Better.com flooded with negative reviews after 900 employees laid off via Zoom

“If you choose to support this company you are as bad ad the CEO who made this decision,” reviewer writes

Digital mortgage company Better.com has been flooded with critical reviews online after the company's CEO fired 900 staffers over a Zoom call last week.

Vishal Garg, the CEO of the company, told the 900 employees that they were the “unlucky group” who were going to be let go just weeks before Christmas. He terminated their employment “effectively immediately”.

The CEO told his employees that he would do his best not to cry over their termination, and repeatedly said he did not want to have to fire them, but explained that the “market had changed”.

However, Mr Garg's claim that he was reluctant to fire the employees was undermined by an anonymous blog post later attributed to him on social network Blind.

In the post, he accused his workers of being “lazy and unproductive” and accused them of “stealing” from the company and their colleagues by only working two hours a day despite logging eight.

Critics blasted the company on review site Trustpilot, leaving numerous one-star reviews largely and messages expressing their disdain for Mr Garg.

“Terrible company led by a horrible man,” one reviewer wrote. “Laying off this many people at this time of the year is a horrible thing to do and all to line his own pockets whilst blaming those he laid off.”

Another reviewer said that the company would treat its customers the same way it treated its employees.

“Led by a CEO who lays off 900 people in a single Zoom call, just before Christmas and after a huge cash injection from investors. If that's the sort of company you want to give your money to then...” they wrote. “If they treat staff like that think how they'll treat customers.”

Another user asked readers to “imagine firing 900 employees over a zoom call,” calling the company “absolutely awful, awful”.

“If you choose to support this company you are as bad ad the CEO who made this decision,” they wrote.

Even after the deluge of negative reviews, Better.com still has a 75 per cent “Excellent” review rating on Trustpilot.

The review bomb came a day after Mr Garg's mass termination made headlines and blew up on social media.

Despite the backlash, Better.com is still viewed as one of the most promising startups of the last decade. The company is set to go public around the turn of the year, and its implied valuation is $6.9bn.