StoresOnline - have spent about $ 12,000 with no return - terrible experience with StoresOnline.com

# 1 for July 8, 2003

December 19, 2006 - Business Reply: StoresOnline is committed to customer satisfaction and is constantly improving its products and services. StoresOnline is eager to satisfy its customers by fixing problems and overcoming misunderstandings.

If StoresOnline has problems with its software or its services, then a detailed complaint about what is wrong is necessary for StoresOnline to remedy the situation. General postings made about StoresOnline’s products or services are often unclear as to what consumers want StoresOnline to do. StoresOnline’s products are constantly improved when customers identify specific glitches in the software or shortfalls in its services. Indeed, the latest version of StoresOnline software, introduced earlier this year, is a result of detailed and clear feedback from StoresOnline customers.

We urge you to contact StoresOnline and identify your concerns. Please provide your full name, address, telephone number, and StoresOnline product license numbers. StoresOnline will respond to your email and will find a resolution to your questions and concerns.

Other useful information about StoresOnline can be found at its website at www.storesonline.com. StoresOnline provides small business owners and entrepreneurs with eServices to help their customers successfully market their products and services. Whether a company wants to extend an existing business to the Internet, or launch the next big idea, StoresOnline's eServices are there to help each step of the way. From education, to training, to eCommerce-enabled websites, StoresOnline seeks to be the best in the business. StoresOnline's software platform has continuously developed over the past decade, evolving to fit the needs of the dynamic, global economy. Today, the development platform (StoresOnline Pro) sets the precedent as small business owners and entrepreneurs offer their products and services to the world.

You should not only consider what StoresOnline is claiming about its commitment to customer satisfaction. Consider the recent report written by Ed Magedson, founder of RipoffReport.com, detailed below. Please visit www.ripoffreport.com to confirm this report. Through exhaustive research in conjunction with RipOffReport, StoresOnline found that only 12% of complaints filed on that website were true StoresOnline customers.

In that report Ed Magedson - Founder, Rip-off Report, stated: “Rip-off Report discovered disgruntled ex-employees, competitors and persons who have taken a "short position" in StoresOnline Stock have tried to victimize StoresOnline repeatedly. Actually, Rip-Off Report's investigation reveals that many of the complainants are not StoresOnline's customers at all, but some of the aforementioned miscreants instigated others to file complaints without even first contacting StoresOnline customer service.

…

Rip-Off Report's investigation of StoresOnline shows that StoresOnline is fulfilling its commitment to provide excellent customer service.” Sincerely, Customer Service

Complaints.com received the following on July 7, 2003:

From: Belfrey Enterprises /* */

RE: StoresOnline - have spent about $ 12,000 with no return - terrible experience with StoresOnline.com

September 25, 1992 will long rank as one of the worst days of our lives. That is the day we made the horrible mistake of becoming involved with StoresOnline.

After reading all the reports filed at complaints.com, the Rip-off Report.com and thesqueakywheel.com my husband I know that we are not alone.

We, too, were first approached by direct e-mail, went to the brief "lunch" presentation and paid $30.00 to attend the full day seminar at a very fine hotel in Orlando, FL. Breakfast and lunch were served but that was hardly the reason we chose to attend. We were looking for a good business we could operate from our home, one that would provide a decent living for us. My husband had operated a very successful business for 10 years, was extremely computer savvy and I was well versed in sales and marketing. The Internet seemed a logical choice for us to pursue.

The day long seminar convinced us. The SOL representatives in attendance were so glib, so facile and so adept at deflecting questions! While we realized the purpose of the seminar was to SELL attendees, we did believe the basic premise as presented and honestly felt SOL would adhere to their promises. How innocent and naive we were! At day's end we willingly charged $3,399 to one of our credit cards for three (3) Storefronts. Every concern we had was brushed off by the SOL reps, i.e. "of course you can have your own domain name (not a SOL URL) and of course, you can move your site elsewhere for hosting, and no, there are no hidden charges, everything is all-inclusive". We certainly didn't expect to become millionaires and most assuredly planned to work as hard as we could to ensure our success.

We had a feeling we would be approached, post seminar, with additional "offers" and weren't surprised when we were contacted in regard to "coaching". The gambit presented was for "professional" coaching through PMICoaching, Professional Marketing International. If we signed up for the coaching we would become one of their Success Stories. Regrettably, there were not many openings and not many coaches. So, if we wanted to be a SUCCESS we had to sign up and PAY that very night to ensure our place. As we gave the matter some thought we were being courted like a lover and oh, it was so very seductive. Because we were Internet novices, despite our years of business experience, we charged another $8,000 to a credit card. That was the figure we were given that would ensure we would recoup our entire investment within six months! That, of course, turned out to be another falsehood.

PMI told us our coach would contact us once a week for 10 weeks, for a 30 minute coaching session. Our first session was supposed to be assistance with product selection and information relative to dropshipping. The coach assigned to us was a gentleman named Brent Larson. While Mr. Larson was very pleasant, his coaching skills were something less than excellent. Our sessions were frequently 20 minutes in length. We never received any assistance with either product selection or dropshipping.

The coaching consisted of plowing through their online program where all you do is visit this site and that site and read this and read that and do this homework assignment and that homework assignment. From our very first session we were forced to select our products and write up promos, heavily weighted with keywords. This turned into a major heartache as we quickly learned we were unable to find dropshippers for some of our chosen products but we were stuck with them.

When our sessions concluded Mr. Larson told us to stay in touch with him. He told us he was still "our" coach and would be available to us. We did try to contact Mr. Larson several times but he ignored us as if we never existed.

Trying to actually build our first storefront became an agonizing experience. Help from SOL was non existent. Their HELP personnel knew nothing, couldn't answer our questions (frequently they wouldn't even read the question, put us on hold for up to 20 minutes, and simply told us to re-read the tutorials. Their server was frequently down. Twice for reasons they couldn't explain they changed our Password, necessary to get into the StoreBuilding tool. Their software is ancient and unable to do some very basic tasks. Their templates are hideous. Furthermore, these templates aren't optimized for Search Engines, which means it isn't possible to get listed on the Search Engines. And despite what the SOL reps said at the seminar, if you don't have a computer and aren't at the very least computer literate, it isn't even remotely possible to build an online Website.

When we sent our package in for programming we were assigned to a Mr. David Labbe. Mr. Labbe was so incompetent he didn't do anything and our material simply sat on his desk for three weeks. SOL is supposed to program 25 products and put in Meta Tags. SOL didn't program any products and the Meta Tags they did do were wrong. My husband gave himself a crash course in HTML and did our entire site himself. Quality Control is an unknown quantity to SOL.

Promises in regard to services from Links4Trade and EMS Traffic turned out to be as empty as those from SOL and PMI. Under no circumstances will we continue to work with SOL and their charlatan cohorts. We have every intention of removing our only site from SOL's clutches. We can't wait to redesign it properly and now know it is posible to be hosted by any number of other companies for a good deal less money.

We are working with every legal venue available to us to get our money back (we're now at about $12,000 invested with zero ROI). We advise other victims to do the same.

Should anyone wish to contact us we may be reached at . Our phone number is 407-302-3937. We would be happy to work and share with others.

Joe and Pam

Sanford, FL.