Complaint Review: Brendan Kuhlman - Internet

This young man currently works for Arvixe web hosting as a tech support operator. He provides websites on the side and told me he has done so for nine years. He sounded like a good bet and he provided samples of awesome websites he told me he designed, so I hired him around May 15, 2014 to design a new magazine site for me. I didn’t want to be limited to a template and he also said he was good with SEO and marketing. He wanted to prove he was an asset so he could work with me for a long time. I paid half his fee up front ($200 was half).

This type of design isn’t too complex and there are tons of examples of sites similar to what I wanted. I gave him a few examples of sites I liked, and a document that showed a visual of exactly how I wanted my website structured along with an explanation of the schematic. We spoke at length about my needs and he seemed to understand everything.

I told him that the site that was up now on the URL we would be using for the new site had an active landing page on it I had set up a month in advance. It was just waiting for two blast emails to be sent out to targeted lists totaling 50,000 people. My link was offering a free chapter of the book I’m writing.

The first week went by and Brendan told me his girlfriend had broken up with him over the weekend so he didn’t get anything done. He was very apologetic and I felt empathy for him. No problem. Several more weeks went by and nothing happened. I asked him to speed it up.

The next think I know, I went to check on my landing page a day after the email blasts went out and guess what? It was DOWN. I called Brendan. He had decided to work on my website using the live URL rather than a sandbox. No one has ever done this for any of my websites. I was livid.

He told me he didn’t understand I had an active page, even though I had told him up front (of course weeks had gone by before he started the job). He would have seen it if he had looked at “pages” in my WordPress back end. He was unable to restore the site so I had to get my VA to restore it. She had the landing page but somehow the backup didn’t keep my home page.

Brendan agreed to try to compensate for this error by providing me with a few months of free marketing for the website once it was up. We discussed what kind of marketing he would do and it sounded reasonable. What could I do? I went with it.

A few more weeks passed and he provided me with a 1^st round look at a potential website design. He designed it more like a blog than a magazine site. I had quite a few comments and again referred him back to the examples I had sent him earlier as well as the written explanation of the site I had provided him in the beginning.

He said he understood and would work on the 2^nd version promptly. The next email I received said he was making final changes on the website and he would send me a link the next day. But then about an hour later I got an email that said he had a virus and had gone home sick.

I didn’t get a link and I was unable to reach him for another week. When he did contact me he explained that he had overstressed himself working on his other clients plus with Arvixe, and he had landed himself in the hospital with dehydration. His doctor told him to not do any extra work in addition to his job at Arvixe for a week. He finally contacted me and said he had been sure he had added me to an auto responder so I would be informed of his absence but he realized he didn’t do that so I was left in the dark.

He said he would start working on my site again. It didn’t happen. Finally he said he would be unable to work on my site and would refund my $200 “when I get a chance.” He was going to be on vacation in a few weeks and still needed to take it easy.

I was never able to reach Brendan by his mobile or email. Many, many of my emails received no responses. So I started to call Arvixe support and a few times I timed it right and he answered the phone. It was so frustrating not to be able to reach him. The website should have already been completed.

I finally got a response when I emailed to ask him if it was true he almost had my design done…that it just required final touches. He said yes but it would still require a day’s work. I asked him if his designer wouldn’t be able to just finish it up for me. He said she was on vacation and he would ask her in a few days when she came back if that was possible.

In the meantime, I had signed up as an Amazon affiliate when I had something on my website. A customer purchased a book from me, and Amazon waits until that happens to look at your website and approve or disapprove you as an affiliate. They went to my website, saw the blank home page and disapproved me as an affiliate. Strike 3 for Brendan.

About 4 more days went by. I contacted him again and he said he was just going to have to refund the money…he would put it in my account when his “other customer” paid him. It has now been approximately 2 months since I hired Brendan to set up a website for me.

I told him I didn’t want to have to wait until his “other customer” paid him (who knows if he will ever collect—or if there is another customer). I asked him to pay me with his credit card and then pay his credit card off when his other customer pays him. I asked him for some additional compensation over and above the $200 to partially compensate me for the hardships I suffered as a result of his non-performance (only partially compensating for the 2 months of marketing he promised, the missed opportunity for my link to be available for the email blast, for losing status with Amazon.com and for the extreme delay of two months toward my progress for getting the website active).

I gave him a date and explained if I didn’t receive payment by then, I would begin posting the information about this terrible transaction on the web. As you see, I’m posting. I have not been paid and I have no idea when I will be paid. I have not heard back. I do not recommend hiring Brendan Kuhlman, an employee of Arvixe hosting company, to do any work for you.