Complaint Review: Telequest Corporation - Dallas Texas

I recently was robbed by Mike Kawa, too!!!.

I met Mike Kawa at a networking group in mid May 2006. When I learned the services Telequest offers, I agreed to run a pilot in an effort to help him with an introduction to the Sr. Management in the company I work for.

According to Mike Kawa, he was giving me a "special discounted" rate of $525 to set up 8 qualified appointments. He claimed such campaign rates at regular $1500. I paid 100% at front for the service, with a promised completion date of 2 weeks. However, by July 15th, Mike's team was struggling with the process and no appointments had been set. Mike claimed that this was a "common" result during the pilot due to the learning curve process.

In order to help him and his staff, I brought one of my Sr. Executives to train them for about 1 hour on the services and qualifying process, hoping this would improve the approach to set up the appointments. However, by end of July and after only 3 appointments, Mike indicated that the type of customers I needed were "too difficult" to get.

Regardless the bad experience, I tried to be understanding and agreed to run a second campaign for August. This time, we set a basic criteria to minimize errors. Mike assured me that I would have 13 qualified appointments in less than 2 weeks, (5 still pending from July + 8 for August). Since the campaign for July had not been finished, we agreed that for August I would pay a deposit for $275 and pay off the balance upon completion of the campaign.

By mid August, Mike's staff forwarded about 13 so called "qualified" appointments. I paid off the $250 balance. 5 of those appontments were out of Dallas, therefore required a discovery call via phone. Surprisingly, none of those 5 contacts were aware of such "appointments" therefore, it required the regular cold-calling from my part to determine if there was any opportunity at all.

Mike justifed the situation blaming the contacts. He said that this was a "common" situation when the appointment was run over the phone. I honestly tried to believe him.

Despite of 2 "learning-curve" campaigns, I agreed to run a 3rd one for September. I met with Mike Kawa on September 1st. We reviewed the qualifying criteria and he again committed to get the campaign completed NOT LATER than September 15. This time, he said (and I assumed) there shouldn't be any issues since the "learning-curve" was over.

On September 12th, I called Mike asking for an update. Mike assure that there were 2 appointments set up with very promising prospects. However, he didn't have the details nor the dates of such appointments, so he asked me to call Michelle, who was supposed to be managing my campaign and should have all the details. After several attempts to contact Michelle and at least 2 voice messages, I never got a response back from her.

On Wednesday, September 13th, I finally got Michelle, who in very bad mood responded not being aware of ANY appointments for me. She said she had not returned my calls because there was nothing to inform. As far as she knew, she said, my campaign had not even been started.

I called Mike and left several messages. At all times the receptionist assured me that he was in the office, just "away" from his desk. However, Mike Kawa didn't care to return my calls.

On Monday September 18th, I finally got Mike to answer my calls. First, he said he didn't returned my calls because he was "out of town". He tried to confuse me with a wierd explanation about his internal logistics. He assured me the 2 appointments were set up, but Michelle probably was not aware of them because they were set for the end of month, so apparently Michelle only knew until the last minute.

In an effort to support Mike, I mentioned to him that I had several lists of leads that I could forward to him. He asked for 500 contacts and ASSURED that ALL of them should be contacted during that week. Once AGAIN he committed to complete the campaign no later than September 22nd.

On Friday Sept 22nd, I contacted the new project cordinator, Natalia, who indicated not being aware of anything related to my campaign. She had not seen the lists I had e-mailed to Mike Kawa on 9/18, nor was aware if my campaign had even been started at all.

Yesterday, I called Mike and originally asked him for a reimburse of my deposit, given that obviously nothing has been done about it. It didn't surprise me that he didn't care to return my call.

I insisted 1 hour later and he answered the phone in a very rude manner. When I expressed my frustration about this campaign he denied having set up any prior completion dates. He asked me if I wanted to argue or what??? He tried to justify himself saying that I was not being "realistic"... that I should keep in mind that he had given me a discounted rate, therefore my campaign was not a priority at all. There were other "more important" campaigns in the queu and I should wait until "someone" could be assigned to my project.

Additionally, he said he couldn't understand my complaint, because the "normal" process generally takes 1 month, so I should wait until September 30th before making any buzz. He also emphasized that me not paying 100% at front was one of the reasons my campaign was not a priority.

After not going anywhere I told Mike that I was cancelling this campaign. I didn't insist on getting my deposit reimbursed.

Today, I e-mailed Mike Kawa about my dissapointment. I indicated that I was "glad" for not having introduced him to my Management, because it had been very embarrasing to have my name involved with a company with such a standards and zero code of ethics.

I warned him that I would include his company in a list of banned vendors, in order to prevent anyone in my company to go through this horrific service.

Mike responded with a threat. He said I was doing "defamatory and untrue statements" and that I should be "careful" or he would have his attorneys involved. He even pretended to copy an attorney in the e-mail. However, I called the attorney firm and no-one with such name works there. He made it up just to scare me!!!

I requested a copy of my invoices today but Mike didn't care to respond. It's obvious that he is trying to cover his scam. He forgets that there is evidence of my payments with my personal checks.

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Mike Kawa is a thief, dishonest person with no code of ethics whatsoever. He doesn't know the meaning of customer service. I wish I had searched his reputation prior to engage on any business with him.

Mike Kawa does not accept responsibility. On the contrary, he holds on his arrogance and even threats customers with "legal" action or says "your should be carefull".

Mike Kawa needs to learn to be humble and apologize for his lack of professionalism. Instead of throwing threats, he should take responsibility and make arrangements to update customers on time, before a small snow-ball turns into a chaos due to his lack of communication.

Patricia

Garland, Texas
U.S.A.