Practice Match Services .... scam?

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codeb1ue

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Has anyone had experience with this group Practice Match Services? They are VERY aggressive in their recruitment tactics and often go through the operator of the hospital to page me so that I would have to return the page not knowing who it is. They do this on a daily basis despite them knowing my cellphone number (guessing they know I can just ignore it in that case).

They told me they got all my information from my program administrator and thus want to simply "confirm" everything with me and get additional information. However when I spoke to the administrator later, she said she would NEVER give out our information to any company even if for recruitment purposes.

At first I was slightly annoyed but now that this is going on literally EVERYDAY multiple times throughout the day, I am now getting fed up and don't know how to stop it.

Members don't see this ad.
 
if you have asked them to stop trying to contact you, you can file an fcc complaint if you know their company's official business name and address, etc. if your goal is to punish them, the fcc can fine them some amount per call after you told them to stop. something like 500 $? i forgot the exact number. I'm not sure what the process is to get them fined. might have to take photos of your pages or screenshots if your pager history is tied to the hospitals intranet, and make a spreadsheet of the date, time, # etc.

well, this is from experience with telemarketers calling home, not sure what happens if they're contacting you outside of home. i would think there's something doctors can do about paged telemarketing?

if they use some popular physician recruiting websites, you could write the sites emails and try to get their company banned from posting? probably not a high chance of success. or start a google profile of their company or if there's one already in existence, you can write a review and hopefully it would influence doctor's job search activities.

or maybe next time you call back and find out it's them, tell them you already have a contract with someone else and to stop wasting yours and their time. maybe some of the senior residents or recent attendings have experience with this with the availability of physician contact info on the internet.
 
Not sure where the info comes from, but towards the end of residency I think everyone starts getting those calls (not from that company in particular). I told each company that I wasn't interested and the calls dropped off. Have you tried that, or have you just been hanging up on them/saying you cant's talk right now/some other statement they might misconstrue as you being ok with them calling you again? If you have told them not to call I would follow IMdoc's advice. Also, make a complaint to the BBB. There is only one complaint against the company and it is similar to yours (but they defended themselves by saying the calls were made but the person didn't answer, so I would recommend staying on the line long enough to get the name of the person you are telling not to call again, so that it can go with the complaint if they still call)
 
I would also encourage you to report this to your program. This happened once awhile ago in my program, and several of my residents alerted me. I contacted my hospital's legal department, and they contacted the company and told them that they were consuming our hospital's resources (the operator's time, resident time, etc) and that if they didn't stop immediately we would take legal action.
 
Thanks for the advice. I will talk to my program next week and see if they can contact them to stop the harassment. I thought maybe this site was some scam but perhaps it's the aggressive nature of recruitment companies that I'm just not used to yet.
 
Yeah it's not just this company. I started getting calls as a 3rd year surgical resident and all the companies used the exact same MO: page you to an outside line and then they're hard to get off the phone.

If you've been forceful with them (and I never had any problems if I told them I wasn't interested and to stop calling), then pushing it up to your program is the right thing to do.
 
I received an email from the program co-od that said something to the effect " The information Dr. XXX requested cannot be given over email & we need to talk to him about it"

I called & sure enough it was a recruiting firm. I nicely asked them not to lie like that again & the fact that I am still 1.5 years away from graduation.
Nevertheless, they did it again 3-4 days later.

So I posted their number under a false Craigslist ad 🙂
 
That is the best Idea ever! Strong work....next time someone starts incessantly calling me? Boom- craigs list ad, haha I love it.
 
I received an email from the program co-od that said something to the effect " The information Dr. XXX requested cannot be given over email & we need to talk to him about it"

I called & sure enough it was a recruiting firm. I nicely asked them not to lie like that again & the fact that I am still 1.5 years away from graduation.
Nevertheless, they did it again 3-4 days later.

So I posted their number under a false Craigslist ad 🙂

Under for sale with an absurdly good price, or under personals as a girl who is DTF?
 
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