Employment agency says Quirky owes it $77K

PHOTOGRAPHER: Peter R. Barber

Quirky's offices on the fifth floor of City Center in Schenectady are shown in this July 16 photo.

An Albany employment agency is taking legal action against Quirky in hopes of recouping more than $77,000 it says it’s owed for staffing the invention company’s Schenectady office.

Fusco Personnel filed a complaint Friday in state Supreme Court in Albany County asking a judge to compel Quirky to pay the outstanding bill, plus any interest and attorneys’ fees.

The firm agreed to supply Quirky with temporary staffing services around Nov. 11, 2014, and did so up until July 8 of this year, according to the complaint. The full amount it’s owed is $77,639.93, it says. Neither company responded to request for comment Friday afternoon.

Quirky is very publicly out of money. Founder and former CEO Ben Kaufman admitted as much earlier this summer as his company was in the midst of massive downsizing. A couple weeks later, Kaufman was replaced by Quirky’s chief financial officer, Ed Kremer.

It’s unclear just what the company’s game plan is these days. Kaufman had spoken publicly about trying to raise money to keep both Quirky and Wink (a connected-home platform it spun off last year as a subsidiary) afloat or selling one or both.

Many employees say there’s little life left in Quirky, which was founded in 2009 on the premise of making invention accessible for ordinary people around the world. Its Wink, they say, that shows real promise. The Wink platform allows anyone with a smartphone or tablet to activate air conditioners, thermostats, lights, security cameras and locks with the tap of a finger.

Schenectady may just be its last lifeline. Quirky was headquartered in Manhattan and had three additional locations — Hong Kong, San Francisco and Schenectady. Hong Kong and San Francisco have been shuttered. And Manhattan was hit with 109 layoffs in just the past few weeks, according to a filing with the state Department of Labor.

Schenectady also suffered layoffs. At its highest, the office had 150 employees. That number was 72 as of last month, according to a Wink spokesman, though local employees told the Gazette the number was as low as 50. But local employees also say their office — a customer service and quality assurance center that opened on the top two floors of Center City last spring — is crucial to the entire Wink operation.

The call center is a 24/7 operation, and employees have the technical skills to troubleshoot any issues that arise for customers, from connectivity to syncing devices. If Wink is to survive, the employees say, so must the Schenectady office.