Angie's List withheld overtime pay from employees,
complaint states
Kristine Guerra, [email protected]
12:46 p.m. EDT April 20, 2016
Seventeen former sales people at Angie's List claim the company repeatedly violated federal labor laws.
Former employees of Angie's List (https://www.angieslist.com/) are accusing the company of
withholding overtime pay and, in many cases, telling them not to report overtime hours, according to federal
lawsuits filed against the Indianapolis company.
The company imposed very aggressive sales goals on its staff, requiring employees to sell a certain amount
dollars in advertising, said Indianapolis lawyer Kathleen Delaney, who's representing 17 former employees
(Photo: Star file photo)
of Angie's List sales department. The company's management trained sales people to do "whatever it takes"
to meet their goals, she said, without paying them for the extra hours needed to complete the work.
Sales calls also were forwarded to the employees' personal cell phones, so they often took calls from home at night and on weekends, Delaney said.
"They're telling people, 'You have to hit numbers, you have to hit numbers,'" Delaney said. "This is a systemic problem with the way they run the sales
department and compensate people. It's not just a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there."
Angie's List spokeswoman Cheryl Reed said the company does not comment on pending litigation but said the company's policy and practice is to
"pay employees for all time worked in accordance with state and federal law."
The two lawsuits, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana (http://www.insd.uscourts.gov/), claim the company violated federal
labor laws. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, overtime pay for nonexempt employees must be one and a half their hourly pay rate.
The lawsuits come just a few months after Angie's List sued three former sales representatives (/story/money/2016/04/19/ex­angies­list­employees­
can­work­homeadvisor­judge­says/83226066/), accusing them of disclosing confidential proprietary information to the company's competition,
HomeAdvisor, a Colorado­based home services ratings provider that recently expanded into Indianapolis. Last week, a Hamilton County judge ruled
against Angie's List, saying the company is not likely to succeed on its claims if the case goes to trial.
INDIANAPOLIS STAR
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Many of the 17 plaintiffs began working for Angie's List two to four years ago. They've all left the company within the past six months.
According to the complaints, the former employees frequently worked more than 40 hours a week, but their supervisors routinely instructed them to
either under­report or not report their overtime hours. Delaney said because employees were making sales calls to several parts of the country, some
had to work during the late­night hours so they could call people on the West Coast.
One employee who left in January was not paid the bonus his sales team earned that month, the complaint states. Another who left in February was
not paid his final two­week paycheck, his accrued vacation balance and his commission for January.
Two of the plaintiffs are defendants in the lawsuit that Angie's List filed in Hamilton County court in January. Delaney, who also is representing the
two employees in that lawsuit, said recent testimony "made it pretty clear that there were many unhappy people at Angie's List."
The company restructured its sales staff last fall, a move that, Delaney said, dramatically changed compensation for some sales representatives.
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She said it's too early to tell how much overtime pay each employees are owed. She added that her firm had sent a notice to Angie's List asking the
company to preserve electronic and paper records related to the employees' pay and work hours.
Last month, Angie's List announced it was dropping its paywall for customer reviews (/story/money/2016/03/03/angies­list­drop­review­paywall­effort­
generate­revenue/81212140/) in an effort to boost profits. In November, the company rejected a $512 million purchase offer
(/story/money/2015/11/27/angies­list­remains­potential­acquisition­target/76001486/) that would have merged Angie's List with HomeAdvisor. The
offer was made by IAC/InterActiveCorp, HomeAdvisor's parent company.
Call IndyStar reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444­6209. Follow her on Twitter: @kristine_guerra (https://twitter.com/kristine_guerra).
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Amid losses, Angie's List asks taxpayers for $18.5M
(http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/26/amid­losses­angies­list­
asks­taxpayers­double/22243105/)
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