Complaint Review: SMS.AC

EDitor's Comment: Rip-off Report Investigation:
Rip-off Report Investigation is complete: We note that with over 35 million registered members, there are only a mere 15 Rip-off Reports filed on the Company, which is an outstanding record. We commend the Company for asking us to look into these Reports with a sincere effort by the Company to satisfy any customer that might have fallen through the cracks. Not too sure what the problem could be with a money back guarantee?! With 35 million customers, and hundreds of customer service people working at the Company, we would think they would have a lot more complaints, but they don't. We all know how customer service people can be, remember they are human too :-) .
Investigation shows many of the comments made about the Company are ludicrous and were more than likely posted by competitors and should not be taken seriously. ALL BUSINESSES WILL GET COMPLAINTS, BUT HOW THOSE BUSINESSES HANDLE THOSE COMPLAINTS SEPARATES GOOD BUSINESS FROM BAD BUSINESS. As a matter of policy, when Rip-off Report is retained by a business to investigate independently and to publish our findings, we use every bit of information at our disposal to determine the truthfulness of the complaints against the company or individual... there are no guarantees as to the final outcome. Our final investigation shows that the company has demonstrated excellent customer satisfaction and has reasonably addressed all outstanding complaints. Anyone may contact me EDitor@ripoffreport.com with any questions or information. ..Also, the company has set up a special email address for those who may have a special refund request (although the regular refund procedures seem to be exemplary). The address is: specialrefund@corp.sms.ac

CLICK HERE to read more about the company "Setting the record straight"

READ BELOW COMMENTS FROM SMS.ac REGUARDING THE POSTING BELOW...

SMS.ac is at the pinnacle of the wireless text data mobile space. One of the largest analyst firms in the world (IDC) named SMS.ac to its 10 Emerging Wireless Players to Watch list for 2005 and an industry standard (Fierce Wireless) named SMS.ac to its Fierce 15 list, calling SMS.ac one of the top 15 wireless companies in the world. SMS.ac has also been featured on the front page of the New York Times, the BBC, CNBC Europe, MSNBC, USA Today, ABC's 20/20 and many other news outlets around the world. With so much media attention, there are bound to be some detractors. However, SMS.ac is committed to its members' satisfaction. If there are comments or complaints, SMS.ac has a 24-hour customer service team that is there to help. There have been some unflattering comments about SMS.ac posted on blogs and bulletin boards and many of those comments are wholly untrue. As with most successful companies, SMS.ac has its share of disgruntled, contentious, jealous and malicious individuals who have attempted to sabotage the success of SMS.ac. SMS.ac's customer service department operates 7/24 and their mandate is to respond to every customer inquiry within six hours! That is an amazing feat, or a company that has tens of millions of registered members in 180+ countries.

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NOW TO THE ORIGIONAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED
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Hello. I am learning to be a private detective and I am doing a side project to put my sleuthing theory to practice. I haven't broken out the cameras or bugging devices yet but who knows? :-)

I was pointed to this site from a detective I know. This site is very informative but it's not easy to believe a lot of what you read here. What's real and what's made up by people who have some personal motivation to say bad things? That's where I come in.

Since I live in San Diego, reports that especially got my attention were the ones about SMS.AC. I see a lot of allegations and a couple of links in these reports but no solid evidence or any real names of customers or ex-employees of SMS.AC that I can follow up on except the U.S. Postal Service stuff. So what I did was I checked the San Diego superior court records room for SMS.AC to see if there is anything happening to support or refute the claims made in different reports here. What I found was a lot of SMS.AC court records.

I didn't get copies of everything but I did get some interesting copies and I took notes. I hit the jackpot in the Rowland case which contained numerous references to other cases and made my job easier. Thanks Roland! Some things I found in the court records are so damning to SMS.AC that I didn't include them here in fear of ending up a defendant myself! Even though everything is public record and the freedom of information act says anyone can see them. I'll let you do it.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A PDF FILE OF THE INTERESTING COURT RECORDS I FOUND. The file contains: Class Action Employment Wages complaint filed 12-14-2005 that affects all present and past employees False Imprisonment complaint from collegeclub.com (Pousti's former company - Pousti is the Chairman and CEO of SMS.AC ) Declaration of Greg Willfart from the ASPIRO AB case - In another lawsuit (JERRY ENGLE vs. SMS AC INC) it appears as though those 60 employees Wilfahrt mentions in his declaration weren't even being paid at that time. Isn't that perjury? Declaration of Marc Meyer (Sr. V.P. of CREALOGIX ) from the VILKAS, LTD case - Meyer mentions the "SMS.AC foreign creditor scheme" Declaration of Marilyn Scheer (VILKAS and CREALOGIX Counsel) - Scheer mentions the issue of Pousti avoiding service and the "SMS.AC foreign creditor scheme" Email from Greg Willfart from the VILKAS, LTD case - Wilfahrt's email shows a very vindictive and ruthless side to SMS.AC in trying to threaten their creditors with more litigation instead of doing good on the enormous unpaid debt which is the real issue. SMS.AC tries to turn the whole matter against the nice foreign company that trusted SMS.AC and gave them good terms. What jerks. CLICK HERE TO READ THE DOCUMENTS

Details of pending litigation are found at the Superior Court of San Diego website.

Go to http://www.sandiego.courts.ca.gov:8080/CISPublic/namesearch and choose

-> Civil
-> All-Unknown
-> All-Unknown
-> 2000
-> 2005
-> SMS AC (without the dot)

And you get:

Case# GIC817762- ASPIRO AB vs. SMS AC INC
Breach of Contract suit against SMS.AC for non payment of $131,910.89. ASPIRO AB is a Swedish company. In this complaint ASPIRO alleges that SMS.AC entered into contract with ASPIRO AB July 2002 and SMS.AC racked up a bill for $131,910.89 by December 2002 and never paid it. April 29th 2004 SMS.AC was defaulted (lost the case by default from the State) because they were a suspended corporation and Michael Pousti dodged attempts to be served.

Case# SC156405 - SAN DIEGO STAGE & LIGHTING SUPPLY, INC vs. SMS AC INC
Small Claim against SMS.AC and is in another record room which I didn't pursue so no details. Sounds like SMS.AC didn't pay for something here either.

Case# GIC839950 - JERRY ENGLE vs. SMS AC INC and MICHAEL POUSTI
Class Action Employment Wages suit against SMS.AC and Michael Pousti as an individual. It looks like all SMS.AC independent contractors may be defined as employees based on California's definition of employee and that all former and present independent contractors are plaintiffs (due money for back wages and back overtime wages). SMS.AC is allegedly paying its contract workers below minimum wage, not reporting or paying payroll taxes and issuing worthless stock options and they are a private company. This is very sketchy. Also Unfair Competition is a cause of action in this case. It's not fair to compete in the marketplace if you don't pay wages. This is a big no-no in California. And it looks like Michael Pousti was successful in dodging service since the complaint was eventually served by mail which is usually a last resort.

Case# GIC834740 - SMS AC INC vs. SEAN ROWLAND
Libel suit against former employee Sean Rowland for $10 Million. SMS.AC is alleging that Sean Rowland made defamatory remarks against SMS.AC in an internet forum, breached a contract and misappropriated trade secrets. No mention is made of what part of what contract was broken or what trade secrets were misappropriated.

Case# GIC834148 - SMS AC INC vs. JAN HOWELL
Breach of Contract suit against former employee Jan Howell. The complaint is pretty much a carbon copy of Rowland's including typos. Like the Rowland suit except Howell's suit has an additional cause of action for Breach of Loyalty and Fiduciary Duty. I could not find the internet forum in question for either case after extensive searching with Google.

Case# GIC828536 - VILKAS, LTD vs. SMS AC INC
Breach of Contract suit against SMS.AC for non payment of 49,089.40 Euros. In this complaint VILKAS is alleging that SMS.AC entered into an agreement in May of 2003 and racked up a bill for 49,089.40 Euros and never paid it. The VILKAS case appears to have been combined with a suit from CREALOGIX at some point. Both companies are now fighting together against SMS.AC ? - both cases are in the same folder. VILKAS and CREALOGIX are both Swiss companies.In the declaration of Brandie Williams (V.P. of SMS.AC), Williams contends that the matter should be dropped because the plaintiffs must sue SMS.AC in Switzerland and not California. This looks to me like SMS.AC has no concern for paying the enormous debt but great concern for using legal technicalities to try getting away with it. It looks really bad in my opinion and supports the plaintiff's position. These people at SMS.AC are shameless!

I was told the following quote by a friend of my dads in an email -> SMS.AC has made a big impression on foreign businesses who probably will perceive American companies as being sneaky thieves who abuse foreign companies by hiding behind flaws in the U.S. justice system. This could mean trouble for other U.S. companies who will try and get terms with these same foreign companies. I think my dads friend is right. He works for the government.

click on search below to see other SMS.AC reports

d**k
San Diego, California
U.S.A.