Headset for phone

Ibex Global, once a top employer in Bend, said workers were not significantly impacted by the closure of its offices on Hill Street last week. Employees who worked at the call center say scores are out of a job and were fired without recourse.

Those are the varying viewpoints that emerged over the weekend after nearly 200 people departed the call center company for good.

On Friday, company spokesperson Daniel Burris told The Bulletin that Ibex was shifting to a fully work-at-home model. “We do not expect significant employee turnover following this transition in Bend,” Burris told the Bulletin.

But Burris’ comments did not reflect the views of former employees at the Bend location.

Social media posts indicated that scores of employees had been let go and the company was unable to offer employees a transfer to other departments after the branch’s sole contract, with DirectTV, ended.

A letter from IBEX viewed by The Bulletin suggests that workers on the DirectTV campaign could not be transferred to another campaign. The letter, forwarded from a former Ibex employee, was signed by Paul Inson, Ibex’s chief people officer.

The Bulletin spoke with three former employees who declined to be named because they feared Ibex would take legal action against them. The Bulletin normally does not use anonymous sources but for the purposes of this story, it cites their comments because three or more people have corroborated reports about the layoffs.

Additional questions to Burris revealed a different set of responses on Saturday. A day after stating there would be no significant impact to jobs, Burris said he could not provide a specific number of employees impacted “out of respect for their privacy” but said that approximately 100 employees were laid off.

Burris, Ibex’s senior director for public relations and communications, said the company is “looking for other opportunities across IBEX” with a goal of later hiring back employees.

The sources who spoke to The Bulletin stated the actual number of jobs cut was between 150 to 200.

A work-from-home model was not offered to most employees, they said. Employees who lost their jobs say they were not given a severance package or assistance in finding new employment.

Don Myll, Bend area director for Economic Development for Central Oregon, said Consumer Cellular in Redmond is the other main call center in the region and could be a place for former Ibex employees to seek employment.

“Whether or not they are an option with open positions, I don’t know,” said Myll. “EDCO will do its best to facilitate connection.”

Former employees said they learned of the layoffs in early March and were told their jobs would be gone at the end of the month. The jobs were reportedly shipped overseas.

“No one was sent to work remotely. They sent our jobs to the Philippines, and they laid everyone off,” said one person who requested anonymity.

“They didn’t give us a 30-day notice. They told us on March 5th that we would be laid off. No one got severances. We all got a letter saying that our job has been permanently eliminated. They said our client was cheaper to move to the Philippines,” the employee said.

The employee said a final check was picked up on Thursday, and the former employee has already applied for unemployment and food stamps.

“Business tactic wise they did us dirty,” the employee said. “I feel the company is not doing good financially. They were cutting off loose ends that were costing them money.”

Ibex, a Nasdaq-listed company based in Washington, D.C., offers customer phone and email support on behalf of multiple brand names.

DirectTV, Walmart, Fitbit, 1-800 Dentist and Apple are a few of the companies that Ibex contracted with at the Bend location, according to former employees. Ibex has had its offices on Hill Street in Bend since 2000.

DirectTV, which is owned by AT&T, was the only contract Ibex had in Bend at the time of closure. As recently as 2022, Ibex was Bend’s 12th largest employer with 365 jobs, according to Economic Development for Central Oregon. Pre-pandemic, more than 500 workers were employed at the Bend location.

Ibex maintains customer support offices in several countries, including Jamaica, the Philippines, Pakistan, Senegal, Honduras and Nicaragua. Ibex’s parent company is Pakistan-based TRG International.

The company employs about 30,000 workers globally, including 12,000 in the Philippines. According to jobstreet.com, an employment website, call center workers in the Philippines earn $366 to $550 a month.

As recently as 2020 the company was ramping up efforts to expand the Bend location. At that time the company said it would hire more than 300 workers to staff its offices, with starting pay at $18 per hour.

Bob Dechant, Ibex Global chief operating officer, did not respond to two emails sent by The Bulletin seeking clarification following the conflicting reports between former Bend-based employees and Burris. Burris also did not respond to a question about Ibex Bend jobs being outsourced to the Philippines.