I replied to an ad placed on craigslist for webdesign and programming, I was contacted by Project Manager Karim Djaballah, he insisted that his company was very experienced, showed me websites they had supposedly built, Karim told me they had been in business for 12 years. He also informed me that they did not offer $499 sites anymore, I was charged a "discounted" price of $2,899. After the hard sell I was sent an invoice right away requesting 33% down with a progress payment schedule using Paypal (beware they do not protect consumers on services purchased). After the first progress payment invoice bill sent to me a week later is when thing went down hill, I paid the invoice but did not see any progress as promised and stated on their website: C. Accessibility of Web Site During Construction. Throughout the construction of the prototype and the final Web Site, the Web Site shall be accessible to Customer through a specified link. Until Customer has approved the final Web Site, none of the Web Pages for Customer's Web Site will be accessible to end users.
I attempted to reach this place several times by phone, and email with no response! I attempted a charge back with paypal, my claim was denied due to their policy. Karim then left several voice mails/emails saying he would like to finish the work, only if I sent money orders by mail for the remaining cost of the project, if I did not comply he was going to sue me for the $2200 worth of work that his company had done. Karim, 499websites.com has still yet to show any work that was supposedly done! I opened a claim with my cc company, they have requested documentation and proof of work with no response from 499websites, com. This place completely scammed me and tried to scam me out of more money by using scare tactics threatening me with his team of lawyers living in my state that are ready to take action against me. Maybe they can build templates, but were not able to do my custom site and chose to scam me? Who knows, Just be-careful. I believe they have many bogus links and bogus sites out there to trick consumers into believing they are actually real businesses that they have built site for.
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