Complaint Review: Speedticketbeaters.com - Nationwide

I signed up for their service, which included a defense strategy, 24/7 email support, telephone support (though they never disclosed a phone number like they say they will in their FAQs), and 1 year of service for me and my immediate family all for $139.00.  It is definitely not as advertised.

After a phone call with a fast talking, strong arming, guy, who told me he was going to hang up on me to get me to act now, (Which was the first Red Flag, though I didnt know it at the time) I signed up and received my defense strategy. 

When I opened up the email, the first sentence read: WE ARE NOT LAWYERS. THE INFORMATION WE PROVIDE YOU IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. IT IS SIMPLY OUR NON LEGAL OPINION. IT IS WHAT WE WOULD DO, IF WE PERSONALLY WERE ATTEMPTING TO PROVE OUR INNOCENCE OF A SPEEDING VIOLATION. (Red Flag Number 2, but I was committed to beating the ticket and ignored the writing on the wall.)  

The sentence immediately after was just as alarming: WARNING: It is against U.S law to damage a company or individuals reputation, and/or use a companies copyrighted name in written/broadcast content without permission to do so. Neither of these offenses are protected "free speech" under the 1st Amendment. If you author any written content (opinions) about this company anywhere online or in print, we will file civil and criminal charges against you. (Interesting way to start an email and business with a new customer, unfortunately for them, this statement holds no water and is false.  Opinions are covered by 1st Amendment Law, and in order to file charges against anyone they must first prove that what you said was false, defamatory and that there was an actual financial loss directly because of your Lies. So feel free to give your opinions just make them truthful or satirical (more on this one later.)

But anyway, so after I ignored multiple warningsigns including the ones about their website and not looking into the company before purchasing with them, I read through the material several times and then I saw something in it that gave me pause as I thought it was important to the defense and my case as a whole.  So I used part 2 of their service the 24/7 email support and asked them a well thought out and necessary question.  After six hours, this was the response that I received: IF IT WAS SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT WE WOULD NOT HAVE GIVEN YOU THE DEFENSE PLAN WE GAVE YOU! DO AS WE SAY AND STOP TRYING TO FIND OUT ANYTHING/CHECK OUR WORK!! A TOTAL VIOLATION OF OUR TERMS! RE-READ YOUR INSTRUCTIONS, 200X UNTIL YOU SEE THAT! 

To be clear, there were no Terms of Use or Contract given, so I was a little unsure what they were talking about as far as Terms go, but then I remembered a statement in the body of the email, maybe they consider this a Term:

"Heres a general rule of thumbWE DONT MAKE MISTAKES! You do not need to check and re-check the accuracy of our work, question why went sent you something, or did not send you something else, etc. If you  start emailing us (or calling us) and demonstrating that you are over thinking, and/or challenging the idea that we know what were doing/gave you all of the complete, correct, and necessary info for your defense, etcYOU WILL BE BANNED FROM RECEIVING ANY FURTHER GUIDANCE/CUSTOMER SUPPORT, and left to act in court, on your own.

This will be done to teach you the lesson that will come in court from discovering that you dont know what youre doing, should have deferred to us, and are not capable of coming up with better ideas than we did!  (In other words, dont ask any questions even though we promised you email and phone support, if you do we are going to Punish you because you are stupid and we are smart.  That was just my paraphrase, but I think I summed it up pretty good.  So like I said before, the service is not as advertised, as they failed to provide support as promised.)

So After I received that email response I was less than pleased.  I emailed them back and told them that if that was their Idea of support I wanted a refund.  The next day, I received this email from their Legal team. (You will notice some similarities with the original post.)

Dear Sir:

Our customer team today received an email from you stating that you are requesting a refund of our service fee. Your arguments in favor of refunding your fee are without merit, and in light of the fact that we have already provided the service we were contracted to provide (in the form of emails you received that instruct you on the defense strategy for your speeding ticket), we cannot "take back" the service provided. (Actually they also promised to provide email and telephone support and 1 year of service and they say that my argument is without merit.)
 
If you pursue a charge back of our fee, you are hereby formally advised that we will take complete and comprehensive legal action against you, and will collect not only our fee, but additional punitive damages. (Consumers are protected by the Credit Card Chargeback Rights covered in 15 United States Codes, 12 Federal Regulations and since the company is based in California, Civil Codes 1747-1748.95.  More exactly, if falls under billing errors, since the company charged for undelivered services and for services different from what was represented.  Yes protection is not solely limited to hard goods, it covers services as well.) 

It is also against U.S law to use a company's copyrighted name in published/written/broadcast content without permission to do so. Neither of those offenses are protected "free speech" under the 1st Amendment of the U.S Constitution.

(I already went over this a little bit, but for clarification, a business has a corporate identity and as such is considered a public figure, therefore they are open to the scrutiny of the public and consumers alike.  You can even make satirical remarks about them (see I told you I would get back to it) like, Speedticketbeaters.com says that the only way to beat a speeding ticket is to stick your tongue in a light socket, then do the Hokey-Pokey and turn yourself around.  That is what Speedticketbeaters.com is all about! No reasonable person would believe this statement to be true, they would understand it to be a joke, therefore protected by 1st Amendment laws.)

Any harmful written content authored with your involvement appearing anywhere in print - will be considered malicious business interference, and defamation. Any broadcast content in any media, created with any involvement by you, will be considered the same. (Covered already, but man this letter is repetitive.)  Any complaints made by you to any agency or organizations (including the BBB), that result in any limitation on our ability to conduct business, will also be considered legally actionable. Likewise, any activities/complaints/reports written or stated to any businesses we are regularly involved with in our commerce, will result in swift and strong legal action against you. (So they are telling you they will sue you if you complain to a Consumer Advocacy Group?  There is something illegal here I can feel it, but I will let everyone else make that decision.  But once again, they must prove that what you say is false, defamatory, malicious, and that they suffered financial loss because of your lies.  The BBB and the FTC isnt going to shutdown a company unless they can prove what they are doing is wrong. So everyone is safe, just be honest.)

Should we become aware of you participating in any of the above activities, legal remedies will be pursued immediately and forcefully. (Please do, not only will it cost you a ton of money just to lose your case, but I will also counter sue and win.)

You are also to refrain from authoring and/or broadcasting any partial reference to this company. Any you write will be presumed to have been designed to lead the general public to the conclusion that you are referring to this company.  This means we will litigate against you if you write or broadcast even a portion of this company's name, at any time, anywhere. (Already covered why this is wrong, but just for clarity, we just want warn the general public of your questionable
business practices and prevent others from a similar fate.)

All of your contact information will remain on file, should it become necessary
to take legal action against you. (Wonderful, but dont you say in the email that you need us to reply with the whole email thread so that you can Identify the authorthats weird.)

Should you violate this order, this company will also commence a civil action
against the print/internet/or broadcast outlet you utilized to carry out your
malicious interference and defamation. This department will also offer the
print/internet/or broadcast outlet you utilized to damage this company the
opportunity to enjoin our civil and/or criminal action against you. (Really? 
Really?  I am not going to dignify this with a response.)

Your letter today will serve as proof to any Judge in the United States of the
malicious nature of your intent. (So asking for a refund is now considered malicious.  Consumers beware, if you buy something and they give you something else, you better not ask for a refund because your malicious intent is actionable in court.)  Should it become necessary, we will obtain jurisdiction over you in any of the 50 U.S States in which you reside. (Wait, I thought you already knew where I was from, shouldnt be hard to gain jurisdiction, oh waitthis statement is also just a powerless scare tactic designed to intimidate and pacify.  Didnt work.)  If necessary, we will pursue a court order to collect sizable monetary damages from you. If you do not have sufficient assets to satisfy the monetary judgment we will be awarded, we will get a court order to garnish your future wages. (Good luck with that pal.)

Consider this notice a "cease and desist" upon you, relating to all further contact, complaints, and activities you are considering undertaking. Failure to comply with this notice will bring you legal harm. (I will see your notice and raise you with Fact.  Lawyered!!)

 

From this moment forward, all contact by you, to this company, must be made by your attorneys.

  Speedticketbeaters.com/LEGAL

cc: dr, sk, active pending   
 
So as you can see that was quite a jump from support - to refund - to Ill sue you if you tell. Reality is that I am definitely not the first person they have done this to and I will not be the last.   Had they actually been a reputable company, they would have provided the service they were selling and responded with an attempt to resolve the conflict, not threaten legal action.  Also you will notice that they arbitrarily and abruptly ended the rest of the service i.e. telephone support (which the still never provided) and the 1 year of service, but claim that they provided the service they promised and a refund is unwarranted.  I believe that if they are refusing a refund then they are still under my employ and should have to answer my calls, emails and provide support for a year, maybe I will just have to get my Lawyer to email them and do it by proxy.  Actually no, I am just charging back their fee, as is my right, because they failed to provide service and misrepresented the service they were selling.    

I believe there's an article on our blog at speedticketbeaters.wordpress.com about the definition of a customer.

A CUSTOMER, is someone who has USED a service, and can therefore render an opinion of the product or service. Such a person is in a legitimate position to describe a company as a scam, or rip off, or whatever else, if they feel that to be the case after USING the product or service.

The major flaw of this complaint (and many others I read online about all kinds of companies), is that many of the complaints (and certainly nearly all the complaints I've ever read about our company), are written by people who did NOT buy or use the service. HOW can someone who hasn't even used a service call it a scam or a rip off? They WOULDN'T KNOW!

This compliant was written by someone who admits to not having used the service, therefore their compliant is meaningless and needs to be ignored.

We joke on our blog about being rude and obnoxious. WE ARE! In fact, we're incredibly sarcastic and tough on the phone and in email.  We're edgy, and hilarious too. We're not here to make friends with you!

Speedticketbeaters exists since 2004  (a LONG time to keep a "scam" going, so it must NOT be one),  to get you a victory over your speeding ticket. The staff wasn't hired to coddle you, hug you, kiss you, or become your friend! We're there to coach you to a championship!

Would a pro football coach be warm and fuzzy in the locker room, while trying to wake his players up to the reality of what they face, in a pre-game pep talk? NO! He'd likely be yelling, and pretty harsh with them! We view our job as similar.

If you can't stand the heat in our kitchen, you certainly can't stand the heat in a court room. So how we handle you is all part of the design. It's all part of seeing what you're made of, what your capacities are. Seeing if you have what it takes to win.

The loser that wrote this compliant is just that. A LOSER. A victim. Someone who apparently would rather write lame complaints like this one (about a service they actually know nothing about because they didn't hire us)... And pay the government big money in a giant speeding ticket scam... Then toughen up, stop being so fearful, in life, and looking for someone to hug them throughout a phone call (or email interaction)... And win.

We DON'T WANT customers like this one! If you're reading this (or any other comment online about us that we're "a scam", a "rip off", "mean", "rude", or whatever), by someone who hasn't even USED our service (only just made an inquiry to us)... And it scares you... DO NOT contact us! You are too wimpy to win in court anyway! And we are way too successful and busy to deal with you.

But if you have guts. If you're not a wimp. If you're tired of the government and auto insurance companies conspiring to rip you off, in a giant speeding ticket entrapment scam (done for the purpose of getting them revenue)... By all means contact us. And we will lead you to the promised land!

We're the biggest jerks in the business. We're also the most successful speeding ticket defense company in the USA.