trusting anyone", the problem is that there are too many ways to hide the fees or not disclose. For example there are always fees being charged to the investments and either not being disclosed at all or hidden in on page 56 of a 200 page report with very small print, so if the pure return was 2%, by the time everyone takes their cut you end up at -2%. Don't get me wrong there is a reasonable fee that should be paid to the fund manager, the financial advisor, etc (it is probably not appropriate for the payroll service to be taking a cut of the investments their fees should be charged directly on the payroll service invoice). The other problem I see often is that clients are being hit with unexpected bills down the road for things like audits, which typically cost thousands of dollars. If you have a plan in place and are required to perform an audit you have no choice but is rarely clearly disclosed up front by either the Paychex sales rep or the financial advisor. Lastly there is just too much confusion about who is responsible for what, your financial advisor, Paychex sales rep, third party administrator and/or the fund manager all have different responsibilities and rarely are on the same page (with the exception of the fact that they are all making money on the 401k). So if the financial advisor gets asked a question about a fee they point the finger at the TPA and it works the other way around as well. My advise is to read everything that you sign, if you are too busy or its too confusing don't get a 401k. Also require that the financial advisor and TPA provide a simple written list of the all of fees and who is responsible for what, if you can't get that don't sign up and last but not least find out what it cost is to terminate the plan so that if you find yourself in a bad situation down the road you can walk away. By the way, I have been in the Payroll Service industry for 25 years, I was a senior manager at a large national service and have overseen offices in California, New York, Florida, Chicago and 10+ other states. My former company has over 25,000 clients and sells 401k products nationally and while I was there bragged internally about making 1.8% on the investments plus other fees, the company sold 1000's of plans. I left after in disgust after being there 20 years and opened my own Payroll Service and we are doing extremely well being honest (grew by 75% in 2010). After several years have rolled out a 401k offering that is an MEP plan and I have spent countless hours researching the options, verifying the offereings and fees and designing the plan to be as transparent as possible. I will also stand behind the plan that we offer our clients so if they have an issue with the financial advisor or TPA, the client can call us and we will take responsibility. That said we do not push the plan on our clients, we do not have payroll sales people selling the product and I oversee the process for every client personally and will until I can deligate it to people who report directly to me so the client only has to go one step to get to the ultimate decision maker. If you are a CEO of a payroll service and aren't willing to stand behind your products personally (take those phone calls if it comes to it) you should retire.

You people are UNEDUCATED IDIOTS!!!! Paychex has the least expensive 401k in the business!!! Go ahead and purchase your 401k from an insurance Company and they will tell you its free and you will hemorrage 3-4% of your investment assets mysteriously every year. Get a grip and an education people. Maybe you should all read the sumamry plan descriptions and get lives or go back to your $50 thousand dollar a year lives and get a grip.

Wow, you are really professional. Definitely not someone I would want to do business with. YOu could learn how to be more professional from your ADP competitor. Use spell check next time too.

I work very hard to make 50k a year. I do not lie nor deceipt my clients unlike you and your company.

Hey Paychex - try to send your wage reports to the CORRECT client, like your CURRENT client base, and not to FORMER clients, like yours truly. It would be rather unfortunate if sensitive information, like wage detail, got into the wrong hands, including workers who are not privy to company salary information. It would be even more unfortunate, during this time of year-end reporting, if other sensitive information got into the wrong hands, like SOCIAL SECURITY numbers and HOME ADDRESSES.

Clearly "Paychex Rep" believes whatever he or she is told by the unethical leadership at Paychex. What you are stating about Paychex having the least expensive plan in the business is just not true, not by a long shot, further Paychex does not disclose what fees they are paid from the investments and it is almost impossible to determine. Maybe if you keep believing whatever you are told and defending your horrible employer you can get a styrofoam cup with your name on it and get to ride the glass elevator. Trust me, I am more educated than you and make much more money than you. Paychex is famous for bad mouthing its competition, I guess that this rep has a hard time having to read the truth.

Thank god this company with their por management and unethical sales staff didn't make the top 100 places to work for this year. I am an employee in Rochester and I've about had it with the BS that goes on in our office. Time to updat the resume and here I come Monster.com

Right on. I worked there in 2000-2004 and hated it, but it was the place to be. So much nepotism, it all depended on who slept with who.

I've worked for Paychex for 7 years in two different offices and have been a payroll specialist, a supervisor, and now a sales rep. While I agree that the PRS are underpaid for the amount of work that they do and the knowledge they need to possess, I also think that, at least in the offices that I've worked in, they've provided excellent customer service to their clients. There are always a few bad eggs who took the job and are too lazy to look for something else even though they're not good at customer service, but they are weeded out eventually. Compared to the stories I've heard about customer service queues at other providers, I think Paychex's model is more apt to give you a good experience.

To the comments about preparing incorrect returns, some of that liability lays on the client. We would call, email, and send letters about missing SSNs and ID numbers and would get no response from the client. In some cases we could call the state agency to get them, but that's going above and beyond in my opinion.

All companies have their good and bad points. Paychex has for the most part treated me well over the years. Paychex won't make money or get new clients with poor customer service to their current clients, so it wouldn't benefit them to do some of the things that are being alleged in this post. Employees should remember that sometimes it's your employer that isn't doing what they're supposed to and not Paychex.