Complaint Review: Home Jobs National Financial Publication

On 3/5/04 the remaining $23.45 was deposited to my account. (I didn't know about it yet when I put that last rebuttal because I hadn't checked my account online yet.) I guess the Postal investigation finally got to them.

This just teaches me that sometimes persistence pays off.

On February 5th I received a letter from Patricia S. Sweeney, a manager at the United States Postal Inspection Service. This company is now the subject of an investigation by said Service.

Thought you might be interested ...When I first started realizing these people weren't going to give me a refund and I needed to pursue the matter, I filed complaints with each of the companies that bore their 'seal' on the homejobs.com website. The only one that has kept up with me on this matter, WebAssured.com, recently sent me an email of their 'fourth notice' to try and resolve this matter. (They send a copy of the complaint to me and the company until something is done. I like these people!) They just wanted to check up with me and see if the matter was resolved or if it should stay open. Me being unsatisfied, I wanted it to stay open, so the link takes you to their site to fill out an update. I go and under the update section there is a section for any correspondence you have received regarding the matter. So I decided that the response that Mr. James Scott Polk sent to the Greater New Orleans BBB applied. I decided I would copy what he wrote word-for-word in his letter and then my rebuttal to each paragraph. Since I was going to be typing all of this information out anyway, I figured I'd share with you guys, even if just for entertainment purposes..

Following is, in quotes, what Mr. Polk wrote. I will put my responses to each paragraph after a few dashes to make it even more easy to recognise. Enjoy!

Dear Ms. Bienvenu:

When a customer calls our toll free number they speak to a trained representative. Our representatives explain that we offer a publication listing companies that offer arts and crafts, telephone sales, professional services, home assembly work, computer and internet related opportunities.

---What toll free number? The website I paid to have access to had no toll free number listed. There is a number, but it is long distance from where I am from. It isn't a publication; it is access to a website with job listings that I was sold.

The customer ordered the version of our publication that is downloaded from our Internet Site and printed out. Therefore, there is no way of retrieving the merchandise from the user or guaranteeing that they will not use this book for its purpose after receiving their money back. The guarantee is clearly stated to our customers prior to their purchase and is printed on the site.

---I did not order anything that was a publication', that was downloaded' or that was printed out'. Mr. Polk is not even familiar with what I ordered. It would seem this is a form letter where he entered my name in the customer' blank. The guarantee is stated on the website, but I wouldn't call it clear to say the least.

Each of the companies in our program have been carefully researched and selected by our staff. We are so confident in the quality of our work at home opportunities that we offer a Money Back Guarantee, which follows: If for any reason any of the home assembly companies refuses the opportunity to work, simply send us a copy of that rejection letter and a copy of the transaction receipt and we will gladly refund the purchase price.

---If each of the companies is researched and selected, then why is it that a bunch of links take you to sites that no longer exist? Or to company websites where the job that was listed doesn't even exist? Or to places that ask you to do more work to get a list of jobs from them?

This guarantee' is one of the main things about this company that I have a problem with. A person already convinced by all of the other information on the site that just looks at the money back guarantee as a last reassurance will breeze right over the home assembly companies' clause. What's more, home assembly companies ask you for money, not a job application. The guarantee is not even valid because it is not based on an occurrence that could even happen. Home assembly companies ask you for a deposit, they send the materials, you do the work and send it back. Or, you send the money, get the materials, decide it isn't for you and do nothing or send them back. Never does it occur that you send these people your money and they send you a rejection letter. (No thanks. We reject your money.') Anyone who has ever had anything to do with assembly companies knows this. It's not like you sent them a job application, they reviewed it and if your qualifications were what they were looking for they scheduled an interview. Or, if they don't fit, they send you a rejection letter. That just doesn't happen. The guarantee is based on a falsehood and is very misleading. A person is looking at the site looking for a certain type of work they can do from home, they see their area of interest repeated over and over as something they can do from home and then at the last minute, buried deep in their website, there is a money back guarantee. For many people the fact that there is a money back guarantee at this point would be enough for them. Wow, they said administrative' (for example) over and over again; they must have bunches of those type jobs. And there's a money back guarantee? How can I go wrong? If you read the guarantee fast enough and with stars in your eyes from all their promises, it is very misleading.

Please find the customers information we received upon purchase. The attached user detail shows that the customer did successfully use the publication from our website 44 times. The last activity occurred on January 6th, 2004 at 10:50 AM.


---If the website was any good, would I have to keep going to it 44 different times to try and find one decent job? Also, towards the end of this period I was going on to do research for my case since I realized they weren't going to give me a refund so I should have accurate information to use against them. One of the things I was checking on was the jobs under the Administrative' category that had the same three companies listed the whole time since I purchased the access. Another was to check on the broken links to see if anything was ever done about them, which it wasn't. I figured since they were careful' about their research' and selection' that at some point these matters would be taken care of by their crack website crew. (After all, they're getting $40 per person that buys access to their site, so they must be doing something with the money, right?) They weren't.

Also, it's nice to know that they keep records on the number of times someone goes to their website, invading that person's privacy rights, just for such a situation. (To use against them when they have a complaint.) I personally think that action in and of itself speaks volumes. I mean, they can do the research to see how many times someone who files a complaint accessed their website, but they can't get it straight what the person even purchased or even hold true to their promise of updating the website itself.

There are several hundred work at home opportunities available at our website. Mrs. Fry claims that half of the links that she goes to are dead and the other half want more money'. Due to the nature of the internet industry, it is impossible to guarantee that every link will work every time it is used. There are numerous reasons why Mrs. Fry would be unable to use a direct link. As for half the companies requiring more money, many companies under the Craft and Assembly category do ask for deposits. This allows the company to provide an individual with materials necessary to put the item together. When the work is returned for payment, the company returns the deposit to the customer. There are approximately 60 to 80 companies under the Craft and Assembly category. I certainly do not consider this half the companies in the listing.

---I was never interested in assembly work, therefore never looked under this category. What's more, I am familiar with the way these assembly companies work, so I would have known ahead of time about the deposit they require. He is wrong once again about what I thought I was purchasing as opposed to what he thinks he's selling. He seems to be stuck on this Home Assembly work issue. It was never presented to me that these were the only opportunities available, yet his dwelling on them makes it seems they are the only ones his company really takes any serious interest in. Of course this is probably due to their money back guarantee' being contingent upon this industry. If I just spent $40 for work, why would I only be interested in work that required me to send more money? If I were rich enough to think that way, I wouldn't be looking for a job in the first place.

All emails that received by Help@HomeJobs.com are answered in a timely, professional manner. I am uncertain what Mrs. Fry would consider a hostile' response. I am confident that our customer service personal answers all questions, concerns and or situations with the utmost professionalism.

---First things first, that is his misspelling of personnel' not mine. And the incorrect usage of answers' in the place of answered. Anyway, the first email was a hostile response to me wanting a refund and questioning their refund policy. The second one had an automated response letting me know they got their email and would respond, but they never did. The third email I sent got nothing; not even an automated response. I have been in a business situation where email contact was necessary. If you don't know the answer to the customers' question, you keep it in the inbox, do research and find a solution. (Keeping the customer informed every step of the way.) Utmost professionalism' must mean something different in Mr. Polk's company than it has for any of the companies that I have worked for or even dealt with in the past.

Mrs. Fry fails to understand the conditions of the money back guarantee. Only if a HOME ASSEMBLY company refuses the opportunity to work will we issue a refund. The companies that are listed as home assembly companies WILL provide the customer with a rejection letter if the situation should arise.

---As I explained earlier, this situation would never arise in the first place. A person is expected to send money to these companies (even if this isn't even the work they were interested in in the first place) over and over again with the hopes of receiving a rejection letter. Why have all these claims of other types of jobs if the guarantee is only contingent upon a certain type of company? I'll tell you why, bait and switch. Oh, and I do understand the conditions of the money back guarantee. I just question the validity of the conditions.

Customer's, who receive our printed information, do receive a 24 hour update hotline number which they can call to get current information. We do not list this number on our website, because anyone who has paid to access the information at the site does not need to call the update hotline number. Current information is available to them each time they log onto the site.

---(Again, bad grammar is taken word for word from Mr. Polk's letter and should not be a reflection of me.) Then why is this listed as a benefit of paying for access? When I bought the access, this was listed as a benefit of buying it. False advertising, plain and simple.

Mrs. Fry has had access to our information since April 30th, 2003. She has used our information a total of 44 times and very recently used the information again on January 6th, 2004. I am very confident that although each work at home opportunity was not specifically and exactly what Mrs. Fry was looking for, she should have found a number of opportunities that she could have taken advantage of."

---I have been to the site that many times for the reasons I already listed. I really am a stubborn person and I thought if I paid my good money for something and believed all of the information that there must be something to it. So I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Again, and again, and again. Still the same results. The fact that I have had access to this information for this period of time should add validity to my claim as far as the defects of the site not take away from my claim. Someone who only had access for a short period of time but alleged that the companies' links that didn't work or who asked for money were never removed would have less validity than someone that has looked again and again and found the same old problems. I could' have taken advantage of' many of the opportunities, if I wanted to be taken for more of my money or my time. Sorry, that isn't what I was looking for when I bought this service'.

We are interested in maintaining a good business relationship with the BBB and our customers; however I can not help but feel that Mrs. Fry is trying to get something for nothing'. The charge for the access is $39.95; there is a $6.95 internet and processing fee which brings the purchase price to $33.00. I feel that Mrs. Fry has taken advantage of the information 44 different times and has not met the conditions of our refund policy. I have therefore, voided her access to the information at our site, and issued a credit to her account for $16.50. This is half the purchase price of the access. I will mail a copy of this letter to Mrs. Fry.

---This is his closing argument. The whole letter has led up to this point. The whole letter has been attempting to achieve nothing but to portray me as someone I am not and to portray his company as something they are not. He is interested in maintaining a good relationship with the BBB; that line is only in there to kiss butt. As for his customers, this is an example of the intimidation factor that he uses. He has made many assumptions about me as his customer', none of which were valid. He assumed that someone that would be interested in his company to help them find a job working from home would be ignorant. IE, ignorant about the fact that it is impossible to keep up with all the broken links. As a matter of fact, there are free programs available on the internet that will check the broken links on your website for you. Whereas he has been ignorant in the following ways:

1) He didn't know what I even purchased from his company. His first statement is about calling their toll free number as if this is the process. I didn't call a number to order access to the website. He repeatedly refers to it as a publication' and in his opening statement says that it was something that I could download' and print out'. This is not the product that I purchased.
2) He assumed that I was interested in Home Assembly companies. I have a college degree. (Not that I am disparaging anyone who doesn't.) My degree is in Computer Science. I am very familiar with the internet and in recent years, the different work at home opportunities that have been presented. I know what assembly companies are all about. Basically he is assuming ignorance in the fact that I would pay him money in order to get a list of other people that want me to send them money to work. This can give you an idea of what he really feels about his customers'.
3) He is either ignorant or is being deliberately deceptive about his workers. To say they are careful in their research and that (as it claims at a different part of the sales pitch) they update the information regularly is wrong.
4) He is ignorant (or deliberately deceptive) of how his customer service staff really responds to email.
5) He is ignorant (or deliberately deceptive) of how misleading the money back guarantee of his company is to people who really are looking for work they can do from home.
6) It seems to me from the tone of his letter that he is ignorant of the type of person that I am. He thinks that by bad-mouthing me to the BBB to which I made the complaint that I would be intimidated into leaving him alone. This is wrong.
7) He is ignorant to the fact that I am not ignorant.

I would like to address the fact that he says I am trying to get something for nothing'. He charges people for something based on claims that aren't valid, then when the person wants their money back, falls back on the tactic of attacking the customer. It would seem to me that he and his company are the ones that are interested in getting something for nothing. And they have been doing it for years.

Also, whatever this internet and processing fee' is, it was never made clear to me in my purchase price. I don't think that this is something that is my responsibility. (Why should it be?) If I purchase a product for a certain price and the company bases that price on certain fees that they incur, they are still responsible for the full purchase price. If I get a refund, it is the full refund, not minus whatever fees that they incur for their business. Their business decisions, IE what they decide to pay other people to do for them, are their decisions, not mine.

I consider this matter closed, and will not reply to a rebuttal.

---That doesn't surprise me. It has been made clear to me that this is the business practice that is acceptable to this company. He says he doesn't think the email correspondence was hostile', but he showed a great example of what I consider hostile through his letter. If this is the example that the company has to go by, then obviously they are reflecting the attitude of the person in charge. My way or the highway.' They do what they want and don't have to seriously address any issues. Oh, and they misrepresent themselves in this matter until you are stuck with them.

Sincerely,

BBB Report... Just thought I'd provide a link to their BBB report if anyone was interested:

http://www.houma.bbb.org/commonreport.html?bureau=houma&compid=23611&national=Y

One should note that their report didn't used to be this bad, so apparently alot of people have been complaining. I am going to look around the internet to try and find others that have been scammed by this company and try to get them to post their own rip-off reports.

I received $16.50 of my $39.95 and a copy of the nasty letter that Mr. James Scott Polk sent to the Louisiana BBB in response to my complaint.

He claims that I should only get half my money because I ordered the version of the "publication" that is downloaded and printed out. I never received any book, publication, anything downloadable that I could use/print out even after I got my money back. So, even though he gave me half of what I paid, I can't use the web-site anymore. (I don't want to, it's just the principle. If you take the product that I purchased shouldn't I get a full refund?)

He repeats that same BS I stated in my original complaint about each of the companies being carefully researched blah, blah, blah.

He uses that silly excuse about Craft and Assembly companies being the ones that want more money from you (deposits). Hey, I was neither interested in nor looked at any of these kinds of companies, therefore my claim that half the companies want more money had nothing to do with the Assembly companies.

He further states that the emails that are received by his company are answered in a timely, professional manner. This is not true. One of mine was ignored and another one the person was about as snippy as Mr. Polk is in his letter. They don't like having to answer questions about their misleading return policy.

He says I 'fail to understand the conditions of the money back guarantee'. No I don't, that's a large part of my complaint!

He refers to the times I have visited his site several times throughout the letter as if this is proof of anything. If his site was good, would I need to keep coming back? I am just stubborn when it comes to spending my money and was going back trying to give this company the benefit of the doubt, to see if any new jobs were listed in areas that I was interested in (in the Administrative category, as an example, there were the same three companies listed for six months.), to see if they fixed any of the broken links or scamsters listed on their site that I made them aware of, etc. I wanted to believe that sooner or later my money would pay off in some way. It's pretty bad when a CEO has to attack a customer's good faith in the product they purchased from their company.

And, this is just the lowest part of all.. He says that he "can not help but feel that" *insert my name here* "is trying to 'get something for nothing'." That is laughable as it would seem to me after reviewing Mr. Polk's web-site and the lack of any information that was promised before my purchase that him and his company are the ones that want something for nothing. Oh, and he closes by stating 'I consider this matter closed, and will not reply to a rebuttal.'. That doesn't suprise me one bit. What a scam.