I purchased web-site construction services from American Website Solutions in October. They gave me a web page that looks exactly like every other web page they have constructed for hundreds of other clients. I justified this as being acceptable for the mere $300 to which I paid for the service. What was to set me apart from the hundreds of others doing the same thing with the similar looking websites was aggressive advertizing. So, I paid American Website Solutions subsidiary, Summer Ventures Advertizing, $10,000 to set up banner ads to draw visitors to my site. It is now better than six months (May) and I have not seen a dime of return on my investment.
I have not been idle for the past six months. For $10,000, I felt the need to stay active and try to understand what is going on. My questions continue to be answered with replies like, We would never lie to you. We make money when you make money. Why would we lie to you and I cant answer that question but I will get with our tech department and have an answer the next time we speak.in making an effort to get the answers myself, I had an invisible web-counter installed on the site and visited Alexa.com. I am unable to duplicate the results they are reporting to me from independent sources.
Alexa.com is a free web site ranking service ranking websites to other websites of a similar nature by the number of visits they get. Alexa.com makes their money by selling a more detailed service to those that have a high enough ranking (above 100,000). Across four months (Jan-May) I have seen the ranking of my site go from 5,406, 702 to 3,498, 065 in ranking. It was my understanding, when I purchased the service, I would be able to pay off my investment in a matter of months. When confronted with the question of, Why is it taking so long to move up in ranking so that I can see some return on my investment? Summer Ventures claims that Alexa.com only ranks web sites on its search engine. Then why do they have a listing for my website at all? To this I get the pat answer, We would never lie to you. We make money when you make money. Why would we lie? You already have my $10,000; any additional money is just icing on the cake!
Also, I had an invisible counter installed on the web site from StatCoutner.com. Again, the initial service is free. StatCounter.com makes their money by selling a more detailed service to those with enough visitors to need the details to fine tune their web site. For the month of April, Summer Ventures claims that the banner ads were effective enough to bring 3,021 visitors to my site. My result from the invisible counter only shows the page being loaded 1,548. For the Month of May, they reported 3,117; my results were 1,656. What happened to the other half of the visitors that Summer Ventures claims is being directed to my site? When confronted with this stat, the Summer Venture Rep assigned to me gives me the pat answer, I dont know, I will get with the tech department and have an answer for you the next time we talk. I have asked the same question for months and get the same answer. When am I going to get an answer? Never! The Summer Venture Rep wont return my phone calls!
I am disappointed and upset with the lack of service and production that I was lead to believe I would receive from American Website Solutions and its subsidiary Summer Ventures Advertising. I have gone to a Lawyer to see what my options are for suing to get my money back. However, there is a clause in the contract that alleviates Summer Ventures Advertising from any serious repercussions. It says that both parties agree that any dispute between the parties will result in six months of additional service from Summer Ventures Advertising. Six months more months of $0 in return is still $0!
I would advise anyone considering going into business with American Website Solutions/Summer Ventures Advertising to save your money!
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