Complaint Review: InFront Webworks

This company engages in fraudulent and deceptive business practices. My experience is apparenty similar to another customer's experience from 2009, as also posted on this site.  I went to them in late June 2016 and spoke to Mike Hodgdon, the marketing director and explained what services I was looking for.  I was told that I would be given "Full Service" SEO services, costing $945 per month as that was the plan that would provide me with what I needed to get my website revamped for search engine optimization, and that was the cost given the size of my website.  At that time, they provided me with a "proposal" listing numerous technical terms for the work they would be performing, without any real explanation of what this work entails, or how many hours their team would be spending on my project per month, or how many tasks listed I could expect to be done per month.

The first month (July 2016), everything seemed great and it looked like they were doing a bunch of work for me.  However, when I attempted to discuss the actual work being done, their programmer, Stephanie Hooper, did not bother explaining anything, but repeatedly sent "technical jargon" emails to me in the guise of answering my questions.

By the middle of the second month, Stephanie Hooper, who had made a whole bunch of suggestions for work to be done on my project at the beginning of July, sends me an email stating she already did enough work on my project for the month, and if I wanted any additional work done, they would have to charge me more than the $945 that I already paid.

This alarmed me as nowhere in their contract does it state that the "Full Service" SEO that I was purchasing was capped by a certain amount of hours, so in response, I requested clarification of the plan that I was sold, including an explanation for what they meant for hours spent on my project per month.  No one at this SEO company ever provided any explanation for this time keeping.  Instead, they sent an alleged spreadsheet of their work, which when I reviewed it, it was apparent to me that Ms. Hooper was referencing me and my project in a clearly condescending manner, as if to document that I was a client who had no understanding of computer programming, IT, or the work that this company performs.

It appeared that this programmer was fraudulently overstating the work performed on my website project, as well as deceptively over claiming the hours spent on my project.  This led to a further argument with upper management, including the President, Matt Palis, whose response to the situation was that "he would get back to me in two weeks"

This company's resolution, once this dispute arose, was to simply state that if I was unhappy with the service, they wouldn't charge me for the next month.  This proposal was not adequate as this SEO company did not fully perform their obligations under the contract, and they were looking to cancel the contract mid-month, without even addressing the fact that I paid for a full month of service.

After this dispute, I was closely watching my website's ranking performance.  Within two weeks, my website's ranking plummeted and my listing was not even showing up on google maps as it was just a week prior.

After consulting with other SEO companies who ran audits on my website, these audits revealed that the work that Infront Webworks claims they performed on my site, and were billing me for, was not done, including taking care of online listings through Google and adding tags to images on my site.

Now, it appears this SEO company is sabotaging my online presence, which other SEO companies explain is extremely possible and easy for them to do by changing information.

Mike Hodgdon and Matt Palis run an absolutely horrible business.  They are both arrogant individuals who think that because they won some award last year, they can get away with this fraudulent conduct.  They think because they can manipulate your website ranking by changing things on the internet, that they can scam the public unnoticed.

Stay away from this company and their fraud and deceit.