Minimax Consulting Complaint

Reviewed by jrdennis2000 Please Improve

0

The purpose of this message is to warn against PhD students using Minimax Consulting to do the statistical analysis for their dissertation. Minimax Consulting states that they have designed their program with the needs of PhD students in mind....I just want to let you know that they are simply in this for the money. This is a small organization masked as a large firm, they will steel your money, ill-advise you on the appropriate techniques to use, and fail to maintain contact when it is essential. They over estimate their understanding of particularly Structural Equation Modeling as well as their understanding of what dissertation committees expect from their students. For example, as part of their package they state they will write up you results for you. I didn't need this, but they charge me for it any way. I went to them for assistance with MPLUS because I couldn't find anyone else and I wanted to get my analysis done quickly. They ended up delaying my project, gave me an analysis I couldn't use, and treated the analysis process as if it was a one-run process instead of the back and forth you would expect with SEM.

When I searched for a negative review on this company, I could find none. So I wanted to ensure that anyone doing the proper research about the company before engaging with them will at least see one negative review. Stay away from Minimax Consulting....they are a bunch of mathematicians and economist that have no understanding of how to do business with PhD students. There motto is 'make it quick', 'close the door', 'move on'.

Just so that I don't sound totally bitter, I want to let you know that in the post-minimax period, I found an excellent statistician with a company called Elite Research....check them out at eliteresearch.com. They are a much better choice and have much better customer service. Rene from Elite provided me the following services:

1. She requested my dissertation proposal so that she could get a sense of where I was coming from and the theoretical framework.
2. She scheduled a telephone meeting with me to discuss the analysis plan that I had drawn up for her. I used AMOS to model out the analysis plan and asked questions about each step of the analysis and my coding techniques.
3. She completed a preliminary descriptive data analysis and advised me on re-categorizing the data, the appropriate range for indicators (3-7), she expressed concern about my sample size but stated it would be used to justify the findings.
4. she estimated the time for the analysis to be 10 hours at $75.00/hr and advised me that if it started to go over that she would let me know.
5. she provided me with a template for writing up my own results.
6. Most important! She made me apart of the process.

O.K. the above is what a good statistician does and what I was expecting from Minimax Consulting. On all six, minimax get a 0/10.

1. They never requested my dissertation proposal...instead they treated this as just a mathematical problem to be solved....and oh forget theoretical understanding.
2. Even though, I expected a telephone meeting with the statistician, they proceed with the analysis without as much as a phone call. I was pretty specific about what I wanted and gave them the same plan for analysis as Rene at Elite, but their idea of an analysis is very different from what would be expected. Like I said, they just set aside time to run the numbers....no discussion warranted or needed.
3. They didn't complete a preliminary descriptive data analysis and when I asked for recommendations after the analysis didn't come together as expected, they said they had none. But Rene at Elite had recommendations before she even ran the analysis.
4. The folks at Minimax recoded my data without as much as an e-mail or a telephone discussion. That's unheard of in our world.
5. Instead of charging me hourly or estimating the amount of time the project would take, Minimax charge me a project fee. It amounted to $1700 US. Yeah I know, but I was desparate for someone to do the analysis. This is a lot of money but I thought o.k. I'll just do it.
6. I should have wised up when they said I would have to pay up front for the service. Oh, I had the option of paying half for them to start and half for them to send the results. Furthermore they only accepted Bank Draft or Money Transfer. (o.k. hind sight is 20/20). I should have known that a company that is 'currently having trouble with MC and VISA' were either fraudulent, too small to handle the monthly service fee, or had had trouble with students in the past. In fact I said this out loud to my sister who sent the money transfer for me. I should have trusted my instinct. I considered sending them half the money but in the end, I thought I could trust them to advise me correctly and do a good job. To avoid a $60 service charge I sent them the entire $1700.

In the end, I couldn't use their analysis because they advised me to go back to using AMOS because it could manage my level of data using Bayesian Estimates. I discovered after the fact that because the Bayesian estimates require the intercepts from the initial AMOS window and that window doesn't handle categorical data well...the whole thing was a wash.

After becoming increasing concerned and angry about the analysis and the lack of communication I tried to move on from this company. I asked them to charge me for the work done to date and refund the rest of my money. There response was they charge on a per-project basis so no money would be refunded. I have now done the same analysis myself using the AMOS user guide and it took me all of one hour. Barron Gatti, agreed to re-run my analysis in MPLUS and then after 1 week decided he had never agreed to do this. Hate to be crude but especially Barron is an ASSHOLE.

Like I have said, they are all business, no heart. The type of company shouldn't be doing business with phd students. They simply sensed a need in the market and thought they could make a lot of money filling it.

For your statistical work, contact Elite Research. Their level of understanding and frankly professionalism is 100% better than minimax. Minimax completed half the agreed upon analysis and charge me $1700. my entire analysis with Elite will cost about $800.

Good luck with your project.

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