- Report: #613333
Complaint Review: Exotic Publishing - Michelle - Internet
Reported By:
69Design -
London, Other, United Kingdom
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Exotic Publishing - Michelle
266 Elmwood Ave. Internet, United States of America
Phone:
00-3423574
Web:
www.exoticpublishing.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
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Exotic Publishing - Michelle Michelle Korn Tried to obtain enough information steal identity then diviulged personal info on internet, failed to provide refund, Internet
Not exactly ripped off as to smart to fall for it (or were we), but...
This company advertises a product available for download, once payment is received, then asks for the completion of a ridiculous, intrusive and downright dangerous (in respect of information being give to them) form before releasing the actual e-book.
( I can not vouch for the availability of this book as we never got this far).
Be warned, the "vetting procedure" provides someone who goes to great lengths to hide her location, web site ownership details, never answers the phone etc etc.with enough information to electronically steal your identity.
We decided not to proceed, and then asked for a refund (which to date we have not received) and have since been subjected to a torrent of on-line abuse in her blog, which we have posted a reply although not sure if she will allow the rebuttal to be posted..
She has also posted personal and confidential information which could only have been gleaned from our supposed confidential application on a public blog when we pursued her for a refund (for a product never actually received).
This person is dangerous, she professes to have the good of the industry at heart, the fact is she is harming it, potentially causing embarrassment by posting personal info (personally this does not matter to us), she is collecting personal information, for what purpose? and would seem from our dealings to be unprofessional, unstable and very very vindictive.
For completeness I have appended our reply to her blog post in the likely event she removes it from her site.
"Firstly let me say thank you for the link to our site, I am sure any negative recommendation from yourself can only increase our own standing.
In response to your post above I would like to add the following.
1) I am a web designer of some 11 years standing in the escort industry, with the largest client base of escort related businesses in the UK so I probably do know how to run a business. My partner Mandy has many years management and marketing experience in the corporate sector in a variety of roles, as well as an excellent design eye, so I would dispute that point.
2) In respect of professionalism we would never, unlike yourself divulge personal information as the result of a petty dispute whatever the rights or wrongs of that dispute, to do so is far from professional and simply shows a complete lack of integrity on your part. I presume this is some innate desire for revenge, however unlike most (including yourself) we do not hide either our identities or location, so if you could please correct your post in respect that yes that is Mandys real name, although our office is actually in London. I have also added my full name at the bottom of this post in the interests of completeness.
3) Turning to the dispute itself, as a web designer and someone who has studied usability in respect of websites I would suggest that the "screening process" which I will deal with later is placed before the collection of payment not after. This allows someone the opportunity to abort any prospective purchase before parting with money, not after. Had this been the case we would not have had this dispute.
4) The screening process is (in our opinion) intrusive, irrelevant, and crucially provides you or anyone else with access to the forms contents enough information to electronically steal our identity, and this was the crucial factor in deciding not to proceed with the purchase.
I fail to understand other than perhaps a check on someones age why you feel the need to screen anyone simply to download an e-book? Amazon do not, nor do any other responsible site that I am aware of, and certainly not to the extent of the personal and intrusive information you are attempting to collect (for what purpose?).
5) Once we considered the ramifications of the "screening" we decided not to proceed, that is our right, plain and simple, we requested a refund and on advice from our bankers cancelled our card used as a precaution.
It was this card I presume you attempted to refund, although we have still have no proof of this from you despite requests. This refund could not have been made as the card was cancelled. I would presume your card services people notified you of this, if not I suggest you investigate. We have now raised a query with our bankers to try and trace your supposed refund but to date this has not been traced.
Yes we did send a series of (legally) threatening e-mails, we could get no response from you, your domain is untraceable on whois (why perhaps anyone should ask) your phone is only an answer phone which you never answer, and yes there is more than one way to achieve a result when reasonable methods fail. I am talking about legal action and requests to your payment providers and site hosting companies, not, as you seem to infer some shady method. Unlike you we are a legitimate, business, open, visible and traceable who has spent the last eleven years working to establish a culture of honesty and openness in the escort industry, a cause with your ranting, petty vendettas and secrecy you are far from helping.
Anyway, in the interests of fairness I hope you will allow this comment to be posted without alteration, the measure of a person can be found in their ability to allow criticism, I wonder if you can rise to that challenge?
Richard Noakes
Director
69Design Ltd.
69Hosting Ltd. "
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Michelle
Buffalo,New York,
U.S.A.
This people lied & refused to provide valid ID
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sun, June 13, 2010
Our policy like everyone else's in the escort industry is screen all our clients.
These 2 people attempted to purchase from us around May of 2010. When someone orders, we collect basic demographic information to help us understand our clientele, plus this also helps them by having us add more content to our products based on their answers about their needs in the industry. We also use some of that information to further screen all clients (even for underage patrons) as there is a lot of fraud that goes on out there plus we don't sell to anyone under the age of 18.
99.8% of all of our clients have no problem at all filling out the simple survey. They are even awarded a gift for doing so & it helps to train them immediately on what people in the escort industry do when conducting business.
This person's other half (Mandy) REFUSED to fill out this survey which we maybe could have worked around, but then she also REFUSED to provide proper ID to prove that Mandy is in fact the credit card holder.
That's when Mandy started threatening us & DEMANDING our business kit. We do NOT tolerate this kind of nastiness from ANYONE & this is clearly reflected on our sites.
After Richard stated they wanted a refund, I processed it within 10 minutes. I even waived our service charge for issuing refunds, so he got ALL of his money back even though it cost us a lot of time & money & our time is worth a lot.
Then 30 days later this Mandy character tries again to threaten us "claiming" she never got her refund & she DEMANDS that she get her refund right away.
More red flags went off that she was trying to extort money from us as we clearly never received any money from them. The refund went out the same day as the order, so at the very least they would see a credit, or not charge in the first place. They should have seen this on their statement.
I told her the refund had been issued 30 days earlier. She said more nasty things to me & I just ignored her.
At that point I posted the situation on our blog to warn others within the escort industry of this http://www.69design.co.uk, not to mention it sounded like they want to open an escort agency & my escort clients are always asking me for referrals to escort agencies, so they rely upon me to warn them of agencies I don't recommend.
The post I wrote detailed how they treated me, how they refuse to adhere to standard company policies, how they threaten, etc. All of their personal information was kept discrete as it's not my policy to divulge addresses as I wish them no harm. I only posted their company e-mail addresses & website which should be public knowledge, plus their names & city were revealed.
Then yesterday this Richard started trying to post on the blog, He lied by saying we tried to scam him & steal his identity.
He's correct about one thing, I didn't allow the post to go through because there were too many lies in there & I wasn't going to allow him to high-jack the truth about what was really going on. Plus I don't trust this guy, he could try to hack into our blog.
After reading his response to the post, that's when I became even more suspicious. I would laugh if it wasn't so sad that people who act very suspicious & are potentially trying to get away with fraud try to blame the company for protecting themselves by requiring ID. It's my opinion that if a consumer has NOTHING to hide, they will provide their ID. It's really that simple. If he's that scared about identity theft which I don't believe for one minute was the case, plus it's NOT as ramped in the UK as it is in the US, then he should just avoid ordering anything from online or in stores because there's no 100% full proof way to avoid any kind of identity or credit card theft. We all do the best we can.
There are MANY companies online & offline who now require ID before allowing a transaction to go through. I've had my ID taken many times by companies I purchase from.
My suspicions about Richard increased when I realized in his post:
1. He claims he knows the escort industry very well having worked in it for 11 years, YET he knows nothing about the screening that takes place within the escort industry. He makes it out to be like he trusts the industry, yet he "claims" he thought I was going to steal his identity. I find this very very strange & again suspicious.
2. He claims he knows how to run a business, but once again, thinks it's wrong for companies to ask for valid ID & have procedures in place.
He tries to compare a HUGE company like Amazon who is NOT in the escort industry to someone who runs a business in the escort industry. Again, this shows me he does not know what he's talking about.
3. Then he lies again claiming I ignored his e-mails. I explained to him that the only e-mail I did NOT respond back to was his last one just before I credited their credit card. I didn't want to start an argument because in my opinion their behavior was arrogant & nasty, so I just issued the credit knowing that they would see it on their credit card statement.
I've never ignored Richard ever, so unless he's talking about me ignoring Mandy's last nasty e-mail, yes, he's correct about that, I don't have to answer disrespectful people's e-mails. That's not a policy I hold to my high standards of business.
Unfortunately when people lie, they obviously have to lie to defend themselves & try to prove they are right & the other person is wrong, so it's not really a surprise to me that Richard is lying & making up stories to try & discredit our reputation.
4. Then Richard lies again claiming he never got the refund. I wasted more of my time triple checking our system to make sure the transaction had been voided & it appears to be, but I've e-mailed tech support just to make 100% sure, as you never know what can go wrong with technology. I'm 99% certain we never received the money. If we did, we would refund him right away as we don't want his money.
Also twice now I've asked Richard to scan a copy of his credit card statement so I can see for myself this supposed transaction he "claims" went through.
Richard has ignored my 2 requests. Again more suspicious behavior.
I don't know who these 2 people from this company are, all I know is that I had a terrible experience with the both of them, & I'm glad they refused to provide verifiable ID, because we only welcome clients who are honest, are real, & have nothing to hide from us.
We are VERY discrete as a company, & I have been ULTRA discrete ever since I entered into the escort industry back in 1989. We take care of ALL our clients who are our real clients. Saying that, we never claim to protect the identity of fraudulent or nasty people who contact us. In fact it's our duty to warn others in the escort industry of these types of people. Just like people post negative reviews about companies they have had problems with, I feel companies should do the same when it comes to problem customers & YES, there are many, just ask anyone who owns a business. We are fortunate to say that all of our clients we have had for many years are VERY nice people & we love having them as our clients. Their testimonials show they reciprocate that feeling. : )
Part of our mission statement stipulates that we only wish to help ethical nice people get into the escort industry.
Unfortunately there are already enough nasty people in the industry, it's not our intent to help more learn from our expertise, nor do we wish to service these types because we are very loyal & giving to our clientele, & we wish to enhance our business relationship with them.
So I hope this clears things up.
And just a note that this has NEVER happened to us before. We've never been accused of identity theft or not issuing a refund when we did.
If we do find out that somehow their transaction did go through, we will post what happens here, as well as update our blog. It's NEVER my intent to lie or make something more of a situation than it actually is. That is why I'm always detailed in the full story, I don't just make wild accusations.
Thank you
Michelle
