Former workers speak out on light bulb company

LENWOOD • Carrie Strecker’s first encounter with Industrial and Commercial Products began with a help-wanted ad.

Strecker, who moved to the Barstow area from Nebraska in 2001, needed a job. And with five years telemarketing experience under her belt, the company’s owner hired five minutes after he met her.

Over the next eight years, Strecker said she worked the phones, getting businesses across to buy light bulbs she says are over priced in exchange for a Wal-Mart gift card that often never arrives. By the time she left Industrial and Commercial Products in 2009, Strecker said she was managing 15 other employees.
Strecker described an environment where workers were required to make a certain quota for the week and were

docked pay if a customer refused a sale. She said the owners of the Lenwood-based business didn’t hire men to work in the sales department, and that when she interviewed a potential employee she was required to ask her age, marital status and the ages of her children.

One former employee who wanted to remain anonymous described a work place where its management was rude. Strecker and two other former employees who asked to stay anonymous said arguments and fights would often break out.

“We had a fist fight and a chair thrown once,” she said.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a verbal argument between two employees in January, said Cindy Beavers, the department’s public information officer. She couldn’t say if the deputies responded to the company or the reporting party’s home.

Industrial and Commercial Products has been the recipient of 95 complaints to the Better Business Bureau. The owner’s name is Ronald Lanning, according to the Bureau. The company is co-owned by Ron Dreaden, Strecker said.

Complaints about the company have come from as far away as Hampton, Va., according to the Better Business Bureau. Employees call customers telling them of a promotion to try their products and sometimes offering a free television as an incentive. The customers then receive the lights along with an invoice charging them four times what they pay other suppliers. The Bureau gave Industrial and Commercial Products a rating of F.

According to a script employees were required to read, customers would be notified that in celebration of a change in management, Industrial and Commercial Products were sending $100 gift cards and a case of light bulbs to their “old customers.” Customers weren’t told that their businesses would be charged for the bulbs, Strecker said. If the customer didn’t ask how much the light bulbs would cost, their business would be charged as much as $539 for the case, Strecker said.

“If the customer asks them how much it is, it’s $161,” she said. “The second order, if they go for it, they raise the gift card $50. The second order is usually 60 bulbs. Double the order, double the price.”

Strecker left the company after a medical leave for a knee injury. The owner of the company wanted to cut her hourly pay by $5, she said. During the time she worked there, she made roughly $1,500 a week in hourly pay and commission, she said.

“Fifteen-hundred dollars a week is too hard to ignore when you have five kids,” she said.

Ashley Hollis, who worked at Industrial and Commercial Products from January to March 2008, also answered a help-wanted ad and also had telemarketing experience. She was also hired the same day she handed in her resume and job application. Company officials didn’t do background checks, she said. She made $9.50 an hour plus commission.

According to Hollis, who now lives in Alabama, the light bulbs weren’t anything that couldn’t be found at most retail stores. It was also often usual to find a pile of broken bulbs in the warehouse, she said.

“They were breaking almost every day,” she said. “They would have them in a pile and people would be cleaning them up.”

Hollis said she left because she was worried that the company would get into legal trouble.

Multiple calls to Lanning weren’t returned. Dreaden could not be reached. An employee called to defend Industrial and Commercial Products Friday, but refused to give her name or speak on the record.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or jcejnar@desertdispatch.com