Designers that flat out failed. Wordpress-PHP

[doc24]

To all the forum members: I was told I shouldnt do this and I am doing it anyway.
I learned that from a few members on here that its best to tell the truth about situations that involve companies that many of us may deal with.

I had been looking for a combo wordpress expert and decided to go with AEIOU.com and we all know whos company that belongs to.

I explained in GREAT detail what I needed and I mean great detail as it has been a project of mine for 2 years and I wanted a company that was proficient
in wordpress along with some php coding. The person I use all the time is a forum member here , but unfortunately doesnt work with wordpress.

So I hired this company to do 3 template sites that could be used in the future, all just with different info - same layouts
I talked to 3 people in the beginning and each one said they understood what I needed and that the project would take about 5 days for a template and about 10 days to complete

Needless to say, that is not the case.

First it was 10, then 2 weeks, then 3 weeks, then 4 weeks, then 5 weeks ,then 6 weeks and behold still not one finished template complete

I sent them more detailed images of what was needed
I sent them more text of what was needed
I had so many phone conversations I wanted to just forget it, but their sales manager, (who is very professional and had nothing to do with the coding)
kept saying to give them a chance and so I did. It never was completed. NOT 1 of the 3 websites I PREPAID for. NOT ONE

and if I described what I needed you would be shocked at why it wasnt. I even supplied the php programs for them to use , they are all open source

Finally I had a last phone call with them and I was pissed. Yes I raised my voice, no swearing tho, I dont do that.
and yes I was sick and tired of excuses. But what the hell happened ???

In the end they did refund my money : SO WHAT. I wanted the product finished!!! Not the money
and I was chastized by the head coder person and the owner because I wouldnt let it go and they swore that everything was completed ?
That was a FLAT OUT LIE and to prove it I had taken screen shots of all pages- Not even the simple things were done
The fact is they blew it and sit on their high horse and make excuses and then blame me because I got upset. Thats what people do when they know they screwed it all up
I guess they are just too big to admit it and just say that instead of bringing up how mad I got in week number 7.

and that is why I am writing this here. You are damn right I wouldnt let it go. Just because this is an industry leader(SO WHAT!)

If as a company you cant handle the job - SAY SO. Then everyone avoids all of this and for the icing on the cake I hired another company that just did the exact same thing ???!!****#$@$

This company Mwd Web Design did the exact same thing only this time. I was using GURU
What is with this.

I went to guru, they bid on the project. I talked to a guy there for 30 minutes on the phoine and he was laughing at why AEIOU.com didnt get the job done in 10 days or less.
Thats right - laughing

So I picked them because of various reasons, I sent images, they looked at the site live which was still up and stated this would be no problem
have a temp done in 3-5 days. Guess what
Then it was 7 , 8, 9 , 10 and then they said oops it will be 3 weeks and not 10 days, we cant find a wordpress template ????
What. They are blaming this on a wordpress template theme.

I could see the writing on the wall, here we go again.
Needless to say - so long MWD WEB.

I was fed up with excuses and they laughed at AEIOU and didnt come through either
and after I told them via email dont bid on projects that you cant complete because you are wasting peoples time.
Guess what, the person in charge said I was harrassing them. I have all copies of every email I dealt with both companies.

I guess all these people have money flowing out of their pockets and dont need the work.

So to this forum I would NOT use either of these companies and thats my experience and my opinion which I am allowed to have
They can blame the person paying them for being upset because , gosh , the work wasnt done and hide behind vieled excuses
What amazes me is the fact that all they had to do was either finish the work and have a continuing relationship with a BUYER or just simply state, we cant do it.

I lost a lot of respect for the person that owns AEIOU.com and told him so, he never even bothered to call me, and all I got was an email stating they did the work
and I got upset at their staff (it was 1 person)

I decided after this last fiasco to let other people know.
And for those of you that know me personally, you all know I am NOT a complainer, but something needs to be said


UPDATE - 10/19/2009

Case Closed just like they are

Its obvious the excuses could NOT LAST ANY LONGER
Their last and final excuse was this !

______________________________________________________________

This email is to notify you that AEIOU.COM is no longer in the
outsourcing business.

We were the first company to sell mini-sites so we might as well be
the first company to stop selling them.

The reality is there is no money in web design. It’s hard. The
customers are hard to please. The margins are slim and frankly, there
are bigger fish to fry.

There are only so many things we can focus on and with our brokerage
and auction businesses booming, we’ve decided to bail out of this
race.

A couple of weeks ago we stopped taking new business at aeiou.com and
the time has come to officially announce that we are out of the
outsourcing business.

Here are some questions that we anticipate you having and our
answers.

1. Open projects - yes, we will finish all open projects. We still
have our team because we will be using them for in-house needs. All
client orders will be filled.

2. What will happen to my site that is hosted at aeiou.com? - Unless
you have a hosting agreement with us, you will have 90 days from today
to move your site files.

In the case that you do not have the FTP information for your site,
please contact and we will provide you with all the
site details.

If you would like help moving your site, we are offering assistance
for $95 for the initial site and $15 per additional site.

3. Who do you recommend we use now for our mini-sites and web
development needs? We’ve decided not to recommend anyone. There are
many good companies out there and we want to remain agnostic. We are
an infrastructure company ourselves, providing auction and brokerage
services and we’d rather not take sides.

 

[GUA]

I would post some evidential proof that what you are saying is true.. to back up your story.

None the less.. I would never deal with AEIOU.com like some of the other 'pros' they are simply arrogant idiots.

 

[nameadvertising.com]

Hire our very own "Tony" - He does it better than most.

 

[doc24]

I would have posted it, but I am talking about 6 weeks of phone calls and emails.

And.........Feel free to call me at anytime if you have any questions or PM me

Believe me I have all the proof you need

The sites were never completed,,,,PERIOD

A small sample of non completion:
All I wanted was a text area in the about me, contact, media pages along with the standard ad placements. In 6 weeks it was never done. Is that plain enough description.....Thats right I said NEVER done.!!! In wordpress?? Even I know, and I dont use word press how simple that is and when I brought that up like 5 times --it still wasnt done.

Take it for what its worth...These are facts and not fiction
Thats what I deal in and its obvious arrogant people hide behind any excuse they can find in why something didnt get done.

Hire our very own "Tony" - He does it better than most.

Chris I posted this on this forum to do the project twice and never got a response, so that is why I posted on guru and rent a coder which I have used successfully before. Plus aeiou.com was recommended to me by someone on here, which that doesnt matter because they are not doing the work for them.

I stand by my opinions
I would not work with AEIOU.com or MWD DESIGN ever if I was anyone on here.

That is my sole purpose of this post. To let people know my experience.

The thing I am most upset about is the business part...They were not done, finished, completed...Thats it and they wasted my time which is just as valuable as theirs.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

How much money was involved?

 

[nameadvertising.com]

Doc,
Tony's site is @ http://www.ecybermedia.com/

I can't speak for anyone personally, but I have heard and read good things about Tony, mostly on DNF. Do check for references on your own and the service providers limitations.

 

[doc24]

Doc,
Tony's site is @ http://www.ecybermedia.com/

I can't speak for anyone personally, but I have heard and read good things about Tony, mostly on DNF. Do check for references on your own and the service providers limitations.

Thanks Chris I will

How much money was involved?

It doesnt matter how much money...If you are a company..dont quote a price and then not do the work

If they said 10.00 to wash your car and then 6-9 weeks later your car is still sitting there with the hood washed and the trunk washed but the rest is filthy, would you accept that? I dont think so.

Money is not the issue at all.

 

[Gerry]

I got fed up with all the offers, negotiation, and failed promises as well. I ended up teaching myself Joomla and now wordpress.

I had very detailed instructions, explicit examples and requirements, and asked all who submitted bids to please read jobs spec sheet before submitting bids. This was on two different sites for programmers and freelancers.

Within 15-20 seconds of submitting I had three offers in my in box. Obviously these were cretins that were just waiting for offers to come on the network. The quotes ranged from $750 to $2500. Without reading a word of what was needed, of course - everyone was willing and capable of doing the job with out knowing what the job was and what was needed.

One person contacted me about a revenue sharing possibility that I had also posted. Rather than pay money up front, I would guarantee a % of revenue the site generated FOR THE LIFE OF THE SITE as long as I owned it and a % of the sale, if the site should happen to be bought out.

She was from Cincinnati, obviously read what was needed, and was willing to do the job for no money up front if I agreed to a % of proceeds on the back end. She asked all the right questions, seemed very knowledgeable, provided references.

I did agree to this and offered 10% which she accepted. This was a monthly % of revenue generated from adsense, amazon, CJ and other options.

She accepted and was excited to start - then suddenly disappeared! I never heard another word from her.

Had she done the job, she would have made (to date) perhaps $1500-$2000 already over the past 2 years or so.

 

[doc24]

I got fed up with all the offers, negotiation, and failed promises as well. I ended up teaching myself Joomla and now wordpress.

.

Doc
How is Joomla ?
What is your opinion on it ?

I want to integrate an article section - php
Link section - php
and a paid subscription for business listings which I purchased from php bus directory
a very good program

I have come to the conclusion I will use wp for the blog and integrate the others

Thanks
DR

 

[myst woman]

I am reading the above, Joomla is great. but I usually do the reverse., joomla the top and blog it as a feature with link.

Sorry about your bad experiences and thanks for the warning. is the tony they are talking about tonyfloyd? he does string together a mean wordpress fo shizzle.

 

[steveatvillas]

AEIUO? You gotta be kidding. Those guys create lame landing pages. Well, your post says it all.

WP is an über-robust, mega easy, platform with a huge, HUGE community. There are some really exceptional WP gurus out there. I was going to develop my network as a big WP project, but decided it wasn't the way to go. But I did come across some great people.

All depends on what you need to accomplish. But if it's anything more than a "theme" (WP-ese for skin) you've got to allow a month or so.

PM me and I can dig through my contacts.

Steve

 

[Gerry]

Doc
How is Joomla ?
What is your opinion on it ?

I want to integrate an article section - php
Link section - php
and a paid subscription for business listings which I purchased from php bus directory
a very good program

I have come to the conclusion I will use wp for the blog and integrate the others

Thanks
DR

I love joomla but the learning curve is much steeper for Joomla than for WP.

I have no programming experience and taught myself both. I know very little HTML and have been told if I studied that then everything would seem much easier.

Joomla has tons of extensions and add ons. I think there is not a thing Joomla can not do. Very powerful.

But for quick and easy and up in no time, WP is sweet!

 

[doc24]

I am reading the above, Joomla is great. but I usually do the reverse., joomla the top and blog it as a feature with link.

Sorry about your bad experiences and thanks for the warning. is the tony they are talking about tonyfloyd? he does string together a mean wordpress fo shizzle.

I think the tony they are talking about is tonyfloyd on here
I have not talked with him as of yet
But I have to decide which way to go on the projects as this will be a model site

Copper

I have been looking at joomla, but my question would be. can you integrate the php programs I have with it.

Like my php article program and biz directory

I can pay to have someone integrate it also
Either way, just want to get it done

This experience has been nothing short of a nightmare.....If you cant get something done (AEIOU and MWD Design) dont say you can, its simple

 

[Theo]

Wordpress is push-button publishing. It's fit for some, not for all. If you need professional web & graphics development services, that's what I do.

 

[Tia Wood]

If you need professional web & graphics development services, that's what I do.

I can vouch that as well for Acro as I have worked with him before.

 

[myst woman]

lots of good peeps on here don't give up dude.

 

[Dale Hubbard]

There's a lot of cobblers and smokescreens here. How much? WP has a simple 3-minute installation.

 

[Tia Wood]

There's a lot of cobblers and smokescreens here. How much? WP has a simple 3-minute installation.

To be fair, it's not the 3-minute Wordpress install one should pay for. It's the SEO, development, graphic design, marketing, content placement, upsell, monetization, etc, etc: expertise no matter what the backend is.

There was a train that broke down in the middle of the desert. In the luxury car was the president of the train line and his most important customer. The engineer tried everything he could think of, but he could not get the train running. They discovered that the man who built the locomotive happened to be a passenger on the train, and they called him forward.

He stared at the locomotive for a few minutes, picked up a hammer and hit the locomotive sharply. It started right up. Two weeks later, the president of the line received a bill for $50,000. "$50,000!" he exclaimed,"For five minutes work?" "Oh," said the engine builder,"I should have given you an itemized bill." A few days later, an itemized bill arrived:

Hitting engine with hammer: $ 1.00

Knowing where to hit engine with hammer: $49,999

 

[doc24]

To be fair, it's not the 3-minute Wordpress install one should pay for. It's the SEO, development, graphic design, marketing, content placement, upsell, monetization, etc, etc: expertise no matter what the backend is.

All thats well and good ....stay on the topic...I do all the others myself and am good at it...I have been successful for many years

The subject is doing work on a template, designing it and implementing the features I need ........PERIOD, I am not interested in little quips and any other comments that do not pertain to getting the job done

I have heard enough baloney in 9 weeks of this I cannot stomach anymore

Give me someone to talk to DIRECT on here and I will discuss all the work I have now and upcoming...By the way I already use a very good coder on here, but he does not do wp.

I repeat , pass along someone that I can call to discuss

 

[Tia Wood]

All thats well and good ....stay on the topic...I do all the others myself and am good at it...I have been successful for many years

I wasn't relating that to your experience. I was explaining to aZooZa about the comment he made.