This a complaint and a response to a post from Lucidstream L.L.C. With Peter Whitmarsh and Shana Ehlrich Whitmarsh.
A real complaint, as in a legal one. Because it is illegal to slander someone and name them a con artist, liar, etc. If you have a problem that you can't resolve let the court figure it out. I'm ready when you are Peter.
Let me preface, that we are a start up trying to raise money and get the company off the ground. We have a concept of a marketing franchise that offer a multitude of integrated platforms that included web development. Money did come in chunks and was rarely consistent, and we prefaced this to Lucidstream on many occassions. They agreed and voiced an understanding of this. Peter was hired.
The previous posts concerning Proper Promotions Inc. That Peter Whitmarsh posted on Dec 3rd, and Dec 5th, has cost us a large sum of money. I'm sure he'll deny it, but he was the only web developer we ever used, and if you read the complaint, its pretty obvious that our website developer ("they couldn't pay, they lied... But the websites were amazing websites, clean, 3D, etc") wrote it.
I'm not going to call anyone a con artist, liar, wannabe, etc. Its just petty and cowardly. I just want to tell the facts. Besides in order to con somebody, don't you have to steal? I'm the one out the large amount of money.
We lost a ton of money to this company, and to Peter Whitmarsh and Shana Ehrlich Whitmarsh. They were contracted to do a project. They used other companies code in sites, that same companies verbage from the web, and their language in Lucidstreams proposals under the vail of an NDA that said all information, code, schema, etc. Was proprietary to Lucidstream. They never finished anything they were contracted to do. Nothing worked right, and they refused to take responsibility.
I challenge Peter to put up his work he did for us, send it out to be judged, and let the world tell you what they think.
Once there was a cowardly and petty little man. His name is Peter Whitmarsh, of Lucidstream. I'll admit as far as takers go, this guy is good.
First to ID the guy just in case there is a question after you read this. 5'10" 350 lbs, smoker, always wears one of three Polo shirts. Drives a Ford Expedition or a newer model Cadillac, and lives either in west Las Vegas, or near San Marcos, (San Diego) area. His wife is 5'6" 128 lbs long dark hair.
When we met Peter and Shana, we threw our trust and friendship into the deal. They seemed very nice, very knowledgeable, and trustworthy.
Lets start with the big one's. First thing he does is set the preface that he his loaded, been in the internet game for years, and know people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. And helped to create original code for ebay, youtube, etc. Then he goes on to say that he owns FCC licenses, has sold companies for millions, and is second to none in streaming video because he has his own pipeline (piggy backed on AT&T). Which may or may not be true, when we asked him to prove it, all he said is, " that is impossible, I would never show that to anybody."
If this sounds familiar, please run now.
Then he'll drop off this proposal filled full of features and hardware that you can be part of if you hire him. However, no matter what you hire him for, you can never own it. You'll pay him upfront and residually for a license on software that you paid for. If you want to own it, be prepared for some six figure number. I know silly... It gets better.
If you are still sitting there... Get up and walk out.
Then you'll find out that he can't prove that anything he does is his own work. Ask to see the servers, where the pipeline is, and if you really want to get him going ask him to show you a client list that you can use for a referral. Hint: everyone on it is either out of business, or not working with Peter Whitmarsh anymore. For a test, google any of the companies from this list on his site.
Http://lucidstream.com/news2/News.html
Another tell-tale sign is that he or Shana Ehrlich Whitmarsh will say they have over a hundred employees, not contractors, under their company. You will start to receive emails from a legal department, a tech department, with generic names like Maria Lopez, and Paul Arroyo. If you want to really make him shutter say you want to talk to them or contact one of his board of directors in person. He'll reply.."we don't do that here at Lucidstream, we have hundreds of clients that use us and we keep a paper trail of all communication" That is code for, I bait you into scenarios online to use against you later. Oh even though they had hundreds of clients, they managed to call me personally non-stop when money was due.
The next phase is that he will try to create things and make you believe that you need them to keep the cash coming in. New products or services that he says he has developed and ready to go. Just say no!
The truth is that our company hired him for a large job, Peter Whitmarsh never finished it. He told us that sites were proprietary, and that was a lie, (with us he backboned everything with a very low end html template company iscripts, except our homepages). He overcharges about 5-10x based on his proprietary systems. His systems are leased from The Planet, which is now the newer Softlayer.
And lastly, once we found out all of this, we asked Lucidstream or Peter Whitmarsh to prove it. If he couldn't prove it, we would stop paying altogehter. He shutdown our company. He systemically went into our hosting accounts and shutdown billing, homesite, and sites we overpaid to develop and maintain. Then I received an email from him in reply to my demand that everything be turned back on until we can work something out, he said if you want it turned back on not only do I have to pay my monthly fee, but another $5k and $200 per day that its off. (by the way this is just made up, never part of any contract). Is that extortion?
Then to top it off, he kept $8000 of one of our clients. He said "that since you have decided to not pay me, I'm not going to do the e-commerce site that we have agreed to do". I said "so what you are saying is that you're not going to refund the money to my client, even though you have done zero work, not even set up the hosting account?".. He said "It is my right to keep the money, you are the one that owes the client". I knew right then that Peter was not a person to ever to business with again, nor should I allow someone else to fall victim to his behavior. I was now a hostage to him. I knew I couldn't continue to do business with this person. Is that theft?
The crazy part about this whole issue, is that he claimed to be my friend, and a brother. They came into my house and broke bread with me, shared time with me, and its still hard to believe their true colors. All they care about is getting you contractually bound to a large sum of money then threaten you with lawsuits, FBI, etc, When you finally wake up and realize what is going on, you realize his bark is a lot worse than his bite... We had enough balls to stand up to this guy.
So what has happened since, he sent us a demand letter full of threats and demands about what he was going to do us, unless we paid him $105,500 US in five days. He would then, in his words, graciously turn everything back on, give us the logins, and finish the client website he was already paid to do.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
One last little caveat. The first and last question is... If Lucidstream and Peter Whitmarsh, and Shana Ehlrich Whitmarsh, are so amazing, why don't they have an office? Why can't you find out where to go to meet them? Why do they want to meet in common areas, instead of their office? Why is their listed addresses a Help-U-Mail in Las Vegas and a Postal Annex in San Diego?
If you are an internet guru, why can no one find you?
The people that are hard to find, usually have something to hide. This guy lives and breathes online, so I wonder what he is hiding?
We are now trying to recover and rebuild. This is not going to stop us from doing real business with real people. We have a great company and great clients. Call us anytime... All you have to do is Google us... Proper Promotion Inc., we are visible.
If you want to see how this ends. Go to properpromotioninc.com
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