Hit Web Design review: a complete disaster! 178

Many times, potential customers do not know what quality they will be receiving. That is why our company, Avanix Web, offers free draft designs.

Please visit www.avanixweb.com and fill out our simple form if you are interested. We have created many websites for small businesses and we start from $299. Unfortunately, we cannot match Heritage's rock bottom $199 ;)

They are the worst company around! Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes, they're crooks if you want the truth. Could care less about customer service. SAVE your money. THEY DON'T DESIGN ANYTHING! All they do is post your info with NO creativity. It's awful.

To Brad Stone,
I too have been a consumer that has been in turmoil over working with your co. It took over a year and a half to build this website as I was getting billed monthly fees when it did not even work. However after the website was built when ever one of your guys wanted to do a promotion & I was not interested, you billed my credit card anyways without my authorization. On 4 different times you billed without my consent about a promotion, then all the sudden my shopping cart did not work every time or your co. would change the password so I could not retrieve any info. Today once again you billed my credit card, and I called to talk to someone about the unautorized charge, so you put my account into collections. When my shopping cart was not working, they told me it would be 150.00 an hour to fix, even though I have been paying a 39.99 hosting fee monthly. Then a diffrent tech came & fixed it within a couple of min. While five min earlier it would take at least 3 hrs to fix at 150.00 an hr. Very strange!& makes me think once again trying to hustle me for extra cash. The site when it works is great, however I did spend over a thousand dollars on my limited budget that I have saved up for three months to work with google was pointless due to the fact my shopping cart did not work on my site as many people tried to purchase, so it was like throwing all my hard work for three months was pointless. As I was calling to explain my problem after ranting like this they tried to sell me a hosting package for 1 year...Unbeliveable!

If you have a legitimate complaint about any company you do have options.

(1) File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau that covers that area.

(2) File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can web search that to get their address. My suggestion is send your complaint in writing to them and send it certified return mail return receipt.

(3) File a complaint with the US Attorney General, Washington DC. They are just blocks from the Federal Trade Commission. Again my suggesting is do it in writing and send it to them certified mail return receipt.

(4) Another option would be file a complaint with the Utah State Attorney Generals office. You should be able to web search and get their address. Again send it in writing and to them certified mail return receipt.

(5) Write your Congressman. It would not hurt or those serving in the state of Utah.

Now remember they a government branch per say be it at the State or Federal level. They take complaints often in the order in which they feel are the most serious depending on their work load.
However more likely then not they will get to it sooner or later or if they get a lot of complaints may push things to the front order of things. Sometimes depending on the issue their hands are tied buy they are there to help.

After you mail it out, my suggestion would be this. Contact the company back perhaps by letter telling them you have filed a complaint with FTC or US Attorney General or State Attorney General or all that you did with, and tell them you are unhappy with the way they handled things. They may push to resolve it.

One thing most companies do not want is the Attorney Generals Office breathing down their back.

This is just a suggestion. I am looking for a web designer for work and have not hired them, but I would put a time frame for completion in their contracts and not allow them access to anything of yours bank account wise until you have a working example of the website and approved by you.

If anyone here still needs their website done, I'm a good developer and work with other graphics designers. I can develop/host your site and actually work with you in an iterative process with feedback. I use http://www.dreamhost.com for my hosting and can add as many domains as I want to it. contact me at danodev@gmail.com if you are interested.

I am also a customer of HWS. They are absolutely horrible to work with. Everytime I call with a problem, often, I am heavied to purchase another service. Their customer service is the worst!

I love how I miss spell when I am furious ;)

"without all the $$$ you're usually distracted by."

Mr Stone your company has grown too big to fit into your old ways of operation. People are loosing money and time. You need to look at your business model.

How much clearer can I make this...hmm...

I'll list the first 3 ways you screw us, just so you can see it clearly without all the $$$ your usually distracted be.

1. When we call, a happy happy salesperson talking very loudly promises a 4 to 6 week completion date without any further explanation that this timeframe is for the cheesiest and easiest of sites.
Sir, be upfront with your customers. It's only honest. Let them make valid good decisions about contracting with your company. We call you for a reason, we want sites made, we have our own business dreams.

2. There is no specific consultation. Duh, you're building us a product, and just like a roof or a garden, etc etc, you/we need a solid consultation. That's how these things work. So we can tell you what we envision and you can tell us how you can supply it. Otherwise how do you ask your intelligent questions? And how else do you know what you're quoting us for? How do you not spring surprise additions on us later- for functions we as regular -non website builders- might have missed thinking about}
Ohh... that's right, you like springing additional costs. Bad ethics.

3. Why is there no organization between your designers, builders, and integrators etc. The business model that used to work when you were a tiny company is letting your clients down now that you are a larger company. Recognize this. An account manager can no longer be just "that chick" that you send to do calls after week to try to sell a new customer on a "Sale" upgrade. She should actually know what the ### is going on with the account she's the MANAGER of.

Holey crap, I mean this is all elementary right?

Right?

And trust me, sir, your issues go on...

Sure you do...suuure..

Call the company and ask to speak to the CEO.

Tell them you have been struggling for 9 months and now have what's called a priority case.
Tell them that you have paid hard earned money for a site that still looses information.
Let them know that at this point you've have had many direct promises and due dates broken.
- In fact tell them that you have a signed contract from the CEO himself,
that you got 7 months in to your project, after you'd documented all of the things that had gone wrong with your site {a huge unnecessary task in itself that you should have been paid for- what a headache} and the shoddy handling of your case and were finally ready to SUE.
As I was, and like I'd finally gotten.

{My site was supposed to be completed by september 9th 2008 a full 7 months after I began the process. I have that in writing.}

And I bet you still cant talk to him.
I sure was denied.

Now I understand CEO's are busy, nature of the game right? Sure. But if someone had been screwed by my company for 9 Months in a hundred different ways, {you see I'm a CEO too}, I'd get on the horn and handle it.
Especially if I'd signed something I put my personal promise on.
You see, I have integrity.

What can you do though, when the foundation is weak how's the structure supposed to stand?

It doesn't.

This is a greedy greedy company. Disorganized, lax on business morality. Ultimately they don't get that our money is in exchange for a promised product.

Please, don't waste your time. Go elsewhere. And investigate all companies first.

Get your money back now, no matter what they tell you, because if anything they'll drag it along for months and you'll still loose that money and have a faulty site... if anything. The company as a whole is disorganized and lax on morals.

Trust me. Geezus the stuff I've been through with Heritage. I was patient and understanding for soooooo long.
They have no integrity as a business when it comes down to it. You'll have to resubmit your info over and over to numerous people who wont pass it accurately to the next person working on your project anyway, and you'll end up wasting all your time just to get fed up and loose your deposit because you approved work so you could move forward.

Anyhow, that's what happened to me after giving them chance after chance.

So disheartening, especially when someone has such high hopes for beginning a web based business. Alas.

I say we all should compain to the BBB so that many customers can RUN. They will care when they get no business because many people are now aware and educated before hand of how much of a scam they're. We looked to see if they had anything at the BBB. People we need to complain for the sake of people in the future.

haha... this thread cracks me up... I WORKED as a programmer for Heritage for about 2 months...these people promised me the stars when it came to payment, but after my first website was complete... they wanted to offer me ONE THIRD of what my time was worth. I feel terrible, but I had to quit the company and leave two of the projects unfinished because I had to pay my rent. A YEAR LATER BOTH SITES ARE STILL UNFINISHED... I was working 40 hour weeks and only getting paid $10-$12/hour... trust me... as a programmer that now works for google... HA! Don't even think of doing business with these people... absolutely terrible...

This is absolutely the worst company to ever grace this ever loving green planet.

If there was a word that I can use that was worst than HATE, this would be where that word would be expressed at.

The only thing they did do, that they were suppose to do, is take my money. Period.

They did nothing else. They treated our company like a stamp and press. We were told we were purchasing a customized website. What we got, was a template they've obviously used a million times before.

They threw our website "LIVE" when they felt like it, and "filled in the blanks" in areas where our company information should have gone.

As of this day, if you go to our website and dial the number on the website, that number will take you to (the search engine) GOOGLE's CORPORATE OFFICE.

I am not kidding.

Can you imagine your company with a website, and that website has a phone number on it, when called... the operator picks up and says " Thank you for callling Wendy's?".

Exactly.

This has been our problem for OVER TWO MONTHS.

In return, we have NOT paid our hosting fee because of their mistakes, in hopes that they will make these changes ... so that we can move on, and then have a website we actually PAID FOR up and running, correctly ... they have not.

when we call to ask about the changes, they tell us NONE can be made until we pay the hosting fee...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?.

The best part is, when you call enough times, throwing their mistakes in their faces and refusing to pay until their changes are made, everyone of them, from marketing to accounting, to your account manager ... start " DUCKING YOUR CALLS ".

Its amazing.
What a ###ing company.

Heritage gives legitimate companies a bad name. They don't just provide bad service, they out right lie. They advertise "No Contract" for service but claim your site is their intellectual property unless you pay them additional year of service before they will allow you to have your own site content. If you look at the Better Business Bureau they have a NR rating. Look up what kind of company gets a NR rating from the BBB. Oh yea, I e mailed the "CEO" my issues and complaints and I was told oh well, we don't care the issues you have had with us. But what can we say to keep you annoyed with our service a little bit longer and not move on?

I wish I did the reasearch too I filled out the form for a quote and they called me back right away. I bought into it due to them accepting paypal buyers credit was the only way I could afford to do it. After getting my pages written and finally talked to the designer well he made my website live before I even approved it. I had the emails saying what needed to be done before I would approve it this is the day after it went live. I foward the emails to his supervisor but no action taken so I had to use my update time to do the changes needed. When you put in an update they take forever or they do not receive the update so you have to summit it and use up more of the update time or they not do it correctly that was stated in the update. I am soooo disappointed and will never recommend this site to anybody cant wait untill my contract is up so I can tranfer the domain name and get someone else to host my site.

Leonne,

Please call me Michael. The associate that established my account called me 'mike' and also set several areas of my account to 'mikec' including my log in.

Having to log in as 'mikec' makes me want to cancel the service irregardless of the low price or functionality provided - I simply cannot stand being called 'mike'.

Please cancel the 'request' as well, since it was never a request for services, it was a request for a quote of services. Your team seems as though they are lazy, do not care for customers, or are incompetent - your choice as to which.

Why do I think this?
First I receive incorrect quotes on the pointer domains purchased through HWS. Then I find out that over the past several months the associate responsible for pointing them NEVER pointed them! I had to complete this myself a few days ago.
Before that, my last update, the associate responsible for implementing the requested updates loaded an older, poorer, version of my site and not a single link on the site worked. Was this fixed immediately? NO, I was forced to wait well beyond a reasonable time for the repairs to be made and they were only made AFTER a tech repeatedly blamed the situation on me. Only after I re-forwarded the information did they acknowledge they were idiots.
When my site was first constructed I did the leg work in finding the most searched keywords and related yet none competing sites. I made every effort to provide an easy SEO of my site. When I supplied the keywords, links, tracking codes, etc. to the writers and site developers, did they use them? NO! I was forced to rewrite most of the material and re-request several updates.
Your techs are lazy, do not care about customer service, or are incompetent.

Regards,

Michael Neumann

I have been having many problems as well. I have been going for 3 months now with no answers to any of my emails concerning problems with my website with them. I did, however, send an email to Brad Stone at the address he gave and I will se what comes of it. I will get back here in a few days and reply to how it is hanled, if it is.

Heritage sucks! They are thieves! Stay away from them!

Had nothing but huge problems with Heritage web design INC. They are very poor in professionalism and in design and building a realitionship with any customers. I used them in 2002 and was quoted $4500 for a complete web site and was told 4-6 weeks. Well lets just say 6 months afterwards I had nothing but endless calls and b.s stories. So I then told Mr. Mark Strong to refund my money and quit with the b.s lies. And they kept over 2500 of my deposit. And now to this day(feb 3, 2009) I have yet to finish a website. They are scam artist and have a very very very poor review in my book. Complete scam do not use for any reason at all...Mr. Strong you need to re-structure your company before the truth from all of us comes out to haunt you. Its the www...remember wood travels fast.

Matt

You people who think you're saving money by cheaping out just got what you deserved. I looked at Heritage as a Designer and was interested in their pitch until I saw that they only pay $20/page.

Now, you might think such is reasonable, but it only is for a teenaged amateur living in china on pennies per day for their food. It is an absolute insult to the people who spend years honing their craft to become professionals in a field as complex as this.

If you're not prepared to spend at least a few thousand on a basic 5-page brochure Website, then don't even bother because I guarantee you will be disappointed.

I will say that rip off organizations like this one only incense me because they lower the bar on expectations for ALL you dupes who somehow think you can get the world for a song. I have no sympathy for any of you. You got what you deserved.

This company is incompentant and a rip off. They charged me $100.oo for a page that I was suppose to get for free for paying my hosting services for year. They charge me $1080 for classfied page that they never finished. Two of the pages with forms on them do not work when you hit the submit button. I have been disputing with them for for 3 months without any results. My web site is still not funtional. Stay away from these ###s.

As a former employee I agree with all the complaints. There was a few honorable mentions by working for this company namely that they hire people with little or no experience in an industry with very few entry level jobs. They paid a descent wage for people who were just getting their feet wet in the industry. Though they decided to drop those benefits in favor of even cheaper wages and lower quality work.

With that said there are plenty of things wrong with this company:

1) HUGE turnovers... they have hiring fairs every month to replace the hordes of employees they terminate or who get fed up with the working conditions, which hurts them more because they throw out people who have experience with their process and who are able to serve clients better.

2) Too many clients, not enough adequate time with each client on the phone, or enough time to produce quality web design. The account managers are pushed to sell sell sell... even if it's not what the client wants or needs, often clients pay way too much and don't even know what they are getting. Account managers are expected to sell thousands of dollars a day, and to take on hundreds of phone calls, which reduces the quality of service. The designers are expected to create 2-3 full websites or projects per day of which clients pay around $600 - $3000 for each project, which relates to a huge amount of work for a designer... typically 2-3 times the amount of work in the same amount of time that it would take a professional designer to produce a well though out quality design.

3) Outsourcing! A good 90% of their work is outsourced to foreign countries... India, Mexico, Brazil, Jordan... anywhere in the world where someone with no design experience or knowledge, who speaks a lick of English and has an internet connection. Or to US workers who are not experienced and have no education or credentials, or to experienced designers working at home who are paid per project, not per hour, and often making less then $5 per hour if a project takes longer then expected. Designers are expected to create $100-200 worth of work and get paid $13-16 per hour, or $0.30 - $10 per hour if outsourced with no benefits. All of this relates to a poor quality of work and poor service.

4) Corruption! Corrupt CEO's who only care about profit and don't give a damn about customer service, or quality of work, or paying fair wages. Notice how they spend all day trying to post positive feedback about the company, and dealing with clients who are fed up to the point of calling a lawyer. If they just did the right thing and hired more people to cover the client flow, gave their designers enough time to create a quality product and to spend enough quality time with each client then people will be happy and satisfied, and not feel that they are ripped off or scammed.

People... Please support your local designers, and local freelance workers. If you want the highest quality of work for an honest rate you need to go with an experienced freelancer or a small local company, do your research and you will be satisfied. Don't get ripped off with bogus hosting... honestly hosting only costs $4 - $5 per month. Talk with a freelance designer and I'm sure that many would get hosting set up for free, so that you have control over the account and low hosting payments, if you go along with their web design. I would refer you to myself or to my designer friends but I fear repercussion from this company, email if you have any questions.

still no response

How funny that CEO Brad seems that his blanket comment to go under each complaint thinking he has rectified customer issues.
Why don't you prove yourself Mr. Brad Stone. I Bryan Boe want you to refund my money completely. Then I want you to pay me for damages for what I have lost in watching my whole program go down the drain as I have had to cancel every promotion, event, presentation loosing more than 90+k. Words are cheap! I have waiting for almost 7 months and you and your company have failed us miserably.
Show me you mean what you say and I will let people know that you delivered. I doubt that will happen. I have seen the list of lawsuits filed against you since 99 and some of them you did not even respond. You could care less. The attorney that I have been speaking to said any decent company would never allow that to happen and would rectify the problems, refund people. You are a greedy man and you will be held accountable one day for the dishonest money you generate to put in your pocket.
Show us that you mean what you say because I have been trying to get your inept company to finish my project with nothing but empty promises and in the end after months and months of listening to your folks that are completely disconnected promise me that my project will be completed to then have them come back to me after 6 months of the worst hassle I have ever experienced to say "Oh we can't do that without us having to charge me 10+ thousand $$$ to hire outside professionals to complete my project.

This is after from inception, all you programmers and sales reps and account managers and designers have all promised me that it will be done and are so apologetic as to my projects unacceptable delay.

Anyone who has been screwed by HWS please call me. I will work to organize a large class action suit. HWS cannot continue screwing up peoples live and businesses while they sit fat and happy in there $$$$ and rip off people.

Bryan Boe
[protected]

HWS are a bunch of crooks. Brad I have been fighting for months to get your company to complete my project. All I have received are broken promises and after our business has fallen apart and after 7 months of waiting nothing has happened accept now your company want me to pay 10+ thousand more. You have such nerve.

Anyone who has been screwed byHWS please call me. I will work to organize a large class action suit. HWS cannot continue screwing up peoples live and businesses while they sit fat and happy in there $$$$ that they rip off of people.

Bryan Boe
[protected]

HWS is a fraud and SCAM. The only thing they are good at is running your credit card and collecting your money. This has been the worst experience I have ever had with a company and the worst run around ever. HWS has financially ruined us as we have been completely unable to promote out program that was suppose to be completed back in June! Now 5 months later I have nothing. All our funding has been lost. Presentation, promotions, major events etc. have all been lost. We have lost at least 90k not including other opportunity costs and HWS could absolutely care less.

I want to gather a group of very unhappy customers and file a class action lawsuit. I'm not one to go this route but HWS does not care. For months I have had to plead and beg them to finish my project and I have nothing to show for it. I have been bounced back between a dozen or so people and for months I seem to be saying the exact same thing and still they do not deliver but promise that it will be done.

I finally spoke to an attorney today and I'm not going for the smalls claim garbage. I'm seeking damages. Brad you and your company has destroyed us. We put our complete trust and confidence in what your sales and Account reps told us and to this day after almost 8 months ago we have nothing.

It really sucks that you have a business that brings in money for yourself but when other start-up or small business go to you and accept what you promise and put their good faith in a company that prides itself as being #1 and then SCAMS them and puts them out of business, you should not be able to get away with that.

You should have worked to make sure that your customers are getting what they are promised and are happy. This world has so many crooks and they have somehow justified themselves and constantly convince themselves that they have done no wrong. Where are your ethics?

You have a bunch a sales folks who celebrate and ring bells in the back ground when a sale goes through and you make sure you collect your$$$ but I don't hear any celebrating or bells ringing once that customer has been satisfied.

I will not stop. I will make sure everyone knows that your company rips people off and that they should stay far away from you.

You want to make things right as you say? Call me. I have been waiting for you and other reps but it seems that you guys only call back people to get their money.

Anyone who has been scammed by HWS call me and we can somehow file a class action suit against Heritage Web NonSolutions.

Regards,

A very dissatisfied customer.
Bryan Boe
[protected]

Per subsequent agreement with HWS, this e-mail is being sent as a retraction of the above complain.

In response to Mr. Stone, you should be ashamed of yourself trying to hide poor business ethics behind a percentage of unhappy customers.This is the type of defense only guilty people use.In my business we strive for 100% customer satisfaction, although total satisfaction may not be a possibility, I go home at night knowing that I have done everything possible to make my customers happy, which includes refunding monies collected if needed, keep up the facade Mr. Stone and us small insignificant percentage of unhappy people will continue to voice our dis-pleasure with your omnipotent attitude and un satisfactory customer service. Jay Thomas RV's

Previous customers who air there complaint on public forums are the ones that have reached an indescribable level of frustration with Heritage. The company hides behind its terms of services contract that is written to favor only Heritage and alleviates Heritage of any responsibilities for such a despicable levels of service that Heritage should be embarrassed by the way some of their personnel managed projects.

If you don't like people posting negative comments simply refund their money and move on instead of trying to justify keeping portions of it. $500 means a lot more to the small business then it can possibly mean to Heritage so when you go out of your way to retain these moneys it is an insult to the consumer, and for a mere $500 dollars you have created lifelong Heritage haters. It would be so much easier to address the problems head-on then to deal with them the way you do. I hope all of the negative press is worth the $500.

Ya I've seen their ads posted on various job sites, and I know someone in my neighborhood who works for them, and they are definitely an e-sweatshop. Of course they don't reveal that until you pass their test. When I saw the non-compete clause, I refused to work with them.

Did you notice they also have a clause against defamation in their paperwork? Obviously they need that.

I HAVE HAD A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE WITH HWS. They put unauthorized charges onto my account. STAY FAR FAR FAR AWAY. Do not put yourself through the agony.

I have the same problem of those people not contacting me after i purchased my site. Finally after i ended up owing them some money they finally started back calling again but i dont know because i paid for a site that they advertised as professional site designers and i dont know what im doing but i could have designed it better myself. HERITAGE WEB SOLUTION IS SOME CRAPPPPPPP!

I agree with all of the above negative experiences. I thoroughly research for all services on the internet before making an important decision. Heritage Web Solution somehow went under my radar. It has been my most FRUSTRATING, TIRING and WORST experience with what supposedly a large professional website design company. We started out with great expectations of completing the website on time and on budget, we soon started experiencing an unresponsive account manager, got passed around to different people. Sepideha Hanks helped us as much as she can but we still ended up nowhere. Our programmer Rohit was of not much help as the website was filled with mis-spellings, texts with caps and lower case, grammar erros, you name it...THEY DO NOT CHECK THEIR WORK before turning it over. The site was not live as promised, search index was not submitted. Each little correction we had to file a request and they only MADE MORE ERRORS! When asking them about the problem, we were told to FILE ANOTHER REQUEST! This is the worst website design company one can hire. Each time they will try to upsale you additional services and the original problem unsolved. STAY AWAY FROM HERITAGE WEB SOLUTION, I do not know how they go into Entrepreneur Magazine and Inc. 500, but its a shame! Don't waste your money here! Go somewhere else!

I agree with all of the above. I finally cancelled and they billed me the next month. I am still trying to get this back. Check out the email I received from heritage about my problem. just a suggestion try sitecube. They do things right.

"I am aware of that blog and it does not bother me we have over 18, 000 websites and only that many complaints if you search for walmart and look at their complaints you will get pages and pages of complaints yet people still like wallmart no matter how hard a company tries they can never please the intire world but we do try as much as possible. I will have someone call you as soon as possible but it may be awile."

Your command of the English language is appalling. If you want others to take your complaint seriously, you need to detail the issues and write it up professionally.

childish ranting ... This complaint is teh sux.

Roxanne, you need to make up your mind. Is HWS good or bad, i've seen it both ways from you.

I currently work for the company, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

HWS isn't the best-run company around, but they're hardly scammers.

As far as not getting what you paid for from them, did you expect a gem of a web site for only a few hundred dollars? I've got news for you... it takes time and money to build a really nice looking and well-working site. No, their sales department doesn't exactly consider that a selling point and will happily show you the nicest pieces in their portfolio, but the fact is, if you expect to build and run a really professional site, you are either going to have to learn to do it yourself or pay somebody who can. $50/month isn't exactly spendy for well-managed servers, decent support, design updates, (virtually) unlimited bandwidth and disk space. Their programmers are decent (not top-notch), and QC in the design and programming departments has been improving greatly over the last few years.

If you think you are going to get top-notch service, support, and a fully customized design for only a few hundred dollars, I've got a lovely bridge to sell you too. Yes, the salesmen are the ### of the earth and will tell you anything you want to hear, but that's not unique to the company or even the industry. If you'll believe them, I have a hard time feeling sorry for you.

As for the other departments' heads getting bonuses for sales, the company wanting "only your money", or them trying to upsell you at every opportunity... Do you think that is a new or shady concept? If so, you have absolutely no idea how the business world works.

Some companies are worse than others. HWS isn't the best, but they are hardly the worst. As always, you get what you pay for. If you are willing to spend some money to get a well-built site, you'll get it.

Ron Carlos,

I invite you to communicate with me directly and I will do whatever I can to resolve the issues you have to your satisfaction.

Brad Stone
CEO@hwsinet.com

So this company said they are giving you all your money back? How is that ripping you off?