August 29, 2025

I was mindlessly doomscrolling through Reddit the other day, as one does, when I stumbled upon: "Company to avoid - Smarttech247", by u/NightMercy9.

For the record, your Honour, In this article I’ll only be translating and sharing this find, not making accusations. Consider this more of a curiosity than a verdict.

And as always, take anything you read online with a healthy pinch of salt.

I’ll be your humble interpreter today, translating both the post itself and the screenshots the OP shared.

This is also the perfect spot for a legal disclaimer:

This article summarizes a Reddit post and publicly available reviews. Accuracy has not been independently verified.

Any opinions shared here are just that - my opinions. I am not making a judgement call, or a legal statement.

Alright, enough foreplay. Let’s dive straight into the drama.

Hello everyone.

Since layoffs are the flavor of the season, I figured I’d share a little story about this “wonderful” company and its management 🤣.

TL;DR: me and about 9 colleagues were laid off because a client ended their contract with the company. Technically our contracts weren’t tied to that client or project, so we could’ve been reassigned elsewhere. But management decided it was easier to promote us to customers.

During the meeting with our manager and HR, they kept rambling on about how they were blindsided, and had only recently found out that the client wanted to leave.

The truth is that they had known that the client was looking for the door for about a year, so jokes on us.

But hey, why be transparent when you can lie and fire people in one go?

When we asked about being reassigned, the company's director told us:

There’s no budget for training.
If I put you on another project without training, I’ll personally fire you after a month for being useless.
It’s normal, we’re not a big company like Ubisoft.

(Yes, he actually compared Smarttech247 to Ubisoft. Different industries, different worlds, but ok.)

The kicker: during a live meeting, with the whole team watching, the manager was literally tabbing over to ChatGPT mid-conversation, copy-pasting prompts for “legal justifications,” and then parroting the answers back to the team. No shame, no attempt at subtlety 🤡

When they realized we wouldn’t resign voluntarily, well, that's when shit really hit the fan...

“Full remote” suddenly became “hybrid”, but only for those of us in our notice period.

A colleague living in another city, working night shifts alone, was suddenly told to come to the office… to sit there. Alone. At night. (And yes, they knew where he lived. And yes, the contract said remote. But apparently contracts don't matter anymore.)

Then they dangled a carrot:

Hey, you could always resign and just courier us your equipment. Much easier than making the trip.

Funny, because official policy until then was no couriering documents ever.

They even messed up their own timeline: the HR email said the reasons for dismissal were analyzed on the 22nd, but most of us got the "back to office" notice on the 20th. Now, either HR unlocked time travel, or they're lying through their teeth.

Speaking of reasons, here are the official “justifications” copy-pasted into every termination letter:

Let's break it down:

• Technical skill transferability – which they never actually tested, all we got were nonsensical questions about procedures.
• Job performance and evaluation – we all had good reviews.
• English proficiency – our entire job was in English.
• Autonomy and critical thinking – many of us worked solo night shifts and delivered. Whenever we suggested improvements, they were ignored.
• Motivation for professional development – plenty of us paid for our own courses and certs. They promised company-sponsored certifications that, shocker, never materialized.
• Willingness to learn new tech – we did. Constantly. Apparently it didn't matter to them.

Meanwhile, two people were secretly rehired (to dodge “collective dismissal” laws). Others were demoted, or shifted sideways with no salary adjustment.

Those who stayed got slapped with a 90-day “probation period” despite already being on indefinite contracts.

Management still had the audacity to send a heartfelt email about how we “all mattered” and would receive “the respect we deserve.” (What that actually meant: expect cold stares, zero greetings, and passive-aggressiveness whenever you set foot in the office.)

Promotions? Reserved for whoever kissed up hardest. Merit had nothing to do with it.

On Undelucram (the Romanian Glassdoor), they keep posting glowing reviews to bury the bad ones. Even organized an internal contest:

Whoever writes the nicest review gets a 200 RON (~ 40€/$45) bonus.

Oh, and the cherry on top: salaries. On some projects, the base pay is McDonald’s-level. When asked about raises:

It’ll happen someday, but right now times are tough.

Fun fact: the moment we left, suddenly there was budget for team buildings, trainings, reallocation… and surprise, new clients appeared. Even HR staff started quitting, realizing the place was too toxic.

That’s about it. Attaching proof so the HR squad can’t just sweep in with “we deny these accusations.”

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, I’m not here to hand out verdicts. I want to make this clear, just like I said at the start - I’m not a judge, jury, or HR manager with a ChatGPT tab open. I can only translate, share, and let you decide for yourself.

My personal take? The OP comes armed with some fairly damning receipts, and if even half of it is true, it paints a pretty unflattering picture.

Will Smarttech247 issue a public statement? Hopefully. Are they obliged to? Absolutely not.

I did poke around to see if there are any ongoing lawsuits tied to the company. At the time of writing, nada.

That either means it’s too early, or nobody has the time, money, or patience to take this circus to court.

I also went snooping on undelucram.ro (Romania’s version of Glassdoor).

What I found was a mixed bag of glowing praise and bitter warnings. Here are some partial screenshots:

The company responded to a couple of negative reviews with the following messages:

If you want to dig even deeper, you can also check out employee reviews for yourself over on Undelucram.

Until we get more information, we’ll just have to wait and see whether this was a one-off meltdown, or business as usual.

Either way, I'd keep the popcorn close if I were you.