Complaint Review: Connected Business

Good news we finally take this claim to BBB too. Please follow us on BBB

https://sanjose.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/456945/c/u24h2u

Hello every body. Today I have a good news for all those who were seeing this post. I got a call from CBC News and they approve it to make one of their show about our story with CB. This is my first time submitting a case for a Canadian TV show. I will post you the link once the show is live. I already start contacting BBB and I hope before the show start or going live, we have the BBB claim also get on the air. I already got 10s of email from arround the world and asking about my expericne. Thanks Rip Off for doing good job. I will diffently post more update soon. Follow us on facebook page and share my videos as much as you can. Stay tuned.

Wow I cant believe it that they got all of our ideas and now selling it to Auto Parts makers. But remember anything they show on these videos are not the 100% solution to fit for auto parts company. Dont you ask one question why Tiger give up on the project, if everything shows on these video were perfect? The reason is that they do not deliver the products the way it should work and what we paid for and anything you see in those videos are 80% not right and it does not work perfectly the way it should for Auto Parts company, otherwise we were not crazy to lose $35000.00.

After I saw these nice videos now I know why my project get too long to finish. They were busy making these nice nice videos for their own business and stealing all our pro ideas. Keep in mind some of those ideas are all registered as copyright in Canada and we don’t have a written agreement to sell it in public so soon you will get a letter from our lawyer.

Any way guys, I found a nice ERP made only for Auto Parts company, if any one wants to get more info, please contact me through this claim I will give you as much as info as you want it. All you do in return to stay away from this junk company. They are bunch of stealers. Steal your money and ideas. Stay tuned I will inform you what happen in the court soon.

We made a few videos to show the features we made in action..

Here are the videos of the items that Tiger paid for along with the revisions they requested. These are the only customization that were promised to Tiger or paid for by Tiger. The agreement is very clear on that. Although these features took longer than the time quoted (due to the revisions) we never asked them to pay for additional time...

https://vimeo.com/143116265 - Make/Model/Year integration to quote / sales order screen

https://vimeo.com/143222915 - Make/Model/Year integration added to the CBE

Again - the problem is that as we started implementing the solution for them, they kept holding up the implementation process demanding that we add new "critical / must have" features for them that were not in the agreement as a deliverable by us.Although we were not obligated to do so, we added the following features for them as well;

https://vimeo.com/143244986 - The ability for their suppliers to modify purchase order requisitions via excel and the ability to autogenerate purchase order requisitions based on reorder points / sales trends

https://vimeo.com/143120971 - Ability for a manger to add / remove additional contacts / logins to their online account

https://vimeo.com/143125844 - Ability to import Make/Model/Year data

We also added...

Routine to update prices for each item based off last price paid per price level.

Ability to add/edit/modify the Make/Model/Year data from within the sales order screen

Again, we spent over 80k in additional labor to accomidate demands for things were never part of the agreement...

First of all, our company name is Tiger Auto Parts and we totally different department from JDM Tiger Japanese Auto Parts or www.jdmtigerjapanese.com. Our company name is Tiger Auto Parts LTD and our website is www.tigerautoparts.com. I know both companies are running under the same name but it has nothing to do with our department we are working on. The Tiger Japanese is running under different department of our corporation and it is a subcontractor.

I would like to tell one thing for everybody about this company that please do not trust this company as they are very expert on ripping off customers, they are s**** company which just take your money and run away. I have contacted a few TV Show in Toronto like Marketplace in CBC.ca/Marketplace which always goes behind stories like these and I also contacted CNN in NY to cover our story. I will try as hard as I can to put this company out of business or at least let others know about them.

They fake story that Mr. Gary the president of Connected Business wrote in this claim, is 0 wrong and he tries to mislead all the readers. Again if you need the right story please visit the Facebook page or YouTube video which I made for this issue and click on download link which I will publish all the email and communications between Tiger and Connected Business then you guys judge.

I will soon open a complaint in BBB and all other complain sites. In Jan 2016 I will make a website under Connected Business Fraud and will hand it over to our marketing department to rank and optimized it in all search engine website so everybody will get our link first on the top of all search engine first page. I request from all of you to stay tuned and subscribe to that page and start talking. The more we talk about Connected Business the more page will rank in Google and the harder we punch.

Or send me email at mike@tigerautoparts.com to send all the document to you.

I already got a feedback from one user from Denmark about my story: Here is his story:

Thanks alot for the detailed information about this junk company. I am living in Denmark and we had planned to do business with this company, but changed our mind hearing your story. I have sent you a private sms with my e-mail address so that you can send me all those e-mails you have gotten from this company. I really appreciate what you guys doing by making the people be aware of such fraud companies otherwise they just rob the people.

It is me back: After I read this story, I thought I am moving to the right direction and Connected Business already lost one business and one customer, this mean the money I paid for them is returned. Lol. Just wait and see what will happen next. I will keep you guys updated about every feedback I get from visitors and will share it with all of you. I hope this is a good lesson to Connected Business.

Hay Mr. Gary you don’t need to waste your time and keep writing under this claim anything anymore, at the end you are the loser if don’t take care of your customers.

I’m surprised as it is Tiger who is in breach of our agreement.You do not have to search too long before you start to understand what kind of people are running this company;

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/tiger-japanese-c105366.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/jdm-tiger-japanese-auto-parts-ltd-lumberton-texas-c317085.html
http://honda-tech.com/honda-civic-del-sol-1992-2000-1/jdm-tiger-japanese-2711314/
http://www.supraforums.com/forum/showthread.php?476791-Do-NOT-Buy-from-Tiger-Japanese!!!
http://www.3si.org/forum/f35/tiger-japanese-engines-ripped-me-off-419204/
http://www.d-series.org/forums/n00b-forum/224857-jdm-tiger-japanese-good-place-purchase-engine.html
http://mazda626.net/topic/32483-jdm-tiger-japanese-claim-feedback/

(you get the idea)

Here is our side of the story…

First, for anyone looking to select software it is important to make sure that you do the due-diligence needed to select the right solution for your business.  Every business software company has negative feedback somewhere online and that is usually initiated by a company that did not due the proper due-diligence before selecting a system.  There are a lot of articles to help guide in this regard such as - http://www.apprise.com/company/resource-center/articles/Top-5-Mistakes-to-Avoid-when-Choosing-ERP-Software.asp

Because we understand the importance of due diligence in the selection criteria, we offer:

• Comprehensive demos of our application (we estimate that we spent over 16 hours doing multiple demo’s with Tiger)
• Over 300 product videos online - https://vimeo.com/connectedbusiness
• An open forum where prospective customers can ask existing customers questions - http://community.connectedbusiness.com/forum/index
• Monthly training in our 1,500sq ft training center where prospects can spend 3 days with other prospects and customers going through the solution - https://vimeo.com/104078027
• We allow prospects to attend our annual user conferences where they can meet with customers and partners - https://vimeo.com/130837486
• We offer a package fit analysis service where we will send a member of our team to your office and produce a report of how our product will fit in your organization.
• We also have a network of local partners that have extensive skills working with all kinds of companies. 

Because of the time and costs associated with acquiring, assisting, and supporting a new customer in going live, we do not want anyone to buy our solution if it is not a good fit. Once someone buys our solution, we need to make a large investment in time and money so we have it in our agreement where the customer has accepted responsibility for the due-diligence necessary to confirm that the solution meets their needs.  This is standard language that all of our peers also use - “You assume all responsibility for the selection of the Software as appropriate to achieve the results You intend and for the installation of, use of, and results obtained from the Software.”.  We also have language that our products and services are non-refundable.  

Regarding Tiger…

So that we can stick to the facts, I’ve uploaded the agreement that Tiger signed on January 6^th 2015. I’ve redacted the dollar amounts for confidentially purposes. 

http://www.connectedbusiness.com/tigerproposal.pdf

Relevant sections include…

1.2 - Key items & issues discussed: In this section we list out the items discussed over the course of the sales process to make it clear that while these item was discussed, no deliverables are promised or due.

2.2 - TIGER AUTO PARTS IMPLEMENTATION SERVICES
Custom Consultative Implementation package: (Recommended and included in this Proposal/Agreement).  Price quoted is a “Base starting at price”.  Final price will be determined based on consulting process of data to be converted and tasks each party will complete.  Implementation for a company sized like Tiger Auto Parts would typically take a minimum of 90 days and could take 3-6 months.  The time frame to completion is dependent on expectations of customizations and the availability and readiness of Tiger Auto Parts existing “legacy” data being made ready and available to ConnectedBusiness to import and setup.  Detailed consultation on this topic will yield a more exact analysis of tasks and timelines to completion for estimated “go-Live” date. http://www.connectedbusiness.com/custom-implementation

In this section we make it clear that we include up to 20 hours of time with a Senior Business Analyst and 75 hours and 45 minutes of system analyst time and that additional hours are chargeable.  This is usually more than enough time to complete the implementation. If the time goes over due to no fault of the customer, we usually extend the time we work on the Implmentation at no charge.

4.0 CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT SERVICES

Details to be determined and outlined here.  Final pricing based on T&M Billing and scope of custom Development work defined and accepted by both parties.

In this section we make it clear that any custom development work is chargeable for time and material.

7.3 SUMMARY OF TOTAL COSTS WITH LICENSES

a)    Unlimited User Premise Based License (You Own)………………………………………… $   x
b)    Multi-Location Accounting Optional ($3,000)  ……………………….……………..……….$  Not included
c)    Unlimited ConnectedCare included (Section 6.0) …………………………….…………….$  Per Sect 6.1/6.2
d)    ConnectedBusiness Custom Consultative  Implementation per section 2.2 .…..$   x
e)    CB CBE Website Grand Design Skin Services* ………………………………………………. $      x
f)     Custom Development integration of Automotive Make/Model/Year**…………$      7,500
g)    CB Training (as recommended in Section 2.4 for LA & onsite)*** ………….………$       x
h)    6 Custom Business Intelligence BI Reports created*……………………..………………..$      x

**Make/Model/Year integration to quote/sales order screens and CBE price given here is ONLY an estimation for T&M Billing on this project Per Section 4.0

Re: Customizations

The agreement is clear.  The only customization to the software that Tiger paid for is 50 hours of development time to implement the Make/Model/Year integration.  As we started to implement the solution for them, they put the project on hold several times demanding that we add additional features for them before they would give us their data to import into our solution.  These additional customizations include;

a)       A button in the purchase order requisition form that would allow them to send the purchase order to their suppliers in excel format, have their suppliers make changes to the excel file, and a process where they can update the purchase orders based on the excel spreadsheet from the supplier;

b)      Changes to our purchase order wizard

c)      A form on our ecommerce module to allow B2B account administrators to add and remove employee access to place orders online

d)      Changes to our solution to support their pricing methodology

e)      Maintenance forms for the Make / Model / Year data

All told, the custom development work for tiger (to date) has exceed 600 hours.  This comes out to $82,500 in unbilled developer services that we have provided to Tiger. 

Tiger indicated that they were unhappy with the proposed “Maintenance forms for the Make / Model / Year data” that we agreed to do for free, and wanted a “wizard” that would go through and update the Make / Model / Year data “in bulk”.

Because our customers in the automotive field usually subscribe to the Make / Model / Year data instead of trying to maintaining it themselves, we just didn’t see where this would add any value to our other customers. Because we do not do custom services for items that will not benefit the majority of our existing users, we introduced Tiger to one of our partners that has experience with automotive companies to develop the Make / Model / Year update tool for them.  The partner indicated that he thought he can create it for $2-3k based on approved specs. Tiger indicated that they were unwilling to pay to have this customization done and if we did not pay, they would cancel the agreement. Given that this customization was not part of the proposal, and that we have already extended $82k of unbilled services, we didn’t feel that it was reasonable to expect us to pick up that expense. Also, we were concenrned that Tiger would continue to extort more and more from us under the threat of damaging our hard earned reputation over the interent. At some point you need to say "enough". To be clear...

The only item that they did pay for “Make/Model/Year integration to quote/sales order screens and CBE” is 100% completed with their latest changes. 

Re: Implementation Date

The agreement states “Planned Go-Live Estimated Target Date:   May 1, 2015” which is clearly an estimate based on deliverables on both sides. The agreement also clearly states “The time frame to completion is dependent on expectations of customizations and the availability and readiness of Tiger Auto Parts existing “legacy” data being made ready and available to ConnectedBusiness to import and setup.”.

Our custom implementation schedule is clearly defined at - http://www.connectedbusiness.com/custom-implementation. Our custom implementation includes 20 hours of a senior business analyst and 76.75 hours of a system analyst time. Anything above that is chargeable.

Each time that we would go to hold a training or implementation session, Mike with Tiger would interrupt the process to say that his business works different and he needs another feature added the program in order for him to use it. Each time, Tiger agreed to delay the implementation as we added the additional functionary for them. Each Time, Tiger refused to give us their data to import until he saw the new feature working with a sample of his data.

Because of this constant “starts and stops” and the requirment that we show features using a sample of their data instead of our demo database, we have spent 105 hours to date on “implementation services” for Tiger.

Summary

We feel that we have not only fulfilled the terms of the agreement, but have gone far beyond what the agreement has called for in a show of good faith.  Had we known that tiger had no intention of paying us the remaining balance of our agreement and going live with our software, we would have never made the $82k Investment we have made to date. 

If tiger wants to continue the implementation of our solution, then we would be happy to offer up to 20 hours of additional programming ($3,000 value) and 60 additional hours of implementation services ($7,500 value).  This will put us at $92,000 in additional services given – all we are asking for is for Tiger to work with a third party partner on things they want custom for them moving forward – as clearly agreed upon in the agreement. Of course we would expect them to stick to the agreement they signed moving forward as well.