We slocitited work from Elance.com which is a great site for those looking to get web designers, graphic artists and such. We were contacted by Eric Robichaud and his supposed huge outfit. Things started off great and we were promised the world. We were in the beginning phase of starting a company that provides scholarships to college students and others and needed a website done and we were quoted 25K-30K.
Being under capitalized, we were inconsistant in making payments and in the beginning, ETR Consulting was understanding and then things changed. We were understanding (at times frustrated) that people cant work without pay especially when having a payroll and there was some down time in working on our website due to the infrequent payments. We did however make a number of payments and to date have given them $27,800 dollars which included a marketing effort that we were Ridiculously overcharged for without the opportunity to even see a bill until it came and we were shcocked that any company such as ETR charged so much more than Eric quoted.
We dealt with the monetary blow as we had no choice at that point. Unless we made more payments to ETR Consulting, his wife Tanya would call or email saying that they could not continue working until we did. Once again, we had to be understanding even though it was directly affecting the business we were trying to build. We were finally in a position to make a large payment of $10,000 which we did with the understanding that we would not make another payment until it was completed. Well that didnt happen either.
Eric and Tanya kept demanding more money despite now being in receipt of $25K and they in "my opinion" held our company hostage. Not that this was the first time. It came to a point in which I told Eric to hault work on the NUMEROUS uncompleted details of the website until we made the payment. Eric is apparently the one in his family that wears the skirt (in my opinion) as every time he called or emailed, he would say Tanya this and Tanya that is making me do this. Eric also had asked me about doing this deal outside of Elance in efforts to save money for him and us. I didnt think it was a big deal until I spoke to Elance today about this issue and they requested I file a report with them. Essentially biting the hand that feeds them business.
Eric also told me today they own the rights to the site until paid in full and they were removing our site until we pay it off despite a super long laundry list of things needed for completion. My point is that if we pay someone over $27K we should have something for it. We paid more than 80% of it off and it has much more than 20% to go to be finished. To pull our site from working order, disrupt our business and hold this hostage is a clear indication of the kind of company that NOBODY should work with. I have had 3 companies review our site as we move forward and each company reccomended big changes and saw what we paid for as substandard and quite frankly a ripoff. Hence this report today.
Even despite hearing that our $27,000 was paid for something substandard we had all intentions of letting them finish the project and maybe all of Eric's claims that it would be exactly what I wanted when completed would be true. Aparrently, I just couldnt see what they have ready because once it goes live, it all ties together. I ask the public to be the judge here and decide that if your quoted at most 30K and paid close to 28K, we should be entitled to something, even if not completed. That is not the position of ETR Consulting, they would in my opinion rather make a business suffer and squeeze them for more money no matter how damaging it may be.in this economy, we have to work together but to survive and it would be nice if ETR understood this concept.
I have and would be willing to forward any emails I have saved and other communications to prove what I say. Eric, being the smooth talker he is will undoubtedly rebut this report and his only claim is lack of payment. $27,800 is a real lack of payment. For the record, we have been put off numerous times by Investors and that was the bulk of our delays and at times promises we made to pay that were not honored. ETR wants to treat this as if they have been doing work on this for the past few weeks, which they have not and they are owed something and are willing to encumber our business and the Scholarhip Opportunites we provide Students by removing OUR website. I want to be clear that I asked him to hault work on the site so he could have his 1 or 2 guys work on cash flowing projects which was reasonable. There attack today had no merrit.
I had asked him for a detailed timeline for completion of many tiems and it took him almost a week to even respond. Acutally he did respond and then it took 5 more days to get this information but we are the bad guys here. I asked him for numerous things and he was horrible in responding back unless we dangled the money carrot. His main code writer doesnt even begin work until 3 pm according to Eric, there have been numerous issues of things not working correctly and weeks of excuses why we could not send out emails to our members because of New Software (Like that is our problem) and other things which I have emails for and according to his attorney, it doesnt matter that he has been paid money because we owe him the balance. OK Eric, we get it, your not as good as you claims in our opinion. Your supposed to be the proffessional here, not us. Yet we are supposed to be understanding and alright with there shortcomings but provided no slack. I would like to post this on as many Consumer Reports as possible and if anyone has knows of more than the bunch I have, please send a reply.
I would be happy to update this report with any positive outcome if that should occur. We did just receive another email from Eric saying that when we pay the final bill for things that arent done we can have our website. Until then we are remiving it. All of the above is fact and opinion
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