Allied Universal Enhanced Protection Services reviews

Training is weak. Some of the trainers are good, but others think that it is acceptable to yell and treat grown men and women like police cadets. Most of the people in my training class were retired police officers and this style was not received well. The EDCs are food reward, which is very time consuming as a handler. Play reward is used by almost every other law enforcement agency and private 'security' dog company in the world. Scheduling is terrible. The schedulers (mid-level management) don't care if you only have several hours between shifts and think nothing of juggling the schedule to meet their needs. If you take this job, you should be single and have no friends or family - otherwise, you will end up constantly canceling plans because your schedule changed. The company does not care about the employees or the EDCs. If your EDC gets injured, they will not pay for the vet bills until it is approved by the director of EDCs, which means you will have already gone to the vet and paid out of pocket OR the medical visit is denied. Finally, the pay is ridiculous. The salary is far lower than comparable companies and the stipend doesn't even begin to cover your fees for the month (food, EDC equipment, gas, travel, etc.). Also, trying to get your monies owed outside of your regular station (eg travel) is difficult at best. You need to keep an very accurate spreadsheet and keep hounding MSA HQ for your money, which takes far too much time and energy to be worth it.

The starting salary is $2.00 less an hour than it was 20 years ago. Now it takes 3 years to make what guys were making during the 1990's. The pay is okay for security work, but it should be a lot more for the specialized field of being a Bomb Dog Handler. 99% of the work is in Manhattan, so tack on an extra hour of commuting time and related stress each way to deal with that. The Scheduling Dept is the worst. You have to turn your phone off on your days off for peace of mind. They are constantly calling you to work same day or next day assignments they forgot to fill. Then when they screw up it takes a thousand phone calls and six months to get paid for an assignment they forgot to put in the system. If your worksite closes for the day due to weather or any other reason your are not compensated for it even though you were scheduled to work and agreed to work that amount of hours for the day. Unless your a chosen one assigned to a cushy spot you will be pushing 50 hours a week and the company considers you a "per diem" employee so they don't have to give you the benefits of full time employees. On the other hand, they break your chops to work more hours if you are under 40 hours for the week because they want their money out of the dog. You are required to have a car to transport the dog to and from work/ training and they also use your personal cell phone's GPS to track your location when you sign in and out. You are also required to spend hours a day on your days off training the dog without compensation. The monthly stipend amount has not changed in 25 years and it does not even begin to cover your expenses. They hold the dog over your head. There are plenty of horror stories about how they take your dog away if it gains weight, if your out sick for an extended period of time, if you resign or if they promised the dog to the original handler (without ever informing you that it would happen.). The dog who is only property to them, becomes part of your family and they snatch it away from you before you know what happened. Most of the older guys only stay because they don't want to lose their dogs. A handler who has recently left the company has since been arrested for not returning his dog. It's amazing this kind of treatment goes on in today's times.