CABL Forum - SBG Digital

Consider the following before dealing with SBG Digital, also known as Satellite, Cellular, and HDTV out of Clyde, NC:

The owners are Barry and Sherry Garnes. They do some in-house work, but get most of their jobs from Mastec. A friend of mine and I worked for them for several months starting in the fall of 2006. They were expanding into the upstate of SC and needed some techs here. Initially the conditions were pretty good, much better than they had been when we worked for Suburban Services. They seemed like nice enough people who actually cared about their techs.

Over time the conditions steadily degraded. They stopped meeting us half way to bring equipment down from NC. We had to start driving the 80 miles up there to get equipment, which wouldn't have been too bad if it was at most once every week or two, but they wouldn't give us enough at one time so we kept having to make special trips. It seemed we would either have equipment and not enough jobs or jobs and not enough equipment. There wasn't enough SC work so we had to drive to NC for about half the jobs. We routinely got the Mastec leftovers - rough neighborhoods, apartments, upgrades, etc.

They didn't keep a good enough track of inventory and ended up with a bunch of receivers not accounted for. When Mastec put the screws to them we took a substantial pay cut. Not long afterwards we had to start buying our own drop materials (standard in this business but not part of our original deal), and only got a $5 increase per install to cover the costs - they claim to have techs averaging $5 in materials per install (DirecTV), but I just can't see it, not a quality install anyway.

Several times I had to go round and round with them over pay shortages to get it resolved. It seems they don't even check the totals on your invoice against their totals before issuing a check. The pay stubs they supply do not indicate what jobs they are paying you for or even what week it is for or what if anything they deducted for (except equipment). So you get a short check with no indication where the discrepancy is.

Now that we finally quit working for them it's been almost 4 months and I haven't received my last paycheck. My buddy is missing his final two paychecks, and they are wanting to charge him for two receivers he never received. Most of the negative changes I blame on Mastec, but Barry and Sherry have to take the blame for a good deal of it too. We keep getting the run-around about our last paychecks, and they will not return our phone calls. Barry promised a month ago to have this resolved and again two weeks ago that we should receive our checks that week - still no check. I guess we'll have to go the lien or demolition permit route. I have heard that DirecTV will help you get paid if you call and ask them. Any comments or suggestions?

INSTALLATION

CONSTRUCTION / TECH

OFFICE / OTHER

SBG Digital