Future Fusion was installed in our new restaurant in October and has caused us so much damage, we may be out of business by the end of the month, after only being open 4 months. Although business is good, customers love our food, atmosphere and entertainment. The staff is the best, everyone works like they own the place and puts in 110% effort.
But the damages casued in those first month put us so far behind it may be too late. Then to add insult to injury, these people treat us like idiots, throw accusations and insults and refuse to accept responsibility, blamimg our problems on lack of training, dumb servers, poor management Hospitality Technology Systems salesmen used high pressure bait-and-switch tactics to sell us this new experimental POS software that has taken them 3 months to fix - at our expense.
We have had system wide crashes, hardware failures and so many bugs it isn't funny. Our first two weeks we could seldom print a guest check costing us tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, customer walk-outs, customer complaints, employee meltdowns and more. Then to make matters worse...
Mercury Payment systems which apparently pays them a commission has delayed depositing funds for up to 5 to 14 days causing havoc with our cash flow (devastating for a cash reliant business). All we have gotten for 4 months are excuses and them trying to turn the blame on us. There have even been "bugs" that tech support could not figure out. For "days"...
We have lost tens of thousands of dollars due to these two companies. Future Fusion was not fully tested. John Giles, James Bacarella and his team at Hospitality Technology Systems "used" our small mom and pop new business to test their software and "work out the bugs"!!! Finally after three months of screaming, crying and threats, we have a system that is somewhat useable, but was "never" programmed - as promised, without many of the features - as promised... And more.
Prior to opening in October we contacted a Point of Sale (POS) vendor for a computerized cash register and credit card processing system. The system and software that we were originally sold on, (Digital Dining) was initially out of our budget, so it was scaled down with fewer terminals to fit our budget.
The salesman then offered us used equipment to bring the price down even further, which was fine with us. We then gave them a copy of our menu so that it could be pre-programmed and ready to go when we opened. Due to construction budget issues, as with any new business, we were concerned about costs. We had also just come out of another bad partnership which caused our credit to be less than perfect, so we had to be creative and negotiate for the best deal. Mark the salesman then offered us a new lease program for $99 a month.
For a new business just starting out it was a great deal. What he didn't tell us is that it wasn't for the "Digital Dining" system we had been given bids on... But a cheaper knock off version called Future POS. Well, our credit for the lease was denied, so we were just going to use the start up cash we had to purchase the Digital Dining System... But then Mark and Scott comes up with another new offer to just lease the software and pay for installation and programming for $5k give or take and lease the hardware. Well, of course that was better than the $22k for the Digital Dining System. Having been forced to go over budget on the construction costs, due to unexpected (and a little outrageous) property improvements required by the City, we were all for a lower start-up cost to get the system.
Then to make matters worse, they ended up selling us software called "Future POS" which had just been released only three months prior... Basically untested and to which James admitted "still had bugs" but that is jumping ahead of the story. The salesman then reassured us that the system was being programmed and would be ready to go when we opened. He even took our computer with him and kept it for a week, so it could be programmed.
Time went by and we were busy with the final tenant improvements, installing equipment and hiring employees. Two and a half weeks before opening, we called our salesman who again reassured us that everything would be there and ready a week before we opened, which would be plenty of time to train the employees. Time went by and we were busy with the final tenant improvements, installing equipment and hiring employees.
A week before opening and still no POS system. The day before opening, we ran to Staples and purchased a simple cash register so that at least sales could be registered somewhere still no POS. We quickly printed a scaled down version of our menu, with a simplified pricing, to make it easier on the servers and cashiers. Opening night, no POS. We received a call from the salesman who said his car had broken down and he was stuck on the freeway. Halfway into the evening, he shows up with his demo unit, and proceeds to install it behind the bar. One terminal for two bartenders and ten servers.
Then we learned that the menu had not been programmed into the POS and had not even been started. The salesman then spent the entire evening standing at the terminal programming our employees and menu items! (As if we would actually be able to use it that night). The funny thing is, we felt sorry for him and his girlfriend who was in a very bad mood, (and glared at us at every chance) because she had to pick him up from his broken down car on the freeway and drive him to our location (a good hour, hour and a half drive), so we gave them both dinner - on the house. The next ten days were only the beginning of our nightmare. The salesman was frantically trying to program the software, which they had re-assured us repeatedly, that would be done before we opened.
Then the real fun started when we actually began to try to use it. Half of the employees were never programmed in, menu items were entered incorrectly, with the wrong price or no price at all, menu buttons didnt work, servers could not send orders to the kitchen, printers failed, servers were locked out of the system, the entire system would freeze up - of course in the middle of a busy Friday night dinner service. We lost tens of thousands of dollars when customers got tired of waiting for their guest checks to be printed and just walked out, or a credit card could not be processed because the system was down, or the kitchen never received an order and a customer had to wait two hours for their dinner.
This went on for weeks, then months Only too late did we learn that the software was relatively new and still full of bugs?!?!?! When I confronted the vendor about this, they admitted it had only been released a few months prior) and used the excuse that Windows 7 has bugs, and it is expected, to which I told him that never in a million gazillion years would I risk Windows 7 or any new software, to run my entire new Since we were just a little mom and pop store in the middle of the desert, we were, from the beginning, not treated fairly or professionally.
James has resorted to calling us stupid and drunkards to redirect blame off his faulty software and broken down hardware. His e-mails have been less than professional and little more than childish banter, refusing to take responsibility for the immense damages his software and broken down hardware caused to our company. Then after two and a half months of them trying to fix the software, James, pretty much admitted the software they sold us is defective by "strongly" suggesting that we "downgrade" to the "original" software that has worked for years without problems. So in other words, he used us to "test" his defective software, costing us tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, not to mention all the additional labor hours, stress and emotional issues (between management, servers and kitchen employees, "and" your his people), which we have had to deal with all that on top of the stress of opening a new restaurant in a troubled economy... Thank You James, very much for the extra headaches.
Now, even though the "data" is inaccurate due to all the POS errors since Oct. 1st, it is a good chunk of data, which James informs us would be lost if we "downgraded" - his callous urging to downgrade does not take in to account the additional labor hours, paper and ink that will be required to print THREE MONTHS of data, and manually re-enter it... If that is even possible. We were promised inventory control, food and beverage costing, employee time functions, sales controls, gift cards, terminals that work, software that works, reports that were readable without a microscope, reports that were helpful to run our business, and a long list of other promises... We have been promised over and over and over and over again... Not one promise has been kept.
Our business has suffered greatly, directly due to all the POS issues. Do you know what it feels like when twenty people stand in the middle of your office filled with fifty or a hundred other people and shout out how long they had to wait just to pay for their food, and then loudly proclaim that they will "never" be back? Every day I sit at this computer for hours trying to fix issues that never should be an issue, or trying to calculate employee hours manually, or manually tracking sales data, or writing e-mails to you and your people, or sitting on the phone with tech support, when I should be busy running my business.
Our employees have been brought to tears by angry, tired of waiting, customers. Employees have quit, unable to deal with the stress, and all are infuriated at the loss of tips from all those really very angry customers, who will never come back. They have systematically destroyed our business before we even got started. The losses and damages they caused in the first month alone are astronomical. We are not happy. Our customers are not happy.
Our employees are not happy. Our bank is not happy. Now after three and a half months even though the software is somewhat working although the system was never programmed as promised with our menu, (Mark must have been drunk when he populated the liquor item list), when is the last time you ever had a bourbon Margarita? He created a Margarita, Martini, Cosmo and Cadillac Margarita in at least six different places on the list, the buttons he created never worked, and I have spent two days trying to figure out which item in the list is actually tied to which button, since the duplicate items are ridiculous!
Then to make matters worse, they are holding us hostage with the credit card processing company Mercury Payment systems which likes to hold our money for five to fourteen days before depositing it into our account, and if we try to change processors or disable Mercury Payment systems from the Future Fusion system, the entire system will shut down because they have some lease agreement between them. We have been working with Wells Fargo to switch over, but James has refused to give them the information they needed, then after a week, he finally tells us that we are thick because we just dont get it that Mercury Payment systems has a deal with Future POS and if we bypass Mercury, they will disable the POS system oh they even got mad because we installed an ATM unit in our restaurant. We have cried, and screamed and begged and we have threatened. But instead of them taking care of the problem, James sends us demeaning e-mails accusing us of being drunk and stupid.
I repeatedly asked for training and offered days, yet he blew me off and then accused me of refusing to set up training dates!? I asked for access to the remote access that we were promised, after three and a half months he still has refused to send us the information. When we gave them our $1000 deposit and a copy of our menu in July August of they promised it would be programmed and ready to install the first week of October when we were ready to open it was not.
We gave them the $5k for programming and installation and they have been billing us $813 a month on a lease for a system that has never been anything close to what they promised. Then to make matters worse, we cant even file our sales taxes because they admitted the data that the reports returned was not correct?!?! We have run the same report several times and come up with different totals, so which one is the correct one? The only way to know is to sit and manually add up all the receipts one at a time for the past four months.
Thank God the tech guy Chris still answers his phone and is the only one who has helped fix anything. Three weeks ago Scott came to finally "help", he said he would fix things, and do this and do that. We have not heard from him since.
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