Complaint Review: Z57 Internet Solutions - san diego California

I would like the opportunity to address this former client’s concerns.  I will refer to her as Ms. B., out of respect for her online anonymity.

I personally tried to reach Ms. B. via phone and email several times in December of 2010, when her concerns were brought to my attention.  She chose not to allow me to assist her, because she never responded to the attempted contact.  By Ms. B’s inaction, I came to the conclusion that she was not interested in a resolution at that time.

Ms. B. has apparently decided that she does want a resolution to her concerns, because she filed a complaint with the BBB recently (2 months after my attempts to reach her).  I responded through the BBB process, addressing Ms. B’s concerns, and clarifying that Ms. B. did not qualify for a refund per the Terms and Conditions to which she agreed. 

The BBB acknowledged the facts I presented, and has closed the matter.

Though many of our competitors have poor BBB ratings, please note that we have an A- rating.

Ms. B. references that she “could cancel within 10 business days”.  This is accurate.  Our clients have the right to cancel at any time, within 10 days or anytime thereafter.  We do not require a long-term contract commitment like most of our competitors do.  There are specific limitations however, to when our clients can get all of their money back.  As a business, we just can’t provide services for free.  The exact details regarding refund eligibility were itemized on the initial phone call with Ms. B.  They were also listed in the written Terms and Conditions to which she agreed (with her legal, electronic signature), before her credit card was ever charged.

The fact that Ms. B.’s website was never “hooked to” her MLS was neither the responsibility nor the fault of our company.  We do offer an incorporated MLS search function with its websites, but this is an optional product.  Ms. B. did not choose the website package that included our MLS solution; she instead chose to use her real estate board’s solution.  Ms. B. sent us the paperwork that her board required to be signed, and we returned it to her 4 days later.  We would of course like to minimize this turn-around time, but the paperwork has to be carefully examined.  This paperwork is a legal, binding contract between our business and a real estate board.  When Ms. B. closed her account with us, she had not yet given us the link address for the MLS search.  Ms. B. did not wait for her board’s MLS link approval process to be completed.  

Ms. B.’s website was built on 11/15/2010, and was published on the Internet that same day.  Every feature that we provide with our websites was fully functional: the school reports, the community reports, the instant home values tool, the foreclosure search, the lead capture, the visitor tracking statistics, and the automatic email response system.  The only part of the website that was not yet functioning was the MLS search, which (as mentioned above) Ms. B. chose to have her real estate board provide.  

Ms. B. brought it to our attention that she wished to have Godaddy manage her email account.  Ms. B. gave us Godaddy’s mail record settings, and our IT department made the necessary settings changes on our side, on that same day.  If any additional changes needed to be made with Godaddy, as far as setting up the email account, we were not instructed to do this.  In the thousands of times we have directed emails to Godaddy for other clients previously, there was no need for an additional process to be done.  Ms. B. would have needed to contact Godaddy for support with their email service.

In order to provide a resource of foreclosure information for our clients, our websites are initially built with a foreclosure search.  This tool is very effective at its intended goal: to generate leads for our real estate agents.  Once a consumer gives out their contact information within the foreclosure search, and sees some basic information on a number of foreclosed homes, they are prompted to sign up (with the foreclosure data provider) for full access.  Our clients have the option to simply remove this foreclosure search from their websites if they wish, or to utilize a different foreclosure search.

Ms. B. invested in a website through us on 11/15/2010.  Ms. B.’s website was built and published on the Internet that same day.  All features of the website for which we were responsible, were fully functional.  Because we provided the product and services that were paid for, Ms. B. does not qualify for a refund.

We regret any frustrations that Ms. B. had during her initial website setup.  We would have appreciated a longer-term opportunity to help Ms. B. with her marketing success.