"On Sept. 14, 2015, I paid $9.95 for the specials, 1st month and on Oct. 2, and Nov. 2, 2015, I paid $29.95, for the gift business hosting fees. The website itself is free, which offered 100-of the Smart Living Company (SLC) products that would cost the consumer $19.95 or less.
On Sept. 25, 2015, I spent $72.78 on the purchase of catalogs, to distribute.
On or about Oct. 6, 2015, I was contacted, offered and I accepted an upgrade that would allow me to offer 50-SLC products, of any price range and 25 non-SLC products. The cost of the upgrade was $595.00 and was to be made in 6-payments of $100.00 and the last $95.00. As of today, I have made 1-payment towards the upgrade.
On or about Oct. 22, 2015, was when I first opened the store to the website and prior to and since, I have invited just over 500 to the site by means of word of mouth, business cards, emails, catalogs, and social media. As of today, the website has not produced 1-order.
I have contacted tech support with many issues, for the following reasons:
1. For about 2-weeks, I had not received the expected kit with the training manual, price list and catalogs. When I called one time, I was told that I would have had to request the kit and when I called again, was told, it was to have been automatic and they could see it was not sent and would be shipped out that day. This was a delay as it was finally received.
2. In the stores back office it stated in the mail box and showing that I am permanently banned from the site. I contacted tech support who told me this was a problem that lies with my internet service provider. All of the techs with eMerchant with the exception of 1-said they had never had this issue. The 1-said they have seen this issue with Google Fiber who is my internet provider.
3. I contacted my IS provider, who informed me that it would take approx. 5-days before they could look into the problem of the site, which resulted in me closing the store, during this time. The Internet provider disagreed and said the problem lies with the company that host the web-site and it is they, who can remove the block.
4. I called eMerchant tech support again, and told they were to route my complaint to another dept. to handle my problem and was told the hosting co. of the website is handled by a 3rd-party.
5. I then was told by the tech support of eMerchant, they now would check out everything and restore everything, stating this should take care of the problems and again, this took days to resolve. Again, this resulted in me having to close the store again. Afterwards, I then had to re-enter all of the information that I had previously entered that took a lot of time.
6. On the navigation key for the numbers to appear on the order form was originally set at 2 and then I had set it 102. The manual said that once set, how it cannot be set to a lower number, however, I went back to this place, to find it was set back again, to 2.
7. On the website I had 2-products in the carousal that did not have the “buy now” link, that would of given the customer information about the product and cost. I was advised to remove these and put 2-other products, rather than them installing the links.
8. I was told with the upgrade that I would be able to send out 50-Grand Opening Announcements, per day for a total of 200, which was offering a 25% discount off the total purchase. The email generated an error when I tried to send out 50. I then contacted tech support and was told to only send out 20-per day, because more than that would appear that I was spamming. I did as suggested and received a message, that was saying that the 20-exceeds the amount to send. I then tried to send the emails later, from my cell phone. I was not getting a message, that I was expecting that said the “emails was successfully sent.”
9. The Training Manual states that each email is to separated with a (;). and then I did so with a space. I contacted tech support and was told that I am not to have a space between the (;) and the next email. I did as instructed and it still would not allow me to send emails. The Manual did not state that it should not be a space, but is shown as if does have a space.
10. I then sent the emails, 1-at a time. I then contacted 1-of the recipients of the email, who said it was received 7-times. I explained all of this to the tech, and told this could be the reasons for the block, which may have appeared to be spam, to the customers..
11. I was not able to view the emails from the mailbox from my desktop, but could from cell phone. At one time I was told that I should not send emails from my desktop, but do so from my cell phone. I then was told not to send out emails until further notice.
12. I contacted tech support again and was told to send my emails,, now from my gmail account rather than the store site of the gift business. I sent 20 emails ending with a ; and most were returned as undelivered. These were those that I had just received their business cards the day before at a networking event and were good, up todate and current emails.
13. On Nov. 13, 2015, I contacted Brenda Dukes who was assigned as my SLC Account Rep with questions about Fund-Raising.
14. On Nov. 13, 2015, later that evening, now from my desktop, I can not gain access to my gift business website, to the back office of the store, or eMermchantclub.com which now has a message stating “This webpage is not available,” but I am able to gain access by my cell phone. I then and now have currently closed the store again, from the cell phone.
15. On Nov. 16, 2015, I contacted tech support and they are now telling me, that it is my computer. Again, I am able to gain access to all other sites except those mentioned above in No. 14."