As the CEO of a small company, I decided we needed a new website and internet presence as our business was undergoing transitions. After several weeks of research and interviews with various website designers, we decided to go with Taa Dixon, owner of 720Media in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
We required having graphic design work done as well as technical development on our new website, though we had to forego many key features due to cost. I explained to Taa Dixon that our company was on a limited budget that we could not go over. Ms. Dixon assured me that we would get what we needed on time and within budget. Satisfied with her assurances, we agreed to proceed.
Taa Dixon structures her pricing in "blocks of time." She stated we were to pay for this time in advance. Ms. Dixon recommended we buy her "25 hour time block" based on the project scope. No written record of what would be accomplished during this time was anywhere in her contract, just that we would purchase time. She furthermore stated that if work took longer than this allotted amount, we would simply "purchase another block of time." I did not see this as a red flag initially.
Expecting to have a completed website at the end of the 25 hours, I was informed by Ms. Dixon that our site was taking longer to build than expected, and she recommended buying another "25 hour block of time." When I asked her if the website would be done within this amount of time and contain the features we wanted, she assured me that would not be a problem. We proceeded to pay her for what we understood was going to be the remainder of the work.
At the end of this second round of time, Ms. Dixon and her designer still had not made any progress on our website. At this point, I called Ms. Dixon and explained to her our concern that we had already purchased work from her but that it was looking like our website was going to fall significantly short of what she had promised. Her response was to point out to me that not only had they used up all of the time we bought, but they had actually gone over by several more hours and that we were going to need to "buy more time."
I reminded Ms. Dixon of our initial budget and that this latest time-purchase pushed us to our limit. When I expressed my concern that there seemed to be a difference between the quote she gave us up front and what we were actually getting, Ms. Dixon suddenly became very indignant and shouted "then maybe we aren't a good fit for you." She continued by saying "everyone else loves what we do" and that if I wasn't satisfied with their work then they would stop building our site right there and we could "take our business elsewhere." She then stated that they used a "special programming code" that could not be translated or duplicated elsewhere, implying that unless we stayed with her and continued to give her more money, our website would be useless.
Having done nothing to appease me as a customer nor offering to negotiate an acceptable arrangement, which up to this point I was willing to discuss, I told her to discontinue work. I was now left with the inconvenience of an incomplete website, being behind schedule and way over budget.
I quickly hired another web design firm that was able to finish our site, which they did so on time and within the price they promised. This new firm also found several flaws in 720Media's programming code that they were able to spot and correct. When I asked about the "special code" Taa Dixon mentioned as part of her intimidation tactics at the end, they said that apart from the errors they found, there was no reason that the code could not have been used elsewhere.
Taa Dixon advertises on 720Media.com that she can create websites for an "average of $1500-$2500, " but by the time we were through with her we had spent well over $8000, at least $5500 of which she had walked away with, including needing to pay another design firm to clean up her mess after she left us high and dry in the middle of the whole operation.
I am horribly dissatisfied with Taa Dixon and her utter lack of professionalism and bait-and-switch tactics. Do not hire Taa Dixon with 720Media for website design or any other work of any kind.
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