Complaint Review: STGI Siebert Technology Group - Derick Siebert - Melcer Tile - Charleston South Carolina

I can confirm Mr. Michael's complaint to the extent that I am an Ex-Employee of STGI Siebert Technology Group (owned by Derick Siebert) and I have witnessed firsthand Mr. Siebert's flagrant and intentional deceptive business practices.

I have witnessed Mr. Siebert on numerous occasions enter into a contract with other businesses/individuals within the Charleston, SC area. On several occasions I witnessed Mr. Siebert enter into an agreement and during the execution of the agreement Mr. Siebert will being to shop around for the same services at a lower cost. If he finds a cheaper alternative, Mr. Siebert arbitrarily finds some kind of fault with the original agreement (as a means to terminate the agreement without having to pay for the service) so that he can enter into a cheaper contract/agreement. In a normal situation this would perfectly acceptable if the customer is dissatisfied however; Mr. Siebert does this in order to get the "project" partially completed by several people/businesses while only paying a fraction of the cost. It’s methodical and intentional.

Mr. Siebert does not stop at just taking advantage of businesses/individuals for services he needs. Mr. Siebert goes a step further and also short changes his employees for labor and work performed for his customers too. Mr. Siebert typically sells his business services in "Support Hour" packages but also has an hourly rate. Businesses will prepay for predefined set of hours for support and Mr. Siebert dispatches his employees to the businesses to conduct maintenance, customer specific tasks, and emergencies. The key part of this message is that Mr. Siebert gets pre-paid for these services.

While working for Mr. Siebert, I was dispatched to numerous customers for various reasons. Sometimes I was dispatched to a business to do "disk defragmentation’s" and "system cleanups" because Mr. Siebert told me "I need to collect more money, go to [some customer of his] and perform disk defragmentation’s and system cleanups. That should take you all day and use up their remainder support hours so I can bill them for a new package". Mr. Siebert also had instructed me on several occasions to look for hardware that looks old and dirty so that we can try and sell them newer upgraded hardware. Even if there was nothing wrong with the hardware to being with.

After a while when it came time to get paid, Mr. Siebert would state "I need to go out and collect payments" or "The customers payment is due in any day now" "and I can only pay you for some of your hours however I will make up the difference on the next pay date". At first I thought nothing of it because I know the nature of the business. But when the third pay cycle came around Mr. Siebert called me into a meeting. At that point he stated that he could not afford for me to continue working for him (however he kept his brother in-law and best friend employed at a much higher rate than myself). I asked when I was going to get paid and he replied "when I get some more money in". By that date Mr. Siebert had owed me over $4,000. I received only $350 total of the $4,000. Since I was a "contractor" I had no legal bases with the SC Dept. of Labor other than civil court. The amount owed at that time exceeded small-claims court maximum so civil court was the only remedy. He left me broke, behind on all my bills all while he profited from my labor and skills.

Beware!! If anyone has anything to do with this deceptive con artist, get away from him as fast as you can before you find yourself in the hole too!

Dec. 8th, 2005 Merry Christmas to all. Today in my snail mail box, I received a letter from Robertson & Hollingsworth, Melcer Tile's attorney. They are requesting that I remove any and all references to Melcer Tile from the RipoffReport.com website or any other website or they are prepared to file legal action against me, the victim, for posting, to the best of my knowledge, a truthful statement about the circumstances surrounding the issue at hand. ROBERTSON & HOLLINGSWORTH ATTORNEYS AT LAW WACHOVIA CENTER 177 MEETING STREET, SUITE 300 CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA 29401 Claron A. Robertson, 111 Dunn D. Hollingsworth R. Patrick Flynn Perrin Q. Dargan, 111 Theodore L. Manos Paul R. Kahn David B. Marvel (SC, GA) C. Tyson Nettles (SC, MS) Jason A. Daigle (843) 723-6470 Fax (843) 853-9045 email, [email protected] December 5, 2005 Mr. Michael (Last Name Deleted) (Address Deleted) Street North Charleston, South Carolina 29418 Re: My Client, Melcer Tile Co., Inc. RE: Rip-off Report.com Dear Mr. Pool: Our firm represents Melcer Tile Co., Inc. ("Me1cer''), and I am informed that you recently posted disparaging remarks concering your business relationship with Melcer and Siebert Software Development on a popular website. While we appreciate your frustration with the situation, Melcer believes that your sole grievance, if any, is with Siebert Software Development. Melcer believes that your comments concerning Melcer on Rip-off Report.com are false and negatively effect Melcer. We ask that you immediately remove any reference to Melcer on this, or any other website. We sincerely hope that no further legal action will be necessary, however, I have been instructed by my client to pursue all legal remedies in connection with this matter. We look forward to your immediate compliance. Please contact me if you wish to discuss an amicable resolution to this matter. Sincerely, Jason A. Daigle I can only thank RipoffReport.com for being a forum that actually got a response from someone on this, as I had sent multiple emails to the customer and to Siebert with no monetary reimbursement given, just an insider telling me that the site was duplicated and that the customer was using the other software designed like my existing one. I only then, felt truly ripped off. I am going to contact Robertson & Hollingsworth and see what kind of "amicable resolution" they have in mind. Unfortunately, RipoffReport.com says they will only allow appending to a ripoff report and will not delete content from their site. (Step 6 on their page: http://www.ripoffreport.com/write.asp) I don't know what more of an "Immediate Compliance" I can offer to the letter above, but for what it's worth in Melcer Tile's defense, what I know of them is, that, they are fine upstanding people and I really had expected them to be my saving grace in this matter. Some may say, they only did what they thought they had to do in order to move forward with their original plan, since they had paid Mr. Siebert what was rightfully mine and Mr. Siebert had decided to withhold payment to me and had offered them another program to use - which I was told is quite similar to the one I created (~this coming from someone within the Siebert team, who has left the company an "unhappy camper" as well.) I want it known explicitly, I was not an employee of Mr. Siebert's, but was contracted and he was paid a commission in full before any work was done. This particular contract states that the client was given a discount, provided they market the product to many of their affiliated tile dealers, which would have meant quite a windfall for me (and Mr. Siebert, as he would have gotten a commission on those sales as well), yet no one profited from any of those sales except possibly (and this is yet an unknown) Melcer Tile & Mr Siebert, (if in fact they sold the "new" software to someone else, which anyone would find it hard to believe a company with the integrity and morals like Melcer Tile exudes for it's customers and staff would do.) I do not know if they have sold the program they substituted for mine to anyone else. I would not expect Melcer Tile to do that either. I can only state what I have experienced in the short time I have had dealings with Melcer Tile and from that, I know their people to be friendly, courteous, God fearing, neighborly people, which makes it all the more difficult for me to understand why I have been placed in the awkward position I am now in. I am just a guy who builds websites and at one time expected people to just "do the right thing". I look forward to posting that this issue has been resolved and we can all go on about our business having faith again in the human spirit. I expressed in emails to Melcer Tile prior to all of this, that I really thought they had been taken advantage of as was I in this matter, yet they apparently, went ahead and used Mr. Siebert's replacement anyhow. Go figure. Some would say "It's just business...". I would not. I wrote the contract that Melcer Tile and Mr. Siebert signed which states: No archive of application is to be delivered to client. Code is to be proprietary and may not be altered by anyone but the author. All risks to the client and creator are to be shared equally as incurred. Project Timeline Deviation will not incur any detriment to either party if milestones or objectives are not met on time Whereas, Mr. Siebert, in what effort you may only surmise, sent the following email to me once I pressured him to pay what he owed: Mike: I need the following: 1. CD with Backup of Both Customers Databases/Application 2. Admin User name and password to access application and data 3. Time line to complete Blackmon (Archive Function) 4. Time line to complete Melcer (Edit Function in Quoting and Color / Retrieval functionality) 5. Sign it and commit to it. Check for $2000 waiting for you on ASAP Completing of 1-5 As you can plainly see, Mr. Siebert was trying to get the code and was withholding monies from me he received from Melcer Tile in order to get it. You can make your own assumptions about this, but these are just plain facts. My Christmas is going to be pretty crappy here looks like. Hopefully this little addition to the RipoffReport will ease some tension and make it more clear where the blame lies. I don't mean anyone any harm, I just want others to learn from my dealings so possibly someone in my position in the future will think twice and hire a lawyer immediately when dealing with any contracts (and pad the price accordingly). Lesson 1: Hire a good Lawyer. (Gedney Howe is a great one I know in Charleston, SC.) Lesson 2: Get Paid In Full Up Front. (Yeah, good luck. Maybe Derick Siebert could give you a lesson or two on that.) Lesson 3: Don't assume people will do what you think they will. Business makes people do some things sometimes that may not seem right to you and your personal morals don't have anything to do with business law in many people's eyes. What's right to them is what the Judge says is right. In the end, you are best to steer clear of court. Lesson 4: Christian? Take 'em to Church. You and 3 friends have a better case there anyhow. Matthew 18:15-17 states: 15"If your brother sins against you,[a] go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'[b] 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. I think we are commanded in the Bible to not take each other to court. 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 definitely instructs believers to not go to court against one another. 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 reads: 1If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? 2Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church![a] 5I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6But instead, one brother goes to law against anotherand this in front of unbelievers! 7The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. To demonstrate that Christians are not capable of forgiving each other and reconcile their own differences is to demonstrate spiritual defeat. I may have been wronged, but I am not defeated. I thought of taking this to court at first, yet something within said, "leave it alone, you know who vengeance belongs to." Oh, and for those of you who aren't Christians, Happy Holidays. (the word Holidays comes from the term "Holy Days", so don't try using that one either to get out of sanctifying the season.) ~Michael