WEBSITEQ, aka GALACY (Im sure theyre operating under other aliases as well) is a total scam. They use shenanigan and pressure sales tactics to get clients to sign up and pay upfront for services they dont deliver. And whey they screw up, they dont even have the decency to admit it or to try and accommodate you. They just want you to pay more!
I initially contacted them for a website that I had to finish and I was under a very tight timeline and budget for delivering it. I had clients waiting for the e-commerce part of it and I needed some polishing up to do. Overall a few days of honest work. Derek, their sales rep and I, agreed on a fixed delivery date for a fixed price (550$ or the equivalent of 25hrs or work) payable AHEAD of time after which, once my site was live, I was supposed to pay an extra (550$ - also ahead of time) and get 2 years of web hosting with them. Notice how all the payments are done before they actually deliver anything. Typical of a textbook scam. They also assigned a project manager Paul, who supposedly was making sure the project would run smoothly.
Come the deadline, I noticed they had not done any of the work we had initially agreed upon on the contract. I call Paul who at first seemed not to know who I was then excused himself and said that it HAD been done. He went ahead and showed me some of my old website files which had been untouched. Obviously he had no idea what he was talking about nor what the project deliverables were. I got really pissed and because I had a deadline with my clients, I paid another developer an extra 300$ out of my pocket to finish off what they were supposed to do and get my site live. But now I had paid WebsiteQ 550$ so I asked them if I could get my money back since they failed to deliver on time. They said that since I signed the contract, it was binding, that I could not be reimbursed, and that they would do some other work for me instead. No excuses, no apologies, nothing.
At this point, I gave them another task, which I did not even want to do in the first place, just so that I can make use of my pre-paid 25hrs of design work. They used about 12 hrs, which took 3 weeks to complete, inconveniencing me even more, and delivering work which had bugs and which we had to fix many times over. During all this time, Derek was not available, and Paul was as clueless as always. It took me on average 5 emails before I could get a proper acknowledgement from him. Sometimes I would call and still not recognizing who I was, he would transfer me to a manager named Michael who was also confused because he didnt know why I was being transferred to him. Totally retarded project management.
After 3 weeks of nerve wrecking communications with this company, suddenly appears Derek again, who wanted to know how the project was going (normally you would think he would rely on Paul, the dedicated project manager for this kind of updates). I told him I was really disappointed, that I did not get what I wanted and that I wished to use my remaining 13 hrs towards a new website (which I was planning on doing) or to get a refund for 240$. He immediately started yelling at me, saying that they would not do a single second of extra work unless I paid the additional 550$ for the web hosting, that I was under a breach of contract and that he wouldnt mind suing me even if it would cost him 5000$, out of pure principle and because that was the proper and just way. I told him that if he had so many principles and ethics, he would have delivered the first portion of the contract on time, and that I didnt feel at all responsible for the second part of the contract after all that happened.
Following this, he didnt have anything else to day except what can you do we screwed up but still he would not refund my money. During the few times we talked afterwards, Derek always raised his voice and was constantly rude and obnoxious. Guess he was seeing his nice comfy sales commission disappearI told him that I was actually the one losing money not them, since I paid for 25hrs and only got 12 (for work which I did not even want to do in the first place) and paid an extra 300$ to another developer. But they still did not even want to accommodate me with my other site which I really neededall they cared at this point was to get another 550$ upfront.
This just shows you how cheap and meek these people are, I gave them the alternative to either refund me a measly 240$ or to have this article posted. Guess we know what happened. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!
There are so many other web design companies out there, dont even bother with them. They only deliver templates taken from xxxx (company name redacted by ROR), which you normally buy for 60$ and sell them for 300$. This is how they do work. Run away!
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