Complaint Review: StoresOnline GalaxyMall PMI Coaching - Orem Utah

Two couples, both with disabled husbands, had been trying for two years to put together enough craft items to justify the high cost of traveling out of our rural area to some larger craft shows. When we received an invitation in our e-mail from SOL, we agreed to go listen to what they were offering in the hope of finding a better way of getting our crafts out of our little, remote valley. And since this is an Internet thing, we took along our 35 yr. old diabled son who understands computers better than the other four of us combined. We first attended the "dinner"(cold sandwich, apple, cookie, & soft drink)meeting in Wenatchee - a 3 hour drive from home. Next came the all day seminar in Yakima - a 6 hour drive from home. The presenter's enthusiasm made the whole deal sound like something we could do even as far from everywhere as we are. After all, the group of us had a computer and a phone line to connect to the Web. And this would save on the expenses of craft fair travel and fees. So both couples and our son bought a set of sites at $5200 each. Two of those sets have not been used because of the problems with the first site in the first set. Like Carla from Portland, Or., we received a call about two weeks after the seminar offering us the services of PMI Coaching. They promised 10 weeks of lessons by phone, 12,000 potential customers to visit our site, 1200 trading Links with our Link page hosted and maintained by Links For Trade, and 6 Banner ads. Well, we got the training sessions and the Link page maintaince. The Banners and the visitors have never appeared. The trading links turned out to be a listing on over 700 Free For All pages that we could have done for ourselves thru a service that would have cost only $49 while SOL charged us $500 per site. We did get over 1000 e-mails the day after our site was listed, but not one order in any of them. We have never gotten an order from anyone on our site. I spent about 800 hours building the site, contacting artisans, taking pictures of their crafts and pictures of our area, and purchasing the neccesary back-up for doing business on the Internet. The site was published on Sept. 9, 2002 and by Dec. 19, 2002 it had vanished from the Domain name I had purchased, was not listed on any Search Engine anywhere, had made no sales, and when found thru the SOL address was unusable. So it continues to this day. Not only have we been cheated out of about $22,000 (we paid for our son's set of sites, too), but the crafters in our small rural town so far from everywhere, have been robbed of their chance for an income. Most of the artisans that contracted with us to put their handcrafted items on our site are also disabled and on very limited incomes. Several of the people at the seminar who work for SOL are members-in-good-standing of the Morman church. I am somewhat surprised that people whose TV ads emphasize morality and "family values" would be involved in a company so obviously bent on deception and fraud. I have sent SOL an e-mail asking them to call me since their live chat is very slow and can only refer any problems to he Technical staff. Maybe they don't have time to check their e-mail because they are busy holding more seminars here in Eastern Washington. I will try their 877 number now that Steve from Illinois has supplied it. Thanks, Steve! And, Yes! I am ready to start of be part of a lawsuit. Nancy Oroville, Washington

U.S.A.