I have owned an e-commerce website since August. This website started off slowly, but each year it made increasing revenue until last summer when the revenue inexplicably dropped off.
At that time I started looking around for a company who could do a makeover of my site. My hope was that by making my site more user-friendly and giving it updated features the search engines would give it a better ranking resulting in more exposure and increased revenue.
On September 19, I received a phone call from a guy by the name of Brett who said he was responding to an ad I had placed in a webmasters forum. He said he worked for a company called White Crane Productions (www.whitecraneproductions.com). And we talked for about 2 hours about what I was looking for and what White Crane could do for me.
He said that White Crane had been in operation for 3 years and had many clients and one of their specialties was redoing sites for people. He also told me that they had servers which could host my website and would work with me to make sure that my site got excellent placement in the search engines.
We decided on the Silver Plan which was almost $3,000. I told him I didn't have that much to put into this project all at once. I could perhaps pay $1,000 payments for 3 months, but could not pay $3,000 all at once. He then put me on hold and after a couple of minutes came back to the phone and quoted a price of $2,500 to redo my site and then I would pay a monthly charge of $39.99 for hosting and search engine optimization.
He said that I would need to pay $1,500 immediately and the other $1,000 in a month. He told me that he would e-mail me a contract which I needed to sign and fax back and I would need to pay $1,500 up front to get the process started. He also said (as did the contract) that the additional $1,000 would automatically be withdrawn from my credit card approximately a month later.
I received the contract, read it and noted that it said exactly what we had agreed to. I then faxed it back to him. He then called me back at which time I gave him my credit card number. He then emailed me again with an attached Credit Card Authorization Form. After reading this form I signed it and faxed it back to him.
On the following Monday (September 25) I received an e-mail from a person named Jim ([email protected]) asking me very pointed questions about design layout, whether I was going to use the same products on the new site, what type of e-commerce solution I wanted to use and said to reply with my answers. He also said that someone from White Crane would be contacting me in about 3 weeks to give me a link to get in to see the progress which had been made.
Then on October 5, I received an e-mail from a guy named Ryan with several names of companies I could talk with about additional products to carry on my new site. He made a comment in the e-mail which I found a little troubling. He said, I've forwarded your account to the web development department, so they should get started soon.
The next contact I had was on Monday, November 6, when I sent an e-mail to both Ryan and Jim asking them how the new site was coming along since I hadn't heard anything from them in a while. I then received a phone call from a guy named Derrek. I asked about both Ryan and Jim and was told that one of them was on leave of absence due to an illness and the other one was on the phone with another customer. Derrek said that the programmers had just started on the site and that he would get back to me in about a week and give me some instruction about how to get in and start adding my products.
I monitor my checking account and credit card account very regularly. I noticed on the credit card account that the remaining $1,000 of the amount we had agreed upon was finally deducted on Friday, November 10.
I received another call from Derrek on Tuesday, November 14, at which time he gave me the link to get into the site they were working on for me. It was www.xxx.net/admin (name changed for privacy purposes.) He also set up the UserID and password for me. We talked for quite a while and he showed me how to get in the back office of my site and put in products and change several settings.
Derrek called me back the next Tuesday (November 21) and asked about colors for the homepage and generally what I want it to look like. He said he would call or e-mail me after Thanksgiving with a link for me to look at what the programmers had done. This was the last time I heard from or talked with anyone from White Crane.
I was busy over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and didn't really give White Crane a thought until the weekend of the SuperBowl. I again e-mailed [email protected] saying that it had been a couple of months and I had not heard anything from them. I wondered how my site was coming along. The email came back with a Delivery Status Notification (Failure). I then looked back in my email history and found every address I had ever used to get in touch with them and sent the same email to each (5 in all). Each one came back with the same Delivery Status Notification (Failure).
I then looked at every paper I had kept with phone numbers on them and called each one. Each one gave me a disconnected message. I tried to go to www.whitecraneproductions.com and got a message which said Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage. I tried going to the link Derrek had given me for my new website (www.xxx.net/admin). It gave me the same Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.
I did many Google searches and discovered that a person by the name of Brent A. Stanphill has a business license as a sole proprietor for White Crane Technologies (an AKA of White Crane Productions). I also went to US Search and got more information on Mr. Stanphill and a phone number. I called that number (425) 827-2703 and asked for Brent. A lady answered and said he didn't live there. I asked if there were another number where he could be reached and she said,
I am disputing the payment of the $2,500 because while White Crane Productions apparently did exist once and did begin work on my new website, they are now unavailable despite many tries through many types of means (including e-mail, searching the Internet, and telephone). The contract I signed in good faith promised a new website and 1 year's hosting service. I have been delivered neither. I do not even have the capability of getting into the partially finished website to be able to transfer it to another company.
I continue to investigate this company and have uncovered where a person by the name of Jeremy Avey filed for an LLC for White Crane. I have also found the name of a former employee of White Crane and have contacted him and he has verified that White Crane used in his words "mysterious business practices" and that because of that he left their employ. He also verified that both Brent Stanphill and Jeremy Avey were the owners.
He would not elaborate to me exactly what these "mysterious business practices" were, but at least knowing that there was someone out there who indeed worked at White Crane and could verify that this company was not entirely "above board" was a reassurance that I am on the right track in reporting them.
Della
Trussville, AL
USA
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