Complaint Review: PTI Marketing Technologies

We were badly ripped off by PTI Marketing Technologies (PTI), MarcomCentral and FusionPro.

Here's what happened:

We licensed the PTI, FusionPro marketing automation technology platform from PTI which included 3 days training for $15,000 up-front plus monthly fees.

Before we agreed to the deal we were assured by PTI that this program is a private label offering and we further were assured that our own branding would be displayed on the reseller demo website that we would build and take to market. Nothing in the agreement said anything to the contrary.

Little did we know this was a big lie and a serious and expensive misrepresentation by PTI.

After we paid the money, completed the training and set about to build our demo website we found that both PTI and MarcomCentral posted their own advertisements on our demo website. These advertisements were buried in the code, on the server side, so we did not have access to delete these advertisments.

What makes maters worse is MarcomCentral itself is the "retail" unit of PTI (owned by PTI) and MarcomCentral is a direct competitor to our company.

This is an audacious, damaging and deceitful conflict of interest on the part of PTI.

Visit this website we built  for more details: MarcomRipoff.com

Our direct economic loss over 15 months of PTI broken promises is over $225,000.

Here are the facts:

1. We now know, in an unethical effort to close the deal, Jeff Springborn assured us the advertisement for MarcomCentral, a direct competitor, that appeared in his selling demo to us would NOT appear on our demo website, and that customer demo websites, like ours, are entirely "private label" offerings. As in the industry understand this is common practice to stay in the background, leaving resellers free to fly their own brand, especially when this kind of money is paid out
2. Jeff Springborn assured us the advertisement for PTI, a service provider, would NOT appear on our demo website. In doing so, Jeff Springborn engaged in willful misrepresentation in order to induce us into selecting PTI, while at the same time we had other choices. Jeff Springborn stopped returning my phone calls and has since left the company
3. Based on this representation, which turned out to be untrue, we agreed to a contract with PTI, paid the money and underwent training
4. We never had a contract or any agreement whatsoever with MarcomCentral who is, as I said, a direct retail competitor of our company
5. During training Richard A. Lewis, Jr., (the head of training for PTI), assured me and other training attendees the advertisement could/would be removed
6. Thereafter PTI reneged on their assurance that these offending advertisements would not be displayed
7. Nothing in the written agreement with PTI ever mentions that these advertisements are required
8. The PTI agreement has a "Term"  and "Terms and Conditions" section that uses a type size substantially smaller than the minimum size required by law and is further obscured by a dark grey background. I used a hugh powered magnifier to read these two blocks and nothing is said about any advertisement display requirement
9. After 15 months of complaining about the blatant, self-serving advertisements Melinda McNutt finally supplied the secret code
10. We had already decided to cancel our account due to bad faith on the part of PTI as there was no longer any trust
11. We requested a refund and a refund was flatly refused
12. Next I spoke to Linnea Westlake–Vice President of Services about this issue and she was completely rude, condescending and sounded like an angry, obstinate person
13. Linnea Westlake made two very curious statements as follows:
14. Linnea Westlake stated that when Jeff Springborn refused to remove the advertisements he was "right"
15. Linnea Westlake further stated that when Melinda McNutt finally provided the secret code, only after we notified billing we were canceling our account over this, Melinda McNutt was also "right"
16. We were dumbfounded by these two seemingly contradictory statements
17. Finally we spoke to Jeff Stehman–Techical Support, and he explained the reason behind the both "right" statements by Linnea Westlake
18. This revelation and admission by Jeff Stehman makes our position even stronger and backs up the facts to a greater degree that PTI was wrong in imposing branded advertisements on private label offerings
19. We attempted to contact Coleman Kane–President and Chief Executive Officer. I both called and emailed Coleman Kane (ckane@printable.com). He failed to respond in any way

As result of the intransigence on the part of PTI to make any effort whatever resolve this ripoff we feel obligated to let others know how PTI and MarcomCentral operate their sleezy ripoff businesses.