- Report: #1242353
Complaint Review: Winstead Media - Dixon Illinois
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Author Not Confirmed
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Winstead Media
Dixon, Illinois, USA
Web:
http://winstead-media.com/
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Winstead Media TonyWho Unprofessional website design - Major security flaws Dixon Illinois
I was given this firm as a referral for a new website for our company. At first the design and website looked great. We started having issues with spam so I called to ask him to fix it and would pay for the service. When I contacted him, he said he could "fix it" but in order to do so we would have to move to his ISP hosting (at 400% of my current cost). After that call things got progressivly worse, my site was sending out Thousands of spam emails daily. Unfortunately the website had so many security holes in the design that it was constantly being hacked by spammers - to the point that we had to take it off line. It is my belief that he was behind the hack and was selling the information on the darkweb, of course I cannot prove that as I am a business person not a programmer or coder but my gut tells me he is not to be trusted.
I am posting this report only to make others aware that there are unscrupulous players out there and they will take advantage of you any time they can.
Use this service at your own risk. My money is gone and I will find a new web page designer but will also check deeper into their credentials before signing on and giving them my money.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Tonywho
Dixon,Illinois,
USA
http://www.ethicalsearch.com/
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Wed, August 19, 2015
This the company defaming my company, just so you know the accuser and what kind of company hey are.
Tonywho
Dixon,Illinois,
USA
Hardly Ethical
#3REBUTTAL Owner of company
Fri, July 17, 2015
First of all I don't host their website. I cannot secure what I don't have control over. I left their host too for the same problems. I try to shop local, but I would go out of business with that host too.
The site is built on WordPress which is used on over 60 million websites worldwide by top companies such as ebay, Sony, The New Yorker, Variety and the list goes on. The highly rated X theme being used, is used on over 65,000 websites to date.
I had to restore my backup I kept of the site, which I didn't need to keep, because their was corrupted on their hosts server. Yes, the same host I left for the same issues. So I restored it on my sever to show them it can be setup no problem and working. Not unusual, considering the issues. Any Wordpress hosting company worth its salt can do this, kids in High School can do this.
The problem they face is they don't have any idea how manage the content management system. I instructed them to put a SSL on the website and keep up the updates, since they are handling personal information of their clients.
From that point on they and their friend who hosts the website were going to maintain it themselves, nothing wrong with DYI'ers. But you really need to know what your doing. I have gone to college to learn my craft, they admit they know little about it. I offered managed hosting to them for $60 per month as all my clients. I apologize if that is a lot of money for you, but I have to make a living too.
So, I get an email from their host telling me the site is continually getting hit with sql injections and how to remedy and keep it from happening. I explained that what I do for these issues is proprietary, I make my living selling managed hosting as well. You might as well ask Coke for their recipe too.
So the next day, I felt I would try to recommend remedies for free to them both. Since their host is a novice with wordpress and evidently hosting. I recomended sitelock.com and again to keep the plugins,cms and theme updated.
So I am working on seo and pull this complaint up about me and I am floored, Really? This is a small town, we are small businesses, is this the ethical behavior your companies named for?
My sites are being attacked as well, but I didn't run around blaming my clients who wanted the cheap $70 yr for self managed hosting. I took it like a man and armed my server and straightended out the unmanaged websites. Then started to seperate managed from un managed sites onto different servers.
It troubles me that you think I even know how to get to the deep web, let alone would I steal the client information on your website. Really? Really? Can you say slander?
I told you how to protect yourself and your clients sensitive information (SSL, SiteLock, Updates, remove sensitive information from server). I don't know what more I can do. But thanks for bashing my reputation and trying to hurt my business.
