Totally agree…
@ coldhardertruth
In 32 years in the largest State Police agency in the country working in the biggest city in the country against some of the largest organized crime families and drug organizations, I met hundreds of people that thought themselves as savvy and shrewd until I put the cuffs on them.
@ reginv
Not sure how good you were as state trooper cuz you never saw fraud committed by USIS. Otherwise, you would not be at this Thread. Management is still laughing at all of us. At least I never flushed cases and blatantly lied to employees, ending the careers of 2500 FI’s nationwide.
CACI is a fine employer thus far. Don’t know much about KPGS. I really doubt FI at CACI will experience the same problems experienced at USIS becasue CACI has deep pockets and is employee-focused, so far.
@ coldhardertruth
I guess you don’t remember my earlier posts about how I took USIS to task and received over $21k in back H&W. You are wrong - I found the fraud USIS was doing and got it corrected.
@cold,
I have read about the fraud you mention however, I never witnessed it from the level of a FI while I was with USIS. Did things from upper management occur? Most likely. Were there poorly trained and FI’s who took shortcuts to the job? Again, likely but not all. My sour taste with USIS is only the fact of the way everything went down (to include the infamous computer picture) but I doubt any one thought it would come to the way it did…I also, served 24 years in an a federal job for criminal investigations but I realized when I started this line of work it’s not “criminal” and we work for the customer - period. I will make mention that working for all the “big” 3, I did find it humorous how they all told us either through training or emails _“this is the way OPM” want’s it done. I believe what it really is, someone from the respective company purposes, what they believe to be a better way to do business, and OPM say’s it’s okay. This goes for all 3 companies…
@reginv
Wish you had communicated more broadly at the time your efforts about recovering the fraud so that ALL of us could have gotten it corrected. My g*d, we could have forced the company into bankruptcy sooner and whistled all the way to the bank.
Sorry - I did communicate with those I knew and trusted but once I accepted the settlement, I was bound by a non-disclosure. I as told by the DOL very few made complaints to USIS. Only those that did not take benefits or very little benefits would have been owed anything as health insurance for a family would have used most of the H&W. It wasn’t until after the DOL began questioning USIS did they advise everyone of the H&W but surprisingly no one seem to question what happened to their prior years.Those that I did speak with thought it was too much of a hassle. I only led them to the water…
@reginv
I would most certainly have gone to the well with you had I known. Shame that a non-disclosure agreement was required. That, in itself seems fraudulent. If a crime has been committed, how can the court require it be covered up? A class action suit would have been the most appropriate remedy to benefit everyone who was aggrieved, whether they were aware of it or not.
Too bad it’s now yesterdays news. But good for you, sir. Good to know that someone got their pound of flesh.
If I can just chime in; the NDA is for security purposes and case related information via SF 312. It has nothing to do with business practices, violations of the company per-say unless it is classified and in reference to National Security purposes. The SF 312 only prevents people from talking about PII, Secret, TS etc information not on the way the company did business. It’s not company specific and only in relation to Government issues….
The Nonsense sure does continue! I worked for USIS for over 10 years and switched over to KGS and it’s the same crap different day! KGS is so number driven it’s sick!
It’s all about how many SU you get out for the week or month or however they do it. Who cares about how complicated and long the case is its all about your numbers. Unfortunately, it’s all the same. No one seems to understand the concept of conducting background investigations for National Security.
If you are reading this Eric Hess, Your company is turning into USIS. Congratulations!! Job well done!! The same frustrations all over again. It’s only a matter of time before it comes crashing down!
All the petty refiles that count against your stats no matter what the reason for the reopen. All the petty admin stuff. All the rules with taking notes. The list goes on and on.
Working at a level 5 or 6 consistently every week is a joke! No wonder KGS had so many of their former investigators under investigation for integrity issues.
Everyone should be held to the same standards Federal or Contractor. It’s the same investigation/job no matter how you look at it.
When will the Federal Government step in and stop all of this madness?!?
@4545
Wow…that’s a searing assessment and critique of KGS. I tend to agree with you though. KGS used to be a small and nice place to work however they are driven by a bunch of minute admin redundancies such as entering in source and subs info in a separate tab so they can call from Loveland instead of sending the letters out, milage regs, king notes etc. As for the reopens and ACDs they make it impossible for a person to do their job without caring ablaut “10” different computer ventures to enter data…
@4545
Wow…that’s a searing assessment and critique of KGS. I tend to agree with you though. KGS used to be a small and nice place to work however they are driven by a bunch of minute admin redundancies such as entering in source and subs info in a separate tab so they can call from Loveland instead of sending the letters out, milage regs, king notes etc. As for the reopens and ACDs they make it impossible for a person to do their job while navigating through about “10” different computer ventures to enter data…
Two particular incidents made me realize the new and improved company was not for me and I decided to find something else.
The first was the JobZology survey employees had to fill out back in April which, we were told, was to make the company more employee-centric. I knew after the first question that the survey was designed to weed out people like me. Namely, employees pissed off they have to take surveys aimed at uncovering pissed off employees.
The second was a company-wide email back in August stating that if an employee has been taking OT w/o permission he or she will be fired. And if an employee has been working more than 40 hours /week, and not recording it, let HR know and he or she will be fired.
If you must stay please realize that your job is for God and country. Work it accordingly by giving it everything you’ve got. Ignore the company BS.
The investigator job under OPM has become onerous and largely administrative, interspersed with brief, manic episodes of drive-by interviews and record retrieval (aka “investigation”). And this is at the lowest production levels. At the higher levels it is a selective-reporting, RT/UC-fest.
I am lucky to have chosen CACI I guess. No real problems, yet. I may not be earning as much as those who selected KPGS, but not too important. There seems to be a lot of possible integrity issues mentioned at this blog, like Toby in particular. Someone also mentioned charging OT and not working it in order to even the playing field and receive extra pay.
At corrupt USIS, I too claimed unworked OT. I did this because I was lied to and money was stolen from me. But at CACI, no reason to do this. I hope KPGS does not end up traveling down that dishonest, corrupt road USIS selected.
I say this hoping KPGS supervision reads this blog. Employees will only tolerate so much unfair treatment before cutting corners, like “toby” talks about and others.
The only option KP has is to install 24/7 monitoring system on its employees, monitoring every stop/go conducted during 8-hour work period. It is done in the sales world, so why not in BI industry? That way, what toby talks about can be avoided. Or things like claiming unworked OT, minimized.
I was always level 1 and never had adequate time to complete my work in 40 hours. I took some OT but even then worked more than recorded. It is a hard job to adequately record time anyway.
Let me make it perfectly clear, I did not work with higher-level investigators and have no idea that there were any integrity issues or there was any corner-cutting in the upper levels. I probably should’ve not cast aspersions and probably should’ve not included that line. Perhaps a lot of people are just a lot more efficient and productive than I was. Or maybe I was the only one gettting ESIs that required 1-hour commutes with 2.5-hour interviews and 3-hour ROIs. Don’t know. Do the math.
IMO, the stop/go monitoring is a bad idea. Again, adding more admin stuff.
No, the solution to any possible integrity issues, or even thorough quality interviews and record checks, is to require all investigators be partnered with another investigator on a rotating basis. Every investigative organization I know of, save for private contracting work, has investigators partnered with other investigators. Frankly I’m a little perplexed why this hasn’t happened already. And it not only has the benefits listed above, it also has the added benefit (even if just socio-psychological) of eliciting greater cooperation from Sources, and more forthrightness from Subjects.
It’s what decision makers call a “no-brainer”.
Partner with another FI? That will Never happen! Imagine the expense and overhead involved? You forget that KPGS is funded by a private equity firm, and they are very profit driven, as we learned from corrupt USIS.
Nope, the only option is for KPGS CEO to employ tracking software on KP issued laptop, requiring FI check in/out every personal, ESI and record testimony. It makes good business sense and will lessen integrity issues and OT billing dishonesty. Sales folks do it all the time and it works.
I’m just going to chime in - I don;t believe USIS was corrupt; I do agree in the early days 03-09, they had a lot of issues and problems. I believe they rectified a lot of those issues however after 09. Seeing I’ve worked with all the “big 3” companies, I can honestly tell you a big problem is the FI’s that are being hired i.e. the house wives, the retired person who does nothing but clean the pool or the kid out of college who has a belief this is a good job and realizes this is not investigations in the criminal sense type of job. FI’S are relegated to Human Resource redundant paperwork like fact confirmers, even though the person put and signs the paperwork saying all information is true and accurate. During any of my criminal investigations, national security, fraud, IG, etc. I have written my reports without the aid of a checklist, and when I conducted interviews I never did half the things we do for the most important type of investigations - NS. With that said, the reviewers and adjudicators are equally responsible because the FI does what he/she has been taught by reopens, ACDS etc. Reviewers are probably the worse of the worse in the sense they are the “HR” division of the investigation process…
USiS not corrupt? Huh? Congress, OPM, DOL, DHS and FBI might disagree with you. Maybe even 2500 former USIS employees. I could be mistaken though.
Blaming homemakers and retirees for USIS’ corruption…of course.