The following was sent to Aplus.net in responce to their request for info regarding our cancellation 02/12/07:
"I spoke with one of your reps' in early September (he was very polite and patient by the way) and said I was looking for a site to be designed very similar to one I had seen that I liked and gave him a link. He sends me a quote detailing our discussion on October 5 and saying Aplus net could provide a site that looked like that (no mention of a template). It looked great! Here's my money and I'm looking forward to cancelling my current service (bought the hosting package as well as the design package), and hey, let's upgrade to the next package.
Then the trouble begins. The project manager and "Sole Point of Contact" I'm assigned has poor communication skills and keeps pushing a template on me (not mentioned in the quote). We attempt to go with it, but every time we try to make any alteration, such as enlarging an image/frame or adding text, the answer is can't be done or more money. We do this extremely awkward dance thru Thanksgiving at the end of November, when we finally involve the original sales rep and Russ Gilman. We tug-o-war a bit longer until my company and I go to cancel the lack of service and alert the sales rep.
The sale is saved again as I'm finally assigned a new project manager. It's now December 14th and I'm not even close to going live thru Aplus. I fortunately still have my existing webspace which I have yet to cancel, even though it's 3X the cost.
I have no visitors to speak of because I'm hoping to promote a site that looks better than what I can script. Oh, did I mention that with the old PM we did finally settle on a workable template (albeit still different from the quote) and extra $300 (we're already $300 over budget with no site to show and waning confidence and we were only expecting to spend $1500 so we could spend $5000 - $10000 on promotion) for a script that will allow the site to look like the template.
Boy! It's a great thing we don't think this was a "Bait and Switch" (Please note sarcasm).
So. We now have our new PM and boy she's great! She's a good listener, good communication skills and pretty on the ball, it's a shame she goes to a 3day week 1 or 2 weeks in, but we push on through, clarify some issues, tell her to dump all previous files and send her all new. We have "Content Complete" on Monday January 15. We get sent a link and everything so we can watch the progress. Nothing happens for eight (8) business days. I get a voice mail from my PM that all of the designers are out sick or something/can't make it in due to the weather. Snow.
Wait a sec. Aren't you guys in San Diego? Okay, whatever, we've waited this long what's another day or so. We've hit the preview link and given that my company and I design and build furniture, we know things tend to look a little scary when roughing out. This will surely look a lot more like the template when submitted for approval. Wed Feb 07, 16 days later we receive the link submission for "Final Review".
I'm sure you heard the term "Shock and Awe", how about "Shocked and Appalled"? Our PM is kidding right? This Barely resembles the template chosen and where's our Logo and the typeface that we sent to them? Who are we? Employees are looking at the site and wondering whose site it is and having a good laugh to boot (embarassment). So. We send a four (4) page review comment sheet detailing page by page the corrections that need to be made, we only asked for three (3) minor changes. The changes were made. The corrections weren't.
I have scripted the site myself 3 times over the entire course of this interaction (once this weekend just past) I've included a link to the template promised:
http://design. Aplus.net/templates/www/screenshots/7200/7276.html
A link to the the site undelivered:
http://aplusnetdesign.com/odgfurniture.com/index.html
And a link to my version of the template:
http://odgfurniture.com/
I would be happy to provide copies of all emails from the beginning of this process, including the original quote.
Twice Aplus.net has sold us something that it has not delivered. We now kindly request a refund on the basis that your design services are either inept or fraudulent.
Regards,
Heres the latest take on the situation an email from the billing department:
Dear (my name),
Thank you for using Aplus.net. Your hosting plan has been closed per your written request. Aplus.net doesn't prorate refunds, therefore your hosting plan is set to close on 10/9. Please refer to your service agreement which can be located in your control panel.
Best Regards,
Suzi Andreas
Billing Agent Level one
Aplus.net (www.aplus.net) "Everything for your online business"
In other words too bad weve BSd on your sight for 4 months and no we wont refund you for services undelivered.
0 comments