Greetings my reader. After exhaustive attempts to communicate with a Boonex 'partner' regarding services never delivered for the $1k retainer fee paid to them. I am open to feedback and/or comments on how you would react if you gave someone a thousand dollars and they never deliver what they set expectations to deliver.
Synopsis overview in chronological order:
- I posted a request to a seemingly strong Boonex partner for help with advanced modifications
- Received an encouraging phone call from a principal member of this partner who said they could do it
- Via PayPal, sent $1k (thousand US dollars) to their PayPal account per their instruction as an initial retainer
- Created an account on their Customer Relationship Management support ticket web tool
- Received a confirmation email from this company that the $1k retainer was in place and work to start right away
- I got a response to my request for project status (progress and how much of the retainer is left) stating that top developers are working on it and should be ready Monday (the next day).
- The following day I asked for a status, no response
- Several requests over 7 weeks simply for a project status have been ignored and actually 'closed' with 2 responses saying the work is done although to this day of posting this thread, no work has been presented.
- Last week I changed my request from a project status to one for a refund. Again, no response - this company simply closes the support ticket without answering the primary question asked of them.
- I've attempted to establish contact via the original contact point here on Boonex Unity, no response
- I created another temporary profile here on Boonex called CynicalOne to reach out one more time to this company for I suspect they have blocked communications from this particular primary Boonex alias I use. No response
I have documented every communication interaction with this company using both still and video screen shots so that I may post them as evidence why someone considering using them as a Boonex programming partner would/should use extreme caution in doing so.
As a professional courtesy to this yet unnamed programming partner, I am giving them a few more days to resolve their outstanding unprofessional behavior by providing a complete $1k refund. Weeks of site downtime have cost me thousands of dollars plus their actions reflect poorly of Boonex support model, regardless of how great the product is. We all realize that success comes from the support of a product, not just the software bits that make up the product.
On Friday August 1, 2008, if the issue remains unresolved (no refund to my account), I will share with anyone the name of this partner as part of a campaign to make public my documented experience - be it blogs, forums or YouTube. I do not want to get anyone in trouble nor do I really want to invest time in having to respond to requests for more information, posts and all the other things involved. Having said that, it is almost an obligation to provide true life experiences that could save someone else from literally losing their money to this company, no? The word fradulent comes to mind when someone promises to do something yet doesn't do it after taking your money.
What would you do?
