Complaint Review: AUCTION TEACHER / AUCTIONTEACHER.COM / UNIM LLC / INNOVATIVE MERCHANT SOLUTIONS / FMR - BOCA RATON, Florida

Hi I just wanted to let you know that Randy Judd is not running his business with auction teacher aka (unimllc). His business is hosted through EZ-WEB-HOSTING and he used their templates to design his site. Also, if you notice on his site he doesn't have all the extras that they try to get you to purchase (i.e) merchant account, pb next. He may be selling for them but he sure doesn't use them. Also, Unimllc, Unimweb, and Auction Teacher do not use their own websites or hosting services either. They are hosted by rackspace. I think it is funny how they offer you these wonderful services that they don't use for their own businesses.

I decided to go straight to the source, and e-mail eBay's customer support department about Auction Teacher. Here is my question and eBay's response: QUESTION: "I would like to know if you can tell me anything about a company called Auction Teacher. It is a division of UNIM LLC. I went to a seminar that the company held, and they are selling software that they say was developed by eBay Certified Developers and eBay Education Specialists. Their service offers a website-building software and auction software that is supposed to help run multiple eBay auctions, send "second chance" offers to losing bidders (to buy the items on your web site, which they host), etc. They recommend using drop shippers and/or wholesalers or selling your own products. I saw some negative reports on www.ripoffreport.com about them (primarily about their parent company, UNIM LLC) and on the Better Business Bureau web site it has some very negative information about them. Before using their software to run any auctions, I want to make sure it does not violate any eBay rules (I am especially referring to the fact that their software sends e-mails referring losing bidders to the seller's web site(s) off of eBay -- is that legal?). I don't want to break any rules, as I am new to eBay. Thanks." RESPONSE: "Hello, Thank you for contacting eBay Customer Support. It's my pleasure to respond to you today. I can confirm eBay is not affiliated with Auction Teacher. Please note that eBay affiliates can be found on the home page of www.ebay.com and Certified Providers can be found here: http://developer.ebay.com/certifiedprovider/catalog.aspx Before I go, it is not permitted to email bidders in the manner in which you described. Apologies for any inconvenience. We are committed to your online trading safety and success. Regards, Nikki eBay Customer Support"

Actually, during the seminar (or "follow-up training course") that I went to, he gave us the website for his company: It is www.xocolate.com. If you click on the link that says "About Xocolate" at the top of the page, you will see his picture, right there on the site. It is, according to the "Contact Us" link, in Utah. I have made several calls to this company's customer service department and asked detailed questions about the software and service (PLEASE NOTE THAT I DEACTIVATED MY WEBSITE AS SOON AS THEY ACTIVATED IT, AND IT REMAINS INACTIVE TODAY). I have received prompt and friendly customer service during every call. I have not had to wait more than 2 or 3 minutes to speak with a live technician. Each time, the rep was willing to give me his/her first name and extention, and I have been able to reach the same person again, using those numbers. When I've left messages (twice, so far), my calls were returned within 24 hours. I've come to the conclusion that this company is not a scam, as far as I can tell. However, there are flaws to their software. After fully reading (YES, COVER-TO-COVER) both of the large training manuals that I received at the follow-up training, I don't think I am going to go with this company for my website for 2 main reasons. First, there is the price. I have done some research and there are cheaper options for websites and hosting (and many give you a UNIQUE domain name for free when you sign up -- Auction Teacher doesn't). Second (and most importantly), is the fact that if you don't have a merchant account, YOU CANNOT USE THE AUCTION WIZARD TOOLS to create and manage your auctions on eBay or whatever site you choose to sell on. You see, I only want to accept PAYPAL for my sales. Two different reps at Auction Teacher have told me that their software redirects winning bidders to your website's merchant account / shopping cart to pay for the items they won. PAYPAL CANNOT BE INTEGRATED INTO THE AUCTION TEACHER SHOPPING CART PROGRAM, so if you only want to accept PayPal (and skip the merchant account application, fees, etc) then you're paying Auction Teacher $29.95 for a website...PERIOD. The main selling point for me was the ability to use the Auction Wizard to manage multiple auctions with ease, but what's the point if I can't do that with PayPal? I should note that one of Auction Teacher's reps did e-mail me the HTML code for inserting PayPal into my website, but she stressed that you CANNOT use the Auction Wizard or the Catalog functions if you don't have a merchant account. You would have to create a custom page for each category of goods that you are selling. I hope this helps...

I also went to an Auction Teacher seminar, with Randy Judd. I was suckered no further than the $197 because I read the welcome e-mail. Your website in active and billable, e-mail plainly says that. You will be charged $29.95 a month unless you have contacted AT's customer's service. Randy Judd used to work for Usight, a Utah company. He said told us about a chocolate company he owned in California. It's in Utah. You just don't mix up stuff like that. I think you're still being suckered. But I could be wrong.

First off, let me clarify that Auction Teacher was not selling anything for $999. That was an offer from National Grants Conference. The Auction Teacher segment was at the end of the conference. The speaker (MJ), I found in my notes was Mitch Johnson. Since I had already purchased the Auction Teacher software, I decided to go ahead and go to the follow-up training seminar. From that point, my negative opinion of Auction Teacher started to change. The speaker was Randy Judd. He was not at all pushy, as I had expected, but rather informative. He got straight to the point in explaining all about Auction Teacher's features, merchant accounts, toll-free numbers (PBNEXT), unique domain names (you DON'T have to stick with the myauctionteacher.com subdomain name for your website ... you just have to buy a unique domain name from them or from whatever company you want), messaging services, and other features that some people may want to add to their site/business down the road. He emphasized that the merchant accounts are not required, nor was the 800# (I purchased neither). He just said that such things might make your site more credible. He said you can go to your own bank to get a merchant account (and add it to your site later) or use Paypal, you can look for message services in the Yellow Pages, etc. He gave tips on how to figure out what you want to sell, and gave us some valuable resources to help us along the way. The next day, I got my "Welcome E-mail" and I checked to see if my website had been activated (and it was). One thing I DIDN'T like is that when they activate your site, it has a template with a FAKE company, but YOUR REAL NAME, PHONE #, AND ADDRESS under the "About Us" section. I called right away and asked them to disable the site, and they did so. I did not have to wait more than a minute or two to speak with a live person. I've spoken to several during the past few days, and the wait time hasn't been long at all. All of the Customer Support Representatives have been professional and gave me their names and personal phone number extentions. They said they won't charge any fees as long as the account is deactivated, and that no fees accrue while it's deactivated (since they don't have to pay the server company). Hopefully, I'll find that this is true, a few months down the road. The bottom line is that (so far) I've been happy with their customer service. If someone knows something about Auction Teacher that I need to know, please post a reply to Ripoff Reports under "Auction Teacher", because as of now, I don't plan to cancel my contract.