Employees of Jacksonville telecommunications company plan to sue after weeks without pay

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A group of employees are coming together to file a class action lawsuit against a Jacksonville company after they said their dream job turned into a nightmare.

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“It meant I could provide for my family better. I finally got a job that I thought was paying me my worth,” Rhonda Wilson said.

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She took a supervisor position for the new telecommunications company in December last year. Empress Professions was hiring AT&T service reps to work from home. Wilson’s job would’ve paid $20 an hour with extra benefits.

“I wanted to devote 100 percent to this job. It was up and coming. A new company,” Wilson said. She even quit her previous job to take this one. While she said she put in 100%, Wilson claimed she got nothing in return.

Wilson said she’s owed about $2,400 after three weeks of work without pay. She’s not the only one. Action News Jax told you last week that 30 people were in a similar situation as a result. The employees were from across Jacksonville and even over state lines as far as California.

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“I feel like I’ve been robbed. Like I’ve been taken advantage of,” John Stevenson said. He was hired to handle training for the employees.

Many of them would get notifications from the payroll company called Fingercheck that a paycheck was on the way. Then they claim they would wake up the next morning with nothing in their bank account, but would still receive a pay stub. Many have gone weeks without a paycheck.

The owner of Empress Professions, Sharessa Taylor, told Action News Jax’s Robert Grant last week that it was a payroll issue and Fingercheck was holding the funds to verify her account.

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In a statement, Fingercheck said “it does not hold or verify funding,” and that is instead the job of the client’s bank.

Fingercheck also said Empress was on wire status, which means the business would wire funds to the bank to be released to employees. In the case of Empress, Fingercheck said the owner “did not complete any wires...which means the employees are not paid because there’s no funds.”

Employees told Action News Jax that Empress Professions is still hiring. An email to a prospective employee shows they were setting up interviews days after our previous report. Action News Jax reached out to Taylor with the same phone numbers we talked to her on last week, but both are now disconnected.

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The Attorney General’s office has received five complaints which were forwarded to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Department of Labor.

An incident report from JSO said some employees “learned that Sharessa Taylor was arrested in 2023 for grand theft. The complainant believes she has been scammed.”

According to court documents, Taylor was arrested last year and found guilty of grand theft for stealing thousands of dollars worth of gift cards from the vault of a Southside company.

These employees plan to take this current case to court with a class action lawsuit so that someone is held accountable.

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“As old as I am, truth be told, it’s hard to start back over and right now I’m just holding on and hoping relief will come in some way.”

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