12 Common Bad Experiences With Virtual Assistants – Top Red Flags to Watch For

Virtual assistant bad experiences can cost you time, money, and peace of mind—but Stealth Agents eliminates that risk with thoroughly vetted professionals, clear workflows, and guaranteed reliability. If you want dependable support without the usual headaches, Stealth Agents is the smart, stress-free solution.

 

For many business owners, virtual assistants provide significant support to their businesses. Today, business owners hire offshore virtual assistants because they can reap great benefits. Not to mention that the money business owners have to spend on virtual assistants is significantly less compared to employing in-house staff.   Hiring virtual assistants is one of the most effective ways to boost productivity and profitability.

 

Still, there are risks that every entrepreneur needs to be prepared for—and these risks are very possible, especially if you have hired “bad” virtual assistants. Moving forward, let us explore everyday experiences with virtual assistants through the stories of entrepreneurs who have shared their insights.

 

Why do businesses use virtual assistants for ad management?

Businesses utilize virtual assistants for ad management because they simplify complex tasks, such as managing ad budgets, targeting the right audience, and enhancing campaign results. A trusted virtual assistant helps you focus on growing your fashion business and eliminates worries about overspending or missing deadlines.

 

Many companies read reviews of virtual assistants to find reliable support, as they want to avoid issues like what a bad assistant might cause, including miscommunication or errors. Virtual assistants can perform specialized tasks, such as handling overseas campaigns or coordinating influencer schedules, which are essential for businesses in the fashion retail industry.

 

Outsourcing to vetted virtual assistants ensures that you hire skilled professionals who meet your needs and save money compared to hiring full-time employees. By choosing services from one of the best offshore virtual assistant companies, you can ensure your ads are handled efficiently, even in competitive sectors like the clothing industry. Stealth Agents provides solutions that offer peace of mind by delivering top-notch services supported by client trust and experience.

 

How do businesses benefit from using virtual assistants for ad support?

Businesses benefit from virtual assistants because they offload time-consuming ad-related tasks, helping you focus on other priorities. A virtual assistant can monitor ad performance for your fashion business, track costs, and ensure your campaigns stay within budget, thereby reducing your stress and saving resources.

 

Choosing services from the best offshore virtual assistant companies or trusted providers ensures smooth operations, eliminating common concerns associated with hiring a virtual assistant. For many in the fashion retail industry, outsourcing resolves challenges like coordinating influencer ads or managing multiple-platform campaigns. With time, etc, virtual assistant reviews highlighting their track records, you’ll find the help you need to run high-performing marketing campaigns.

 

These days, businesses are turning to experts to avoid virtual assistant controversies or negative experiences, such as missed deadlines or mismanaged accounts. Stealth Agents stands out with practical solutions designed to deliver real results for growing companies in competitive industries.

 

Why are Stealth Agents trusted for virtual assistants in fashion ads?

Stealth Agents is trusted for virtual assistants in fashion ads because they focus on delivering quality work that eliminates common issues, such as concerns about hiring a virtual assistant with insufficient skills. Their team of vetted virtual assistants is experienced in handling tasks for businesses across competitive fields like fashion retail and the clothing industry.

 

Clients trust them because their approach avoids controversies, ensuring you won’t face frustrating problems like what the most negative aspects of the shopping assistant’s messages were. The company has earned a reputation through positive virtual assistant reviews, offering reliable services in areas such as influencer Google Ads management or back-office support.

 

Stealth Agents is ranked among the top 50 back-office support services and a trusted 30th debt recovery provider, making them a dependable choice for companies that need profound expertise. Their services can handle even the busiest advertising schedules, allowing you to focus on what matters most —running your fashion business. Clear communication and proven results make Stealth Agents a top choice for companies that expect professional and stress-free ad support.

 

How to avoid bad experiences with virtual assistants

One key to preventing negative experiences with virtual assistants is hiring the right ones for you and your business. The first step in hiring a virtual assistant is finding a reputable virtual assistant company.

 

Stealth Agents provides dedicated and skilled virtual assistants that help business owners grow their businesses. Offer a killer and top-notch virtual assistant. Visit their website to book for free and discuss your preferences and pricing information. Our team of experts comprises the top 1% of vetted virtual assistants, ensuring that you receive only the best.  You can book a complimentary consultation to explore what our team can do for your company before you invest any time or money.

 

Bad experiences with virtual assistants

While there are many good stories we’ve all heard about working with virtual assistants, there are also those that are total nightmares.  After speaking with nearly 100 entrepreneurs who have had negative experiences as virtual assistants in the past, we decided to share the most common issues they have faced.

 

1. Ghosting

There was one instance where we hired a freelancer to assist us in maintaining our social media site. Her credentials were excellent, and it stated that she had been a social media manager for several years. Initially, she was performing her job correctly, so we had a good employer-freelancer relationship. However, suddenly, she went offline, and she was no longer responding to our messages or doing her job.

 

Since we wanted someone to manage our social media site actively, we gave her a two-week provision to contact us. If we do not hear from her, we will terminate the contract.  We did not hear anything from her, though we see that she’s online with her social media profile and just sees our messages, but does not respond.

 

When we terminated the contract, she deleted all the content on our social media site, leaving it very bare. It was such a nightmare. This almost gave us trauma and phobia with other freelancers’ virtual assistants, but luckily, our other freelancers were still doing a great job, so we were able to pacify ourselves.

 

-Craig Miller, Co-Founder of  Academia Labs LLC

 

2. Low-quality output

After researching hiring a virtual assistant, I realized the best path forward would be to look for a video specialist rather than a generalist. After some time, I found someone who seemed to fit the position well and decided to work with them.

 

Unfortunately, the work produced by the virtual assistant wasn’t up to standard. First, the initial projects failed to meet the deadline set. The job wasn’t up to the quality I expected. Honestly, the videos we created were just as good, if not better, than what the VA provided. So, it was back to the drawing board.

 

-Hannah Alexander, Editor-in-Chief of TodayTesting.com

 

3. Plagiarism of content

I hired a virtual assistant to help with social media posting and scheduling tasks in my company. We were using a website that dealt with virtual assistants.

 

The VA was very quick at making changes, and she even seemed to understand our marketing strategy. In retrospect, I realized that she had copied most of her previous clients’ “About Us” pages and pasted them on our website. This is one of the negative experiences with a virtual assistant, as not only did they steal content from their previous clients, but they also misrepresented themselves in the process.

 

-Will Henry. Founder of Bike Smarts

 

4. Deleted products from the website

Thankfully, I’ve learned to limit access to virtual assistants. However, when I first started, I didn’t think twice about limiting the access a Shopify virtual assistant had to the backend of my Shopify store. I thought they would only enter tracking information for fulfilled orders and stop there. But what I came back to was a variety of products missing and variants deleted.

 

This was a nightmare to deal with because many of the customers believed I had engaged in a bait-and-switch tactic. After all, the product they ordered was no longer active on our site. So, I’ve learned to set powerful parameters for any new virtual assistant I consider onboarding, to minimize the chance of bad experiences with virtual assistants in the future.

 

-Jeff Neal, Engagement Officer at Critter Depot (Composting Worms Store)

 

5. Lack of commitment

Recently, some of my friends suggested that I hire a virtual assistant due to the amount of work I have. I gave it some thought and decided to give it a try. I found some sites and ultimately decided on one candidate due to her perfect resume.

 

It was great for he first two days, but after that, she was consistently late, failed to respond to my messages, and often forgot to complete essential tasks. I was so disappointed and decided to end the contract before anything further happened.

 

-Adam Korbl, Founder & CEO at Amplify Ventures

 

6. Can’t be easily reached

A couple of years ago, I hired a virtual assistant to help me with my startup. I was working remotely and needed someone to manage my schedule and handle some administrative tasks. However, I hired a person whose time zone was very different from mine – 6 hours before.

 

Staying in touch was incredibly challenging, and we frequently encountered communication issues. Additionally, when I needed him urgently, I could never reach him due to the time difference. We tried various tools and apps, but none of them were effective. After I missed the second important deadline as a result of this bad experience, I decided to end the deal.

 

-Malte Scholz, CEO and CPO of Airfocus

 

7. Data breach

My personal experience with virtual assistants was particularly troubling, as it led to a minor data breach that concerned my clients. To reduce outgoings, I’d implemented virtual assistants to take on operational tasks. However, without properly checking processes, a new employee had accessed confidential data and sold it to a competitor.

 

-Jenna Carson, Financial Partner at MoneyLucid.com

 

8. Lack of communication etiquette

I have a great virtual assistant, but the first one I hired didn’t work out. Right from the start, we encountered some communication issues. They consistently took a long time to respond to anything I sent them (and sometimes wouldn’t even answer my calls), so I never felt like they were working on their computer. Their lack of communication also made me uncertain about whether they understood the tasks I was assigning to them.

 

One day, I gave them a fairly large but not overly challenging organizational task and asked if they had any questions about how to complete it. They didn’t respond, and at the end of the day, I went to check their progress, only to find out they had done it completely wrong.

 

When I asked them about it, they said they were confused about what I wanted and just guessed. This was frustrating because I had asked them if they needed clarification, but they didn’t even respond to that. Needless to say, it didn’t work out.

 

-Jeremy Yamaguchi, CEO of Lawn Love

 

9. Failure to accomplish the task effectively

Our goal was to relieve our attorneys and paralegals from tasks that were a bottleneck for them. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we were bad at training them. We created video tutorials and step-by-step processes to guide users. After reviewing those materials, we assumed they would be self-sufficient. After a couple of weeks, the tasks they were responsible for began to fall apart.

 

We checked in with them to see what was wrong. They explained that they were getting their heads wrapped around it all. We reviewed the process again and let them go on their way—another couple of weeks passed, and the results worsened. Then, we had them show us what exactly they were doing, click by click. It turns out that they were not following the processes at all. We had to let them all go then and clean up all the files they had worked on.

 

-Shawn Breyer, Owner of The Hive Law

 

10. Acts unprofessionally

We have hired a few virtual assistants, but one messed up badly. We had her running our custom Instagram strategy, and she followed the script for a few weeks. Then, out of the blue, she started liking and commenting on graphic animal rights posts.

 

We were horrified that our followers might be seeing this activity, and we quickly revoked her access and terminated her employment. This has left us scared, and we have not allowed anyone to access our social media accounts since then.

 

-Matthew Meier, Founder of MaxTour LLC

 

11. Caused inconvenience

Booking foreign travel with an independent offshore virtual assistant who had no organizational operating procedures in place to oversee this practice was a headache in my case. Why, after all, do you require operating procedures for something that should be so obvious? It turns out, however, that this is not the case for offshore virtual assistants (VAs). I took a journey from the United States to Eastern Europe.

 

On the way, I decided to stop in Croatia for a few days. Because my VA is offshore and hasn’t travelled internationally, she didn’t know that a connecting flight should take at least three hours.  Needless to say, I ended up paying twice the price to get back to the US on the same day. This bad experience with a virtual assistant cost me a significant amount of money and time, and the delay and inconvenience were unimaginable.

 

-James Stephenson, Co-Founder of EpicWin App

12. Lack of competence

When I first launched my company’s website, I planned to hire a virtual assistant (VA) to help visitors navigate the site. However, this proved a bad decision, as the VA was incompetent, did not serve its purpose, and directed visitors toward services they were not looking for.

 

Initially, I suspected an issue with the server, as there were fewer visitors, but it was eventually the VA that created problems.

 

-Marilyn Gaskell, Founder & Hiring Manager of TruePeopleSearch

 

Reasons for a bad experience: A virtual assistant’s story

1. Miscommunication between the user and the virtual assistant can result in frustration and disappointment.

 

2. Virtual assistants may not always be able to comprehend colloquial or informal language, leading to a breakdown in communication.

 

3. Technical glitches can disrupt the performance of virtual assistants, resulting in inaccurate responses or incomplete tasks.

 

4. Human error is also a factor that can lead to a negative experience with virtual assistants.

 

5. Even advanced AI technology is susceptible to mistakes, which can frustrate and dissatisfy the user.

 

6. Not being able to configure virtual assistants personally can also lead to a bad experience. Because they are trained to help a wide range of people, they may not always provide the answers or solutions you need.

 

7. Inadequate training or development of the virtual assistant can result in a poor user experience. If the AI is not adequately trained to handle various tasks and scenarios, it may struggle to provide satisfactory results.

 

8. Poor connectivity or internet issues can also disrupt the performance of virtual assistants, leading to a frustrating experience for the user.

 

9. Outdated technology or lack of updates can also contribute to a negative experience with virtual assistants. As technology evolves rapidly, outdated virtual assistant programs may struggle to keep pace with the latest advancements and deliver efficient services.

 

10. A lack of usability in LA can also lead to a poor experience with the assistant. If AI mishandles personalization, it can result in a loss of trust and dissatisfaction among users.

 

Takeaways

The list of bad experiences with virtual assistants stated above should not be the reason for not hiring VAs. These everyday bad experiences with virtual assistants only teach you to be careful who you let into your company.

 

Find some time to find the perfect fit for your company. By applying the proper outsourcing practices, you can land dedicated virtual assistants whom you can rely on and who can help you achieve success. Most importantly, you can avoid such a bad virtual assistant experience.