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  • Report:  #16386

Complaint Review: HotHomePages

HotHomePages ripoff Very misleading and more Very misleading and more tricked and lied to us Orlando Florida

  • Reported By:
    Renton Wa
  • Submitted:
    Sat, March 09, 2002
  • Updated:
    Wed, March 13, 2002
  • HotHomePages
    100 South Orange Ave Suite 1000
    Orlando, Florida
    U.S.A.
  • Phone:
    407-872-7951
  • Category:

3 weeks ago I found a wonderful website I thought would be. It is a free for trial website for 30 days. Everything went well for the first 2 weeks using the site except 2 problems they assured me verbally the problem would be corrected, and the support was great until I bought into the web site maker.

I had a complaint from the beginning, and that was on their shopping page, it would not work, and there storage disk would not recover your space back after you deleted songs. Once you run out of storage space you will be charged more to update it. S

So I called them, and they assured me verbally it would be taking care of. What was wrong with it was they said one of their technician's coded it wrong, and they were trying to fix the problem.

I could not use it for advertising affiliate programs. Some of the banners you would put in there would get stuck, and there was no way to delete them, plus the ones that would work, would not show up to the general public.

Finally after numerous e-mail's, and phone calls they did not reply back to, they did reply back finally to say their was nothing they could do about it, and I should just plaster the banners all over my pages that I can create, and to me that would look terrible to place banners every where.

That is a very unorganized way to do things in my opinion, and the shopping area was suppose to be designed for the purpose of putting my affiliate banners into it they said before I bought their web site. I told them I don't want a site that don't work like they said it would, and I want my money back, because their site's were inoperatable in areas. They told me to just deal with it, and have fun.

I then called IBILL which is one of the website billing companies they go through, and told them the problem, and to cancel my account with them. What that means is they won't charge me more after one year is up. Then I asked them if I could get my money back, and they said not through them, and I would have to take it up with HotHomePages, and I had one year use of the site because it was paid for.

Then later I went back into my site, and HotHomePages deleted my website, and put it up as available to the general public to use with my name in the browser above, and I paid for that site. They did not refund my moneys, or tell me that they were going to do that to me, they just took my money, and shut my site off.

Then I got several letters from one of their support staff, and the games began. I was told that I accepted a contract that said I can not use my site for commercial use, which that is what their company set the sites up for in the first place. Here is what he said. I will copy, and paste it

>>> Did you read the terms and services agreement? It plainly says that you are not supposed to use the site for commercial use, or to solicit or maintain businesses Did you read the agreement? You checked *YES* to the agreement page. Then I wrote back to him saying if that was the case then why did they have many tools to use to promote business with in their sites they sell people, and this is double jeopardy then. Then he sent back this letter to me. >>>You can promote or sign up to commission junction, that is true. That does not mean that Hothomepages.com engine is set up to automatically integrate third part vendors code or software. You stated in the attached email that:
This is what I say about that..Now if you go to Commission Junction, and read in their site, it tells of third party vendors. This sounds like hypocrisy. Now if they can't code the software in their sites in shopping then tell me why they have tools in their sites their sites to do so, and send you off to Commission Junction a third party site to do business. So now you can see two lies there.

This is the worst of all the companies I have delt with on the internet. They are liars, and they have a contract that contradicts what is going on in their own sites they sell you. Just look for yourselves, it is free for 30 days, and if you go into there sites, and make one of your own, you will see all the tools for doing business, and more.

Go to http://hothomepages.com and sign up so you can see what I am talking about. I am appalled at their actions, and how they have treated me with their childish lying games. Here is the last letter he sent me to show you my site was paid for, and they deleted it out of spite. This is his own words I copied and am pasting

>>>>Sir You requested that your service be terminated, and your site to be no longer rebilled. As a result, your site has been paid for one year, and will not be re-billed next year, at your behest. If you would like to reactivate your site, with it's previous content, and continue to use your site for the term of your 1 year account, we can reactivate and make it available to YOU and only YOU. If you do not desire to have your account activated, then it will be available for others who may be interested in that particular domain name.
What he just said shows they are playing a game with me, and did me really wrong, and I want the whole world to know that this company is way out of line. By the way I have the letters documented to prove I am telling the truth

Robert
Renton, Washington

2 Updates & Rebuttals


robin

orlando,
Florida,

#3UPDATE Employee

Mon, March 11, 2002


At best; Unreasonable

#30

Sat, March 09, 2002

In response to Mr. Robert Chamberlins accusations:



HotHomepages Inc. has done all possible to accommodate Mr. Chamberlin, to no avail.



Yes, his site was deleted and a credit was issued immediately to his mother's Discover card in the amount of $59.95. Our decision to cancel his subscription was based on his excessive use of our Customer Service, Human Click, Programmers, long distance,emails, and of the excessive amount of my own time spent trying to assist him.



Additionally, his unrealistic demands that were followed by continued threats to discontinue service etc..It was explained to him time and time again that HotHomepages Inc. supports only our product functionality and not any 3rd party code. He just did not seem to be able or willing to crasp this concept.



As a reminder to Mr. Chamberlin, he agreed to the Terms of Service and in actuality is not entitled to a refund. In effort for us to expedite and bring the matter to conclusion we processed a refund. If we were the rip-offs he claims we are we would have held him to the terms of which he agreed and provided him HHP format and functionality assistance only as most of his requests regarded 3rd party code and advanced html and more difficult formatting code. Yet again we went beyond the call of duty to accommodate him, to no avail. Our product is a consumer driven site builder designed for ease of use. He wanted to do various functions and formatting that requires a working knowledge of html and a far greater knowledge of software interfacing and integration. These types of requests are way outside the scope of which we provide Customer Support.



Mr. Chamberlin's comments are slanderous at best. We have no desire to continue in these time consuming and continued rebutals to Mr. Chamberlin's unfounded and non supportable accusations. If need be we can certainly provide the necessary documentation that will clearly reflect the deluge of unreasonable demands he has made.



Regards

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