25 May 2012
http://shoejoe.com
Reviewed by joanne poppenk
— shoejoe.com
It appears I did not get off to a good start. Said differently, I got rooked, hooked, taken, and robbed.
Emails fom this company and only this company come with the warning "This message looks very suspicious to our SmartScreen filters, so we've blocked attachments, pictures, and links for your safety." That does not make for a good beginning. I submitted a ticket about it and got the anticipated usual reassurances from someone named Lewis, which were not good enough.
I did not get the anticipated phone call within the 72 hour time period because the person who sold me, Sean, did not do his job properly and entered my phone number incorrectly. Bad, bad, very, very bad.
My username was also entered incorrectly. My last name is already hard enough. Why on earth would I have agreed to something I would have great difficulty remembering? The person (read: Sean) making these calls on behalf of this company to sell this service needs a better trainer, at the very least. Their trainers probably suck too though.
I resent anyone, especially my "web development specialist" telling me to "Make it a great day" as a sign off in emails. That person may enjoy his or her position but do not try to control what kind of day I have; in other words, leave your personality out of it. This is business.
But, I still feel for "Joseph R. Green." Poor Joey had to email me a second time to say "I have left multiple messages without return.I have sent multiple emails as well.Please phone our toll free number..."
Too bad he didn't review the long, drawn out conversation Sean had with me where he would have discovered all the errors, along with gaining a tiny bit of understanding about me, my interests, my website, and my concerns. But he didn't. Instead he continued to email me until he finally did the research and was able to recognize that it was in fact, not my problem but theirs.
But then he had another issue and wasted more of my time talking to me about software and using the term scam blockers, something I had never talked about, mentioned, or referred to in any way. Clearly, he had not taken the time to read my email properly because if he had he would have read the word "filter" and not "blocker". This, in turn, added to my uneasiness. If we cannot communicate our thoughts across to each other clearly enough in writing, I could only imagine how awful it would be trying to communicate my ideas about my website over the telephone to this Joe person, or anyone else in the company, if he and Sean are examples of the kind of representation my website will have.
My first attempt at calling the toll free # that Joe R. Green provided ended with a disconnect after I listened at length to all the options and then pressed number whatever. That unpleasant experience certainly added to the wierdness factor in my mind. Sure, things happen. Just like the wrong phone number, the wrong spelling of my last name, the wrong user name, the wrong interpretation of my email messages, and the warnings on the emails I got from them...
The unhappiness factor just keeps rising and rising. Almost two weeks pass with no action, mainly because if you are unlucky enough to live in any time zone other than PST, your "lesson" calls will occur at an hour that is most impractical to you. The day before yesterday, I came home from my regular job to a phone message from Jovanna. She wanted to talk about my emails back and forth to Joe R. Green and about my website, but she wanted me to call back using a long distance number at my convenience as long as it's during her business hours. Jovanna did not leave a toll-free number, so I won't be calling until I get one. My business hours are 8:00 am to 12 noon EST. Then, I have to go to my real job.
This has been a most unpleasant and unhappy experience. It didn't have to be if the people on their end had done their jobs properly from the beginning. Unless, of course, they are bad people running a bad company, then there was no other way for it to turn out. The fact that jobs were not performed competently, not performed in a timely manner, not performed with professionalism, promises were not fulfilled such as the 90 days of free web hosting, and with little regard for the amount of time, effort and money I have already put into this thing has caused absolute disgust with myself for ever continuing the conversation in the first place. I am embarrassed to have been aligned in any way with this company, disgusted with the customer service (with the exception of Lewis the ticket man), appalled by the way you practice business in general, and feel extremely reluctant, not to say embarrassed, about telling anyone that I was ever connected in any way with this company.
Another phone call today. Even though I already have a website up and running but going nowhere, now it seems the 90 days of free web hosting cannot begin unless and untill I sink more money into this grab pit. I said I'm unable to at this time. The response was: "That's too bad. Good-bye." Clearly, on-line web developers require some compassion in their attitude, some genuine sincerety in their voices, and a whole lotta genuineness in what they say. This is not going to happen here because WEBDEVUSA is just another company running another scheme to take your money and use it for their benefit. Not yours.