- Report: #203212
Complaint Review: DropshippingWholesalers - Nick Destefano - Dubuque Iowa
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DropshippingWholesalers - Nick Destefano
Alta Vista Street Dubuque, 52001 Iowa, U.S.A.
Phone:
563-519-2151
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DropshippingWholesalers - Nick Destefano Ripoff Turnkey Ecommerce Online Store setup to fail Plagiarised my work and gave to other clients! Dubuque Iowa
DropShippingWholesalers.com make the following claims on their sales site which, in my experience, have proven to be false:
NO PROGRAMMING NEEDED!
Easily Change almost anything on the site!
Add new pages and info with Ease!-(If you can type you can run this website. It is that easy!)
Easily add banners to the site
The online store that I purchased from them in February 2006 came with only basic admin functions with some not working properly from day one! The Ecommerce Admin Panel manual provided by Dropshippingwholesalers was very short on detail and left me with more questions than answers. The Cpanel instructions whilst being comprehensive was overwhelming for someone who had no HTML or programming experience. I made several stuffups because of it! I placed many questions on the Dropshippingwholesalers members' forum and sent numerous emails requesting clarification and assistance.
Many of the responses I received were either patronizing or simply avoided answering the question directly. This has been incredibly frustrating and stressful. I got the feeling that I was being setup to fail.
Eventually, Dropshippingwholesalers sent me an email on 20 April 2006 with the following content:
We are going to release an upgrade to the admin area that will allow for a lot more customization and that will be available in the next couple of weeks. I am confident this will solve all your problems and questions.
In early May the upgrades were completed but it soon became obvious that many of the new functions did not work. It was around this time that I discovered my site had been used by Dropshippingwholesalers as their beta site without my knowledge or permission. I then discovered that my site was also being used as their template for further sales to some of their clients! This resulted in all of my work at that stage (text and color scheme) being copied and provided to their new clients!
The ensuing emails to Nick Destefano of Dropshippingwholesalers and posts to their members' forum, resulted in a very guarded apology that attributed his actions to a miscommunication error.
How anyone could interpret from my communications with Nick Destefano that I was aware of or agreed to him using my site as a beta site and then as a template for his new clients, defies belief! Logic and commonsense would suggest that no one in their right mind would knowingly agree to their hard work (i.e. text and color scheme, etc.) being copied and provided to other people without their knowledge or express consent. It's called plagiarism! Nick Destefano ought to have known what the ramifications would be by using someone else's site as his template. The fact that he had his own example website to use for testing purposes gave him no excuse to even contemplate using one of his client's website.
Despite my request to both Droshippingwholesalers and the host (I think they are owned and run by the same person/s) to address my concerns, there are still several clone sites with my color scheme and text, which they have not removed or altered to my satisfaction.
Further, I have found that my site's color scheme has been altered by persons unknown almost every week for the past 3 months. I keep changing it back but within a few days it is changed to something ghastly.
In summary, despite my best efforts to have the matter satisfactorily resolved, I'm now left with a site that is not functional and several clones existing with my text and color scheme and having to pay for the hosting to keep my site live! An offer from Nick Destefano of a free ebook to appease me, is an absolute insult. I've been left with no other alternative but to bring this matter into the public arena in an attempt to get justice and to warn others.
Cameron
Melbourne
Australia
NO PROGRAMMING NEEDED!
Easily Change almost anything on the site!
Add new pages and info with Ease!-(If you can type you can run this website. It is that easy!)
Easily add banners to the site
The online store that I purchased from them in February 2006 came with only basic admin functions with some not working properly from day one! The Ecommerce Admin Panel manual provided by Dropshippingwholesalers was very short on detail and left me with more questions than answers. The Cpanel instructions whilst being comprehensive was overwhelming for someone who had no HTML or programming experience. I made several stuffups because of it! I placed many questions on the Dropshippingwholesalers members' forum and sent numerous emails requesting clarification and assistance.
Many of the responses I received were either patronizing or simply avoided answering the question directly. This has been incredibly frustrating and stressful. I got the feeling that I was being setup to fail.
Eventually, Dropshippingwholesalers sent me an email on 20 April 2006 with the following content:
We are going to release an upgrade to the admin area that will allow for a lot more customization and that will be available in the next couple of weeks. I am confident this will solve all your problems and questions.
In early May the upgrades were completed but it soon became obvious that many of the new functions did not work. It was around this time that I discovered my site had been used by Dropshippingwholesalers as their beta site without my knowledge or permission. I then discovered that my site was also being used as their template for further sales to some of their clients! This resulted in all of my work at that stage (text and color scheme) being copied and provided to their new clients!
The ensuing emails to Nick Destefano of Dropshippingwholesalers and posts to their members' forum, resulted in a very guarded apology that attributed his actions to a miscommunication error.
How anyone could interpret from my communications with Nick Destefano that I was aware of or agreed to him using my site as a beta site and then as a template for his new clients, defies belief! Logic and commonsense would suggest that no one in their right mind would knowingly agree to their hard work (i.e. text and color scheme, etc.) being copied and provided to other people without their knowledge or express consent. It's called plagiarism! Nick Destefano ought to have known what the ramifications would be by using someone else's site as his template. The fact that he had his own example website to use for testing purposes gave him no excuse to even contemplate using one of his client's website.
Despite my request to both Droshippingwholesalers and the host (I think they are owned and run by the same person/s) to address my concerns, there are still several clone sites with my color scheme and text, which they have not removed or altered to my satisfaction.
Further, I have found that my site's color scheme has been altered by persons unknown almost every week for the past 3 months. I keep changing it back but within a few days it is changed to something ghastly.
In summary, despite my best efforts to have the matter satisfactorily resolved, I'm now left with a site that is not functional and several clones existing with my text and color scheme and having to pay for the hosting to keep my site live! An offer from Nick Destefano of a free ebook to appease me, is an absolute insult. I've been left with no other alternative but to bring this matter into the public arena in an attempt to get justice and to warn others.
Cameron
Melbourne
Australia
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Nick
Dubuque,Iowa,
U.S.A.
Websites Have Been Fixed
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, November 14, 2006
Hello, We sincerely apologize for the frustration this customer has gone through and I have to admit, the turnkey websites we setup in the past are no where near as easy to use and have the functionality as the sites we use now for our platinum members. We are always looking to make improvements to our membership and listen to our customers and this particular case was something that we did not take lightly. We revamped our turnkey websites that are now powered by OsCommerce which is the leader in ecommerce websites and also added many more added value modules in the back end of the website to allow anyone to manage the site with ease. This is an example of us listening to a cutomer and then making changes to accomodate them. We pride ourselves on support to help the individual succeed. Regards, Nick DeStefano
