April 14, 2023 | WASHINGTON, D.C. “” Last night, a former employee filed a class-action lawsuit against a tech-training and employee-staffing agency, Smoothstack, Inc. (Smoothstack). This new lawsuit alleges that Smoothstack steals wages from employees and pushes them to sign predatory Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs), putting them on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in debt if they tried to leave or were fired from low-wage tech jobs working on projects for some of the largest corporations in the world.
A copy of the complaint filed on behalf of former Smoothstack recruit and consultant Justin O’Brien by Outten & Golden LLP, Towards Justice, McGillivary Steele Elkin, and the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) is available here.
Smoothstack promises to train tech workers to pursue careers as information technology (IT) professionals and place these workers at firms that include Accenture (NYSE: ACN), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), CapitalOne (NYSE: COF), and Bloomberg.