I contracted a company called Mission Marketing, Inc. (missionmarketing.com) to develop an e-commerce website for my business. Prior to selecting Mission Marketing, Inc. To do the job, I spoke on the phone and through e-mail with the president of Mission Marketing, Inc., Brett Gowder. Mr. Gowder assured me that not only could his company do the job as required, they could complete the job and launch my website in a period of about six weeks.
On May 24, I paid Brett Gowder and Mission Marketing, Inc. A substantial amount of money, in full and in advance, in hopes that he and his company would be encouraged to complete the task at hand in the shortest time possible. As I write this, it is May 2, nearly a year later, and I have yet to receive anything of value from Brett or Mission Marketing, Inc. As a matter of fact the only thing I have ever received is a totally useless home page mock-up.
Numerous attempts to communicate over the past year have gone unanswered, or on the rare occasion when I have had a reply from Brett, all I have received are excuses and appologies. A couple of months ago I told Mr. Gowder to either finish the work or return my money. He assured me he would see that the job would get done ASAP. Then nothing.
About a month ago I told him to forget the project and just return my money. Still nothing. So the only conclusion I can come to is that Brett Gowder, through his company Mission Marketing, Inc., intended to rip me off from the very beginning.
Brett has recently redesigned his own Mission Marketing, Inc. Website (missionmarketing.com) so apparently he is still soliciting business. BEWARE!
Gowder also appears to be working for a company named Ydesigns (ydesigns.com) which also goes by the name FastPivot (fastpivot.com), and would seem to be in competition with his own Mission Marketing, Inc. Company. The president and CEO of these companies, Matthew Ledford, spoke with me on the phone today and told me that Brett had worked for them on a contract basis, but he assured me his companies were no longer associated with Brett in anyway. I hung up with Mr. Ledford and dialed the toll-free number for the Ydesigns and FastPivot companies. The auto-attendant phone directory still lists Brett Gowder at extension 315, a number that I have reached Gowder at twice in the past few weeks. Draw your own conclusions.
Those who read this are obviously doing their due diligence. Something I was a fool not to do a year ago. All I can say now, there are plenty of web developers out there. Before you spend a nickel with any of them get references from them for customers who needed the same kind of job you do. Then contact the references and make sure they were satisfied with the job done! Had I done so, I doubt I'd be writing this today.
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