On June 14th 2009 our company received a quote from Ingenux to build a media player software that would have similar functionality to iTunes (play music, videos and burn them as well as an digital store where users can purchase music).
There bid was a bit low ($15,000) but David Lason told me they were highly interested in the project and wanted to win the project. After about 2 weeks of DAILY phone calls from David we finally agreed to go with them and made an initial payment of $10,000.
A few days later I received a different project outline than the one I originally signed. And upon going over the outline with their project manager Brandy Goodwin she stated that David had never mentioned a digital ecommerce section and that they had only bid me on a standalone software that would link to our "existing" digital store.
David had "suddenly" left for San Diego so I waited a week before he returned my phone call. He stated there must have been a "misunderstanding" but they did not bid out the ecommerce portion and that would cost an additional $12,000 and we would need to pay $6,000 of it before they moved forward. Upon payment it was several days before I heard back from them.
They said they would build the store and software simultaneously and they would both be done in about 35 days. 35 days later I received a zen cart screenshot of the store that didn't follow any of the specs we had outlined AND they were refusing to implement key points I had outlined in the store proposal.
Several weeks past deadline the digital store was still buggy and poorly designed. After many email/phone battles with them on the digital store I finally gave up and told them to focus on completing the software. About a week later the store stopped functioning altogether and they blamed me saying I altered code and that voided their "warranty". They also said they hadn't really been working on the software because their main coder had been busy on another project. It is NOVEMBER at this point and they had yet to begin the software.
They sent me a screenshot of the software and said we owed the remainder of the payment because they were now past "database creation phase" but I had not even seen a test copy of the software.
They sent me this status report on 12/11/09:
"Our current status report shows that we should have the full functionality of the studio ready for you to test early next week. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us."On
12/16/09 I received the first version of the software. It was just the GUI no functioning parts! Six months from initial payment and all they had was a GUI designed, and it was horrible. The contract stipulated I had 3 GUI design revisions and they told me I could not change the interface because they were past that phase. Finally after about 2 weeks of arguing they allowed me to send them my OWN design.
Two months later still no software. We finally got David on the phone and he said the coder on the project "walked out" and that their other coder was on another project and wouldn't be able to start ours for another 15 days. He also said he would knock off the final $2500 we owed because it was taking so long but the following day he sent me an email stating he had a "change of heart" and was still going to bill us that last payment.
They also said they couldn't move forward on the software because the store THEY BUILT was not functional and were blaming me for voiding the warranty. They wanted me to test the software on multiple OS's and when I told them the issues I was experiencing they just said
"The software works well. We never tested windows xp as that is 3 OSs ago. You can test in vista and 7 until we look at XP. MS support for XP sp2 will end next month and sp3 will be non supported and dead within a year."I emailed David and simply stated I lost faith in his companies ability to deliver the software and he responded with a personal attack of:
"I have been doing this for 17 years and worked with over 400 clients at Ingenux. Criticism is part of business but it does need to come from someone who graduated an actual college and does more than a little Photoshop and filming unknown people."It is now June 9th. David Lason will not return my calls.We lost $24,500 to Ingenux. It's enough to make my stomach sick every morning I wake up. I received numerous emails from David telling me how stupid I am. I guess I have to agree with him seeing as I fell for his scam.
I noticed that someone else had a similar experience and reported it here. Sorry to hear about your loss as well. We are going to move forward with whatever legal actions we can.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
IgotScammed
USAResolution
#3Author of original report
Mon, July 12, 2010
After a pleasant call with Ingenux it seemed there was simply a large amount of miscommunication on both ends. We were able to quickly resolve things and move forward on what became an amazing piece of software. Thank you Ingenux for giving us the sun, moon and stars on this project.
Seth Harden
Senior Vice President
TheeWebsite.com
IgotScammed
USAREPORT RETRACTED BY AUTHOR
#3Author of original report
Tue, June 15, 2010
THIS REPORT HAS BEEN RETRACTED BY THE AUTHOR