Pinnacle Cart, Inc.

We conducted a site audit and in our Proposal provided the Foundation work to correct the error and the ongoing SEO work separately to improve site rankings.  We provided the audit at the end of May 2013 and were hired at the end of Sept 2013 to do the Foundational work...

only.  What has to be put into perspective is Customer is in a highly competitive space of cosmetics and has large competitors like bare essentials. These companies are, on a daily basis, adding content that backlinks or are featured articles written about them linking to their products.  This increases site authority and coupled with their relative content that is linked for SEO purposes their rankings are higher and remain in top positions in search engines.  Customer had not been active in SEO work on her site, had introduced errors, broken links and duplicated content that numbered in the 70,000’s.  All these were direct attributable to human error and not the software platform and were a large part of the rankings being lost.  

Here is the timeline of events:

10/2005 - [redacted] began using our Pinnacle Cart software with a reseller when she launched her ecommerce site.  Prior to that it was a catalog based call in website which she had been operating since 2002.

04/3/2012 - Customer moved hosting with us as her reseller of our Software “Clear Cart” was not providing support services she needed and her person was no longer providing SEO or assistance with the cart.

05/ 2013 – The client inquired with us about SEO she had lost rankings since she had no one doing SEO  and was on pages 2-6 for different terms and sliding further down.   We performed a site audit 5/23 and Presented the review on 5/30 (see attached Emails (dated 5-30-13), Pinnacle Cart SEO Discovery .pdf and [redacted]_KR.xls) the problems found were:

74,605 – 404 Errors (soft bounce page not found)

98 -  500 Errors (hard errors)

Entire site content was duplicated

Images not optimized for the web

Pages did not include keywords or were incorrectly formatted

No social linking

…and more (see attached Keyword and SEO Discovery Docs)

Our Proposal in the SEO Discovery was twofold; fix all the foundational issues for $5,425 One-time and on-going SEO for a monthly investment of $930.

6/2013 – During the review of the audit our Company reviewed the results with the customer (see attached Emails (dated 6-5-13) and we found code in header links that were negatively impacting or could impact. These were remediated at no charge.

“In header.php I removed that huge chunk of code that contained over 100 links to spam and the javascript that was added in to hide it.”

07/2013 – Client was trying to mitigate the errors (the 74,605 errors) herself, and reached out to our SEO guy [redacted] directly  with questions a month after her audit was done see attached Emails (dated 7-15-14)  where she indicated

“…The other question I had was concerning renaming products, and categories and its affect on our ratings.

We've been improving the naming of our products to make them easier for our shipping manager to differentiate from similar products.I found out at some point this year, that that caused havoc with our Google ratings, because links that Google remembered as active were suddenly inactive, and we do many products at one time when we work on a category.”

9/2013 - We were hired to do the SEO Foundation work only that was outlined in our proposal from the SEO Discovery.pdf not the monthly ongoing from the site audit proposal. Customer sent in a check for the work that was received on 9/13/2013 for $5,000 (discounted from our proposal).

Oct/2013 - 60% of the work was completed to enable the completion of the next logical pieces (correcting the 70,000 + errors and the logical structure of the pages. In addition client’s site was included in our monitoring tool to evaluate what her competitors were doing and some keyword rankings.   Project manager change to [redacted] in Nov

Nov/2013 - 80% of the work was completed, we consulted with her on adding content both to her site and externally to improve her rankings.  We sent over a punch list of

status and worked to remediate her google local as it had her on the other side of town.  Additionally we found more errors occurring in 404s close to 300 in all that we corrected even though we had corrected all prior errors – no additional charge for this.

Dec/2013 - we are needed to finalize project by adding content.  We again discover she has more errors close to 150 and question why it is recurring and figure out that from day one client has been moving products and not putting in a 301 redirect which defeated any SEO work or prior rankings for her site.  We educated the customer on the ills of doing these changes and essentially abandoning all links and google site indexed pages.  We informed customer when adding new products put them in their lifetime category to keep the SEO URL preserved and add it to secondary categories such as *new arrivals*.  Client took this time to then redo every product into new categories to which introduced another 600+ errors in pages indexed and we fixed these at no cost.

Jan/2014 We then recompleted 301 redirects to mitigate the errors introduced and got the site to a steady state and educated the customer on creating 301 redirects in the cart to counteract movement of products or discontinuance on her index pages and her ranking overall.

 

Feb/2014 Client was dissatisfied at the length of time it was taking even though the setback of errors and the restructuring were client side delays.  In consultation we agreed to add new content we create for 15 pages the client identified.  2/14/14 first email asking for her input, 2/19 /14 follow up asking if she had reviewed,  2/20/14 Client asked us to resend, 2/26/14 again inquired if content was reviewed, she mentioned she had changes to homepage and cream to powder categories.

March/2014 With content delivered and emails not responded asking for her feedback on 3/12/2014 client responded I advised we can upload them all but get over the changes.  This was to obviously do it once efficiently. 03/19/2014 – Client inquired about 301 redirects to which we responded and instructed on the determination of 301s and how to implements the change.  3/25/14 Client wrote in that she was on page 3 (keeping in mind when she came to us she was anywhere between page 2 to page 6). 

The response was “I am sorry to hear this.  My first question I would ask what articles, links, emails and programs have you been doing to promote the site specific to those keyword.  As we are not contracted for any ongoing work for you I have no visibility, but we certainly can quote out an ongoing campaign that would be effective.  .As we have discussed previously the foundation work is a base point in setting up your site for future programs.  We won’t entertain doing any contract work for SEO unless this work is completed first.  Not having the foundation work completed prior to commencing any new campaigns means you won’t rank for the effort.  For example keywords, used in paid or unpaid initiatives against pages that are not established for your program won’t relate or rank in relevance as search engines would see them. Our initial efforts in your SEO garnered you great results and you praised us for it.  Unfortunately with the passing of time not investing your time or dollars for yourself or someone to continue new initiatives means that it will lose relevance against sites that are active in their promotion.”

April/2014 – we reached out to get the remaining content on her site even though it was not part of the original proposal and are awaiting her changes.

Asking for a refund or extra work at this point is unreasonable when the work is completed.  Not only was the price discounted from the original proposal, all the heavy lifting of correcting 70,000 errors and pages on client site were done including the remaining points outlined in the proposal.  We have exhausted and gone above and beyond the outlined duties including the additional pages of content.  Client stated her expectations were to be on page one for all her keywords and claims our SEO guy stated it would be.  Never in the history of our company have we guaranteed something like this nor would our SEO team. There is nothing documented to this affect and in reality our team knows SEO and that even with an inexhaustible budget you still can’t guarantee where search engines will rank you.  The reality is that SEO work is an ongoing event and even a minimum of 3 mos. is needed to see gains however small or great. 

Given there is a lack of client performing an ongoing effort it would stand to reason it won’t go any further, but compared to where the client was slipping into page 6 the foundational efforts help stop the slide and in some cases reverted.  In our opinion the site will require ongoing efforts in order to hold or gain ground against the competitors in that space for the long term.  With the key changes Google made to their search algorithms in 2012 and 2013 no more than ever effort must be ongoing and results are never overnight...the game has changed.  However it is important to note that in some cases for certain keywords the client is NOW on page one an example of this page one top position is found by Googling “wholesale mineral makeup”

Further to that point see attached report comparing Q4-2013 vs Q1-2014

Visits to the site are UP 1,861/1,388

Organic Traffic (seo work) is UP 1,143/937

Mobile visits are UP 678/470 

Backlinks (no new content) is expiring and DOWN:  993/1,145 

The report show increase in site traffic and relevance and proves to collaborate the gains from our work contradicting the client’s claims in her dispute with the Revdex.com.  We ask you review the information and should you need clarification please let us know.

In conclusion we know the client will benefit from ongoing SEO and we wish for the client to see the facts of our endeavors through this forum in a new ligth so we can mend the relationship and work together to continue the gains with an ongoing effort.

Review: In December of this year I was looking for a new website and had several conversations with Pinnacle Cart and a rep named [redacted]. I decided to go with the $199.00 month plan for full website design or manged service plan is what they call it. [redacted] told me several times if I was not seeing a increase in traffic and sales that the site is 100% refundable for all the money I had put in it. After three or four times talking to [redacted] I went ahead and purchased the manged service plan. I was then passed onto a [redacted] who was to do everything I need to make the website function. I wait almost 1 month before things started to happen and I was told several time "oh that is extra that is extra". After the website was made and up and running I was then passed onto a Ms [redacted]. She told me that if I wanted the SEO I was promised it was going to be a large amount of money outside of the manged service plan. I then asked her what am I paying for?? She said 2 hours of work per month and anything over that is an extra charge and all the SEO did not fall into that 2 hours a month. I then proceeded to complain and was transfered to a supervisor that stated that she would give me 2 months free for all the trouble I had in the begining. I said ok for now but still not happy. I then emailed Ms [redacted] several times to change little things here and there. During this time I am still not seeing anymore traffic or sale to my site. In the middle of June I asked Ms [redacted] in several emails to please add my store hours to the site with no reply. I waited till the end of July to email her again for I was sick and in the hospital. When I finally got ahold of her sher was like hmm I never got anything from you and she will get right on it. As soon as July 22 or there about came around my website said it was having issuses and to call 1-800-506-0389 and press # 2. I then proceeded to email Ms [redacted] and she said she would look into. As of today July 31 2013 I still have not heard from here via phone or email. As of 2 days ago I have cancelled my service with Pinnacle Cart and have no desire to have them service or work on my website any longer. I was called today by Rachel in the billing dept and was told since I had the 2 months free I am not owed anything. This is 100% unacceptable.Desired Settlement: A refund check in the amount of $800.00

Business

Response:

Mr. [redacted] entered into a 1 year contract with our company on Dec

26th to 1.) Host his website and 2.) provide 24 hours of service over

the course of the year. The hours can be used upfront or over the

contract for design or cart setup services. Mr. [redacted] in our opinon

used more than 3/4's of his contract hours up in the first 5 months.

Mr. [redacted] made his recurring payments on the contract on the 26th of

Jan, Feb, & Mar in a total amount of $800 USD. However his card

declined for Apr & May. We continued to provide service and during

that time made attempts to bring his account current. He overused his

hours, but we wanted to work with and retain the customer to so in addition

the two months of fees we didnt collect we also provided another 2 mos free to

help him. Between the 4 months he paid for, the two months we provided

services (Apr-May) with no payment received and the 2 mos additional

time we provided we lost money on this account and he received 8 mos of

service and only paid for 4 months.

In the end we think you will

agree we actually provided more than allotted hours. Below are the

facts in summary from details we have from recorded calls, emails and

notes in our CRM system

12/26/2012 - account setup and hosting begins

2013:

1/3 - Our Rep reached out to him about the plan and next steps, Left a voicemail

1/5 - Our rep reached out again left a voicemail

1/7 - Mr. [redacted] requested he wanted some HTML added to the product description fields.

1/15 - We tried reaching out

1/21 - Mr. [redacted] called in requesting help setting up [redacted] store and other questions

1/22 - Our team reached out and helped him with site design and [redacted]

1/29 - Our team reached out and scheduled a call to go over product descriptions for his website.

2/8 - Returned customers voicemail

2/12 - worked with Mr. [redacted] on general questions for cart setup

2/21 - worked with Mr. [redacted] on general questions for cart setup

2/22

- worked with Mr. [redacted] on questions and his ticket [redacted] as

his store setup was nearing completion and wanted to go live with [redacted]

2/25 - Our Project manager called to Mr. [redacted] and left a message to review site

2/26

- Customer called in and wanted to add a custom contact us page

(besides our default that is with the cart system) and referred us to a

link of one he liked and asked us to help implement the code

3/13 - worked with Mr. [redacted] on general questions for cart

4/1 - Mr. [redacted] called in and wanted to schedule 2 hours of time for more work

4/2 - Reviewed all subjects and scope of work for the the scheduled call, we again reviewed what is included in his package as well

4/5 - Reviewed design of site

4/11 - reset his email password

4/16 - updated his google checkout parameters

4/17 - Mr. [redacted] called in asking if there was a way to force publishing of ebay listings

4/18 - Mr. [redacted] called in about getting an SSL for his site

4/18

- Mr. [redacted] call about potentially using a different merchant

services account, but customer stated he was using [redacted] and [redacted]

Checkout due to being 2 years out of bankruptcy and not able to qualify

5/7 - We created and delivered a new logo for his website/company, customer inquired about setting up a blog

5/7 - we recommended some blog options for him.

5/9 - customer called in and unhappy that he has to pay for an SSL

5/10 - customer called in again and is unhappy that he has to pay for an SSL

5/10 - customer called in and wanted to get additional email addresses created

5/21 - billing spoke to him about his past due, he said he wanted to cancel we explained it was a one year deal.

5/28 - We provided 2 mos credit on his account even after his card had declined the past two months.

6/6

- We called customer on his ticket [redacted] - he was getting email

sent to him from people who were listed as spam senders so our filters

were bouncing them back. We asked him for examples to make exceptions

for him on a limited basis

7/26 - he emailed in to design services, we replied back asking how we can help - nothing replied back from Mr. [redacted]

7/29 - customer called in wanting to cancel - we explained he had a one year agreement. he asked about a refund

7/31

- We followed up on his refund request and informed the customer, he

had a one year agreement, he had only paid for 1/4 of it, we gave him 4

mos for free, but contractually he is still obligated for remaining 6

mos.

In closing - with the hours we have spent, the free

services provided (4mos) and the customer still owing for 6 mos of

service we feel his request for his initial 1/4 of the contract is

unfounded. We are happy to release Mr. [redacted] from the remaining

contract to make this amicable and will not seek the additional monies

he owes, unless he wishes to pursue this further.

Thank you for your time in reviewing.

Pinnacle Cart

Review: In June 2010 I purchased a turnkey e-commerce shopping cart program for my company. Included in the terms was a perpetual license for one web site, and an additional license for a developmental web site. To receive the license for the developmental web site I was told to contact them when needed, and they would adjust the license key to work on a developmental server. I was told this by phone on numerous occasions, and in writing "...installing on a development server...contact us in this situation and we can add the development server to the license key."

I did not need the key for the developmental license until now, so I contacted them to make the adjustment, but they said they will not issue it unless I sign up for a $299 support package. Needing a support package was never a condition of the original terms of the sale, if it were, I would have had the adjustment made years ago when I purchased the product and had a support package.

I spoke to a person named Tyler at Pinnacle Cart and he stated, although it was not disclosed to the public when I purchased the software that a support package was needed to receive the additional license, he said it is their internal policy.Desired Settlement: I simply want Pinnacle cart to honor the original terms of sale, and give me what I paid for, my developmental license of perpetuity. Hiding behind a cloak of "internal policy" is misleading and constitutes fraud.

Review: This company has been no[redacted]ous for charging random things, that after a year with service, you must have an ssl cert and with out notice, charging for an overage??? I have not changed a thing on the site. My claim is they are deceitful and make you purchase unwarrented things and charging for it with out your consent, ie overcharge. I am not the first to complain of this, look at their facebook page you will find plenty of unhappy people.Desired Settlement: refund for ssl, which was not ordered and the overcharge.

Business

Response:

This is [redacted] and I personally communicated with [redacted] last week and will show you with the factual information below that she just isn't telling the truth. [redacted]'s original comments to the Revdex.com is at the bottom of this response.

She states we are "no[redacted]ous" for charging her random things. In addition to her monthly billing of which she is still and active account and hasn't even canceled service, her account has had one charge for the SSL on 5/16/13 in the amount of $149. Here is the facts related to the SSL change and charges on all of our hosted customer accounts.

We sent out 2 email notifications to the only email address [redacted] uses.

4/18/2013 at 2:36pm to the email address - [redacted] - [redacted]'s email address

4/24/2013 at 9:34am to the email address - [redacted] - [redacted]'s email address

Here is the content of the email on 4/18/2013

April 18, 2013

NOTIFICATION: Transition to Dedicated SSL Certificates

Before we jump into the technical aspects of this notification, we want to thank you for your business. Some of you have been with us since the beginning - over 8 years! We’re proud to say we still have Customer 1 with us, after 9 years. Our focus has always been on what’s best for our customers and for this reason we are instituting the change outlined below. We value and appreciate every single one of our customers and look forward to assisting you in your online business. We have provided a link at the end of this email.Your website hosted on our servers is currently using our shared SSL certificate to secure your website. Based upon changing industry standards, we are discontinuing our shared SSL certificate.

This change will require us to transition all customers to dedicated SSL certificates beginning Monday, April 19th. In order to convert our remaining customers currently using the shared SSL certificate, we will be offering significant discounts when you make your purchase prior to Friday, April 26, 2013.Our security certificate partner, Symantec, has provided this information to help in understanding this change:“Starting January 1, 2014, the industry is discontinuing the use of 1024-bit key length on SSL certificates and Code Signing products. This is in compliance with NIST Special Publication 800-131A.As of January 2012, 2048-bit keys will be enforced on all new multi-year Code Signing products and SSL certificates. All Code Signing products and SSL certificates will be required to have 2048-bit key lengths after December 31st, 2013. Please plan the adoption of 2048-bit key lengths in your Code Signing products and SSL certificates accordingly.”In addition to increasing your security, a dedicated SSL certificate provides you with these additional benefits:Maintain your own domain name across all pages – Savvy online shoppers notice when they leave your website to check-out on a sub-domain ie. [redacted]. Ultimately this causes a drop in conversions as customers abandon their order because they are expecting to buy from your website not Pinnacle Cart as reflected in the URL [redacted].

Higher level of security – All of the SSL certificates we now offer carry 2048-bit key length security to keep your site and customers at the forefront of website security.

Choice - Choose the SSL certificate brand right for your store. Due to the change, we reviewed all of Symantec’s current offerings and will be passing along three new options for you to consider.As a valued customer and to assist us in converting websites to dedicated SSL certificates, we will be sending you a separate email with your exclusive discount and a listing of our new SSL offerings.It is important to note, that your site will ALWAYS REMAIN SECURE. If you have not completed the purchase of your dedicated SSL certificate by Friday, April 26th, 2013, we will convert your shared SSL certificate to our entry level, 1 year dedicated SSL certificate and process the transaction on your behalf.

If you’re ready to get started now and would rather not wait for our next email that outlines our new SSL certificates, you can call our sales team today and they will be happy to assist you.[redacted], option 1 for Sales Team

As always, we value and appreciate your business.

Pinnacle Cart, Inc.

Last May, [redacted] had several emails with [redacted] in our office. Though we understand her concern on cost, the email string with [redacted] that went back and forth was all about the SSL so any comment about charging for random things is absurd.

Until the end of last week, we have no record of speaking with her and this was [redacted] Umpelby's email from 5/28/13

Additional To: [redacted]

CC:

BCC:

Attachment: image001.jpg

Subject: SSL CHARGE

Body:

[redacted],

I attempted to call you back regarding the ssl charge to your account. No voicemail box picked up so I thought I would try and contact you via email. The sales team attempted to notify you through email and phone regarding the change to the rapid ssl with a charge of $149.00. If I refund or credit the charge the ssl will be uninstalled and your site would no longer be secure. Any customers that want to purchase something from your site will be aware that it is not a secure checkout. Please advise if you would like me to proceed.

*Pinnacle Accounting*

*Monday-Friday 8am-5pm Mtn. *

We feel strongly the facts support our position.

That brings us to last week. An authorization in the amount of $10 was made to [redacted]'s account for over use of disk space in the month of March. Here is the copy from our terms and conditions, that all customers agree to at the time of purchase, that outline the charges.

ADDITIONAL FEES

Based upon the Pinnacle Cart Software Service package, additional costs will be charged as follows:

Bandwidth – $3.50/gigabyte over Startup, Small Biz and Entrepreneur packages.

Disk Space – $10/up to 100 megabyte over Startup, Small Biz and Entrepreneur packages.

Here is a link to our terms and conditions - [redacted]

She posted similar comments on our Facebook page and she was immediately addressed and I got involved within about 30 minutes of the original post.

After researching the entire complaint, I found everything that was written here. I did everything I could to try to save her as a customer including offering professional business advice on her account at no charge. In the end she said she was going to move to a new provider and I still offered to credit her the $10 and did so. I also offered a $50 savings on the renewal of her annual SSL. In the end it may have saved the account as she still is an active customer of ours. Here is a summary of the last few emails between [redacted] and myself. Read from the bottom up.

I'm thinking, that, I really need to change services. The ssl had long put a foul taste, now the overcharge, I have very little desire to stay. I am looking at one established company, who does eat the ssl and charges 19.99 and are willing to knock 50 off for new business now. and yes their service has not gone down as another person I know has been with them for a year. Your company's customer service with me has always been the stance of 'tough, take it or leave' it has been rude and always leaving me on the defense. I am an end user if this is abuse I must receive to stay, I won't.

On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 4:43 PM, [redacted] <[redacted]>

wrote:

Let me remove the charge for $10. In addition, I will get your package moved up to the next level at no charge. This stops the overage charges because you are barely over right now and the new package will put you within the limits of your site. On the SSL, there isn’t a lot I can do but I can offer you a $50 savings for this year (your renewal is next month).

If you agree I would still like to set up a call with you when you have time.

I’m curious about your business and feel I can bring you a few ideas to assist you in growing.

Thanks

From: [redacted] [mailto:[redacted]]

Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 2:38 PM

To: [redacted]

Subject: Re: Pinnacle Cart

if you mean email yes. I am about to go to sleep as my schedule puts me on the way to early side for a work day

On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 3:50 PM, [redacted] <[redacted]> wrote:

[redacted],

I received a note from our Marketing Manager about your concerns with charges you are incurring.

You have been a customer of Pinnacle Cart for a long time and I will do anything within my powers to keep you as a customer.

Do you have time to talk ?

Thanks

President & CEO

| p: [redacted]

| c: [redacted]

I'm hoping [redacted] had a change of mind as I really think I could assist her business in growing.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

I reject partial, I did speak with [redacted] and he did refund the $10.00 however, I have done nothing absolutely new from last month to this month to incur the charge. And wow, business owner calling one a liar, is pretty brazen. Revdex.com please look at the reviews for Pinnacle on the Pinnacle cart Facebook page and you will see for yourself as others have had issues for their horrible service, sorry Pinnacle you aren't telling the truth on this. I have a webcart and finishing up details on the move with that provider. Quite eager to get me off your cart system that its more important to give the customer the poor service then try and keep them. Customer service has been rude and I won't accept anyless. I will guarentee That I will be off before your next cycle. Do not charge after this last cycle. Check for yourself, their Facebook page, you will see I am not the only unsatisfied customer

Regards,

Review: On 5.28.14 I purchased a Premium Support - 1 Year Phone Support, Email Support and Access to New Releases to Pinnacle Cart software. Within the last year the company has issued a new release of it's software that it is attempting to charge me $499 for access to that release while I have a phone, email support, and new release contract in place through 5.28.15. Please see this screenshot from inside my account profile: [redacted]Desired Settlement: I would like Pinnacle Cart to provide me the services that I have purchased through the expiration of my contract.

Business

Response:

The email and support options are for the current version of the licensed software purchased for one year. This means that the licensed customer not hosted on our servers can gain access to our support department for tickets and phone to resolve issues or questions. It does include new upgrades to existing release they are on. For illustration the current version this customer is on on is 3.7. The access to upgrades includes maintenance releases too. So 3.7.1 would be an upgrade with new features or enhancements and 3.7.1.R1 would be a maintenance release. The customer has 3.7 as a version for their cart and has access to 3.7.15. We released a new version of the cart 3.8 last year in limited release and it has just within the last few weeks become available to licensed customers. This was to insure compatibility in different environments and make a smoother transition for a path to get to from 3.7 to 3.8. This means the the customer can a.) continue to receive support for 3.7 version which is $299 per year and/or b.) pay a one time fee to purchase the new version of the platform 3.8 at a lower price than a new license. Since the customer has a support plan if they upgrade the version to 3.8 they will still have a support agreement for the year from date of purchase for access to upgrades and support on the new 3.8 platform. This is no different than any other software vendor you still have to pay for new versions e.g. windows or apple regardless of a support contract.

Consumer

Response:

[redacted]I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.The was the business articulates the issue is not true, nor was this specified in any way upfront at time of purchase. I purchased a maintenance agreement that clearly included new releases. I have attached a screen shot from inside my account where it clearly states new release, and lists the dates of my contact. If you review the line above the highlighted item ($599) they are again referring to everything as new releases. At no time were anything but new releases discussed with me, and it was included in the contract.Additionally this new release item was discussed at $499 via customer support but shows as $599 at point of purchase.Regards,[redacted]

Business

Response:

[redacted]The price for the upgrade is stated in the order system to avoid any confusion. I would ask if you felt there was a discrepancy to not purchase until clarified we would have been happy to communicate with you and clear it up. As it is the product and price are always presented before purchase so that you can see the price agree to terms before purchase. I have inquired with sales and support they are all aware it is $599 New versions simply are not free, this 3.8 release had a year of planning and work and just like any operating system from Apple or Microsoft new versions are not given away. If we are to develop and continue to advance the product it takes investment of time and dollars that is recouped by selling the software which is our business model. I see your purchased the upgrade on 3/5 and you were instantly granted access to use the new version release. Prior to that you have had and will continue to get patches and maintenance releases for 3.7. With your recent purchase the same will now be true for 3.8 with its new features and patches for years to come.Thanks for your understanding and continued support.[redacted]

Review: In May of 2013, I hired Pinnacle Cart to provide SEO services for my website, [redacted]. I transferred my hosting to Pinnacle Cart software in April of 2012, and due to the lengthy and inefficient process to transfer data from my old site, as well as fatal errors made by Pinnacle staff, and fatal software bugs, my company suffered a tremendous loss of business. Our sales dropped by half since transferring to Pinnacle.

After a year of repairing our site, I took out a sizable loan in order to fund SEO services through Pinnacle, assuming that their SEO team would be the best in the industry, since they understood the Pinnnacle software. The person I was dealing with seemed to really know his stuff and gave me an excellent breakdown of how Pinnacle could increase my SEO rankings.

He presented two options for consigning Pinnacle's SEO services; one was a monthly plan, and one was a one-time plan. I decided to go with the one-time plan and paid 5,000.00 to Pinnacle Cart in May of 2013.

This is employee was almost immediately fired. I was extremely disappointed by this, since I chose their services based on his expertise. Within the next two months, two new people took charge of the project, and both left the company as well. The final management was done by [redacted].

The project was very lengthy and under [redacted]'s direction, the work outlined in the SEO proposal was supposedly completed. It is difficult for me to document whether or not all aspects of this project were completed, because many aspects are technical.

I was not given regular SEO reports about the performance of my website, which is normally what is supposed to happen. So, I began doing my own analytics through Google and through some grass roots means, and found that my rankings had not only not improved, but had worsened considerably since the onset of the project. This continued persistently throughout the project.

I started to raise concerns with [redacted] about this, and in February had a very disheartening conversations in which he alleged that

a. the one-time paid contract was only a preparation for the monthly contract, and that I wouldn't see any increase in my SEO after having paid for this $5,000.00 service,

b. the one-time contract was for services that would lay a foundation for me to then do things....(vague, can't even tell you exactly what those things are, but basically building links and writing content) to increase our SEO.

I have complained in writing to both [redacted] and the owner of the company, but for the last several weeks, my emails have not been returned, and there is no indication that the company plans to resolve this matter.

In essence, I paid Pinnacle Cart software to IMPROVE MY SEO RANKINGS. While they physically completed many, possibley all items on the SEO proposal, it turns out they are INEFFECTIVE.

So, the services I hired them for, have not been completed, and despite numerous attempts to resolve the matter, on my part, they are apparently content with the state of things.

I sincerely wish that I had never moved my hosting to Pinnacle Cart. It was one of the worst decision I have ever made. Ours sales have been cut in half by their software and employee errors, and nothing has ever been done, financially, or in the form of services to rectify these errors. Because of the massive size of our site, as well as our continued lack of profit, I cannot afford to move the store to another software company.

Now on top of this, a large sum of money paid in good faith for a specific service, has resulted in absolutely no results.Desired Settlement: I would like Pinnacle to deliver on the services I hired and paid them for: to improve the SEO rankings of my site; [redacted]. Since their efforts have been ineffective to date, I expect them to do whatever is necessary to figure out how to deliver the services I paid for. If not, a refund is in order, so I can hire a company that knows what they are doing, and can follow through with results.

Business

Response:

We conducted a site audit and in our Proposal provided the Foundation work to correct the error and the ongoing SEO work separately to improve site rankings. We provided the audit at the end of May 2013 and were hired at the end of Sept 2013 to do the Foundational work only. What has to be put into perspective is Customer is in a highly competitive space of cosmetics and has large competitors like bare essentials. These companies are, on a daily basis, adding content that backlinks or are featured articles written about them linking to their products. This increases site authority and coupled with their relative content that is linked for SEO purposes their rankings are higher and remain in top positions in search engines. Customer had not been active in SEO work on her site, had introduced errors, broken links and duplicated content that numbered in the 70,000’s. All these were direct attributable to human error and not the software platform and were a large part of the rankings being lost.

Here is the timeline of events:

10/2005 - [redacted] began using our Pinnacle Cart software with a reseller when she launched her ecommerce site. Prior to that it was a catalog based call in website which she had been operating since 2002.

04/3/2012 - Customer moved hosting with us as her reseller of our Software “Clear Cart” was not providing support services she needed and her person was no longer providing SEO or assistance with the cart.

05/ 2013 – The client inquired with us about SEO she had lost rankings since she had no one doing SEO and was on pages 2-6 for different terms and sliding further down. We performed a site audit 5/23 and Presented the review on 5/30 (see attached Emails (dated 5-30-13), Pinnacle Cart SEO Discovery .pdf and [redacted]_KR.xls) the problems found were:

74,605 – 404 Errors (soft bounce page not found)

98 - 500 Errors (hard errors)

Entire site content was duplicated

Images not optimized for the web

Pages did not include keywords or were incorrectly formatted

No social linking

…and more (see attached Keyword and SEO Discovery Docs)

Our Proposal in the SEO Discovery was twofold; fix all the foundational issues for $5,425 One-time and on-going SEO for a monthly investment of $930.

6/2013 – During the review of the audit our Company reviewed the results with the customer (see attached Emails (dated 6-5-13) and we found code in header links that were negatively impacting or could impact. These were remediated at no charge.

“In header.php I removed that huge chunk of code that contained over 100 links to spam and the javascript that was added in to hide it.”

07/2013 – Client was trying to mitigate the errors (the 74,605 errors) herself, and reached out to our SEO guy [redacted] directly with questions a month after her audit was done see attached Emails (dated 7-15-14) where she indicated

“…The other question I had was concerning renaming products, and categories and its affect on our ratings.

We've been improving the naming of our products to make them easier for our shipping manager to differentiate from similar products.

I found out at some point this year, that that caused havoc with our Google ratings, because links that Google remembered as active were suddenly inactive, and we do many products at one time when we work on a category.”

9/2013 - We were hired to do the SEO Foundation work only that was outlined in our proposal from the SEO Discovery.pdf not the monthly ongoing from the site audit proposal. Customer sent in a check for the work that was received on 9/13/2013 for $5,000 (discounted from our proposal).

Oct/2013 - 60% of the work was completed to enable the completion of the next logical pieces (correcting the 70,000 + errors and the logical structure of the pages. In addition client’s site was included in our monitoring tool to evaluate what her competitors were doing and some keyword rankings. Project manager change to [redacted] in Nov

Nov/2013 - 80% of the work was completed, we consulted with her on adding content both to her site and externally to improve her rankings. We sent over a punch list of

status and worked to remediate her google local as it had her on the other side of town. Additionally we found more errors occurring in 404s close to 300 in all that we corrected even though we had corrected all prior errors – no additional charge for this.

Dec/2013 - we are needed to finalize project by adding content. We again discover she has more errors close to 150 and question why it is recurring and figure out that from day one client has been moving products and not putting in a 301 redirect which defeated any SEO work or prior rankings for her site. We educated the customer on the ills of doing these changes and essentially abandoning all links and google site indexed pages. We informed customer when adding new products put them in their lifetime category to keep the SEO URL preserved and add it to secondary categories such as *new arrivals*. Client took this time to then redo every product into new categories to which introduced another 600+ errors in pages indexed and we fixed these at no cost.

Jan/2014 We then recompleted 301 redirects to mitigate the errors introduced and got the site to a steady state and educated the customer on creating 301 redirects in the cart to counteract movement of products or discontinuance on her index pages and her ranking overall.

Feb/2014 Client was dissatisfied at the length of time it was taking even though the setback of errors and the restructuring were client side delays. In consultation we agreed to add new content we create for 15 pages the client identified. 2/14/14 first email asking for her input, 2/19 /14 follow up asking if she had reviewed, 2/20/14 Client asked us to resend, 2/26/14 again inquired if content was reviewed, she mentioned she had changes to homepage and cream to powder categories.

March/2014 With content delivered and emails not responded asking for her feedback on 3/12/2014 client responded I advised we can upload them all but get over the changes. This was to obviously do it once efficiently. 03/19/2014 – Client inquired about 301 redirects to which we responded and instructed on the determination of 301s and how to implements the change. 3/25/14 Client wrote in that she was on page 3 (keeping in mind when she came to us she was anywhere between page 2 to page 6).

The response was “I am sorry to hear this. My first question I would ask what articles, links, emails and programs have you been doing to promote the site specific to those keyword. As we are not contracted for any ongoing work for you I have no visibility, but we certainly can quote out an ongoing campaign that would be effective. .As we have discussed previously the foundation work is a base point in setting up your site for future programs. We won’t entertain doing any contract work for SEO unless this work is completed first. Not having the foundation work completed prior to commencing any new campaigns means you won’t rank for the effort. For example keywords, used in paid or unpaid initiatives against pages that are not established for your program won’t relate or rank in relevance as search engines would see them. Our initial efforts in your SEO garnered you great results and you praised us for it. Unfortunately with the passing of time not investing your time or dollars for yourself or someone to continue new initiatives means that it will lose relevance against sites that are active in their promotion.”

April/2014 – we reached out to get the remaining content on her site even though it was not part of the original proposal and are awaiting her changes.

Asking for a refund or extra work at this point is unreasonable when the work is completed. Not only was the price discounted from the original proposal, all the heavy lifting of correcting 70,000 errors and pages on client site were done including the remaining points outlined in the proposal. We have exhausted and gone above and beyond the outlined duties including the additional pages of content. Client stated her expectations were to be on page one for all her keywords and claims our SEO guy stated it would be. Never in the history of our company have we guaranteed something like this nor would our SEO team. There is nothing documented to this affect and in reality our team knows SEO and that even with an inexhaustible budget you still can’t guarantee where search engines will rank you. The reality is that SEO work is an ongoing event and even a minimum of 3 mos. is needed to see gains however small or great.

Given there is a lack of client performing an ongoing effort it would stand to reason it won’t go any further, but compared to where the client was slipping into page 6 the foundational efforts help stop the slide and in some cases reverted. In our opinion the site will require ongoing efforts in order to hold or gain ground against the competitors in that space for the long term. With the key changes Google made to their search algorithms in 2012 and 2013 no more than ever effort must be ongoing and results are never overnight...the game has changed. However it is important to note that in some cases for certain keywords the client is NOW on page one an example of this page one top position is found by Googling “wholesale mineral makeup”

Further to that point see attached report comparing Q4-2013 vs Q1-2014

Visits to the site are UP 1,861/1,388

Organic Traffic (seo work) is UP 1,143/937

Mobile visits are UP 678/470

Backlinks (no new content) is expiring and DOWN: 993/1,145

The report show increase in site traffic and relevance and proves to collaborate the gains from our work contradicting the client’s claims in her dispute with the Revdex.com. We ask you review the information and should you need clarification please let us know.

In conclusion we know the client will benefit from ongoing SEO and we wish for the client to see the facts of our endeavors through this forum in a new ligth so we can mend the relationship and work together to continue the gains with an ongoing effort.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

I hired Pinnacle to improve [redacted]'s SEO rankings. The list that they sent of the work that they did is simply that, a list of work completed. It did not raise our rankings in the least bit. There was never a report provided, although I requested one several times, detailing improvement.

Contrary to what was stated, [redacted] was never dissatisfied with the amount of time the project was taking. What was alarming was that as the project was nearing completion, there was no indication of a system to determine the efficacy of the work that had been done thus far.

When I requested reports concerning our rankings, it was then, and only then, that [redacted] began stating that the work that they were doing was a 'foundation'. This was never stated prior to this point, and definitely not stated when I was 'sold' on the program.

In addition, the choice to work within the one time framework as opposed to the monthly was not presented at the time of the initial proposal as a 'foundation' for the monthly work. This is a total mispresentation, and to be honest, appears to be somewhat of a lie to get out of completing the work that I hired them to do, which was to improve SEO rankings

The person that I had the initial sales call with ([redacted]) offered [redacted] two options. One was monthly, and one was a one-time project. At NO point did this salesperson state that the 5,000.00 project was 'foundation' for the monthly work. He said quite the opposite.

Only after [redacted] realized that there had been absolutely no improvement in our rankings did he state that [redacted] would need to pay for a monthly program to improve our rankings after we had already paid 5,000.00 for Pinnacle to do the very same thing.

So, the facts are misrepresented by [redacted], and by the SEO team.

The contract was signed and paid for to show improvement in SEO rankings. [redacted] is currently hovering between page 3-6 for the three most relevent search terms, which is exactly where it is stated in the business summary as having been when we began. So, there has been absolutely no improvement.

I will ask again for a resolution. [redacted] is willing to accept a partial refund. We will use that to hire a company that provides guaranteed results, and provides monthly reporting to show improvement in rankings.

Regards,

Business

Response:

The document provided in the initial response and attached here (SEO Discovery) was the quote for service and it clearly had two types of services. The first was foundation and would correct the errors stated which numbered in the 1,000s. The second was for ongoing SEO work at a monthly rate for targeted results. It can't be stated any clearer there was no obfuscation of the work to be done and what work the customer choose for us to do. As far as the foundation work punch list all the errors identified and more were all completed per our proposal. Foundation work does not provide reporting as that is part of a monthly service. Foundation work is meant to correct errors that would impeded progress from the search engine standpoints and build a framework to leverage for monthly campaign work.

With the work completed to correct the errors and in some cases re completed because of the client changes we have over delivered on the work spelled out in the foundation. At this point we cannot see how asking for a refund for services contracted for an delivered are an option.

Review: Custom development:

I paid $38,000 for custom web development. Contract was signed in March 2013. Work was to be finished June 7th. By June 7th they weren't finished. A couple weeks later [redacted] announced they were all finished. (In spite of the fact that there was zero communication with me regarding the development). Lo and behold, they'd only done a small fraction of all the work. [redacted] said that "he didn't know" the rest was supposed to be done. Whatever. They proceeded to do a sloppy job at the rest of the project. [redacted] said they were pulling in extra resources to get the project finished asap. Well. It's now the end of August and the whole project is still not finished. Just a few half-baked pieces here are there. My company is suffering very much since we have no website / no sales.

Communication:

There seems to be no communication in the Pinnacle Cart company - not among staff, nor with clients. Everything about the project was laid out with [redacted] in March in much detail. But when it came to do the work, [redacted] seemed to be completely out of the loop. Furthermore, the supervisor [redacted] outright admitted to me in a three-hour phone conversation that "he had no idea the amount of work that was involved; he thought that it was a simple matter of 'design and data import'." Well, good grief, for $38,000?!

Design:

Now let's talk about design. It also took way longer than initial promises. The design staff couldn't seem to get the elements necessary together. So many conversations with [redacted] about how we would like things done. Emails with pictures to explain it. Online examples. It took them so many redos to finally get it more or less right. The [redacted] and [redacted] designs looked whipped together like something my 8-year-old nephew could have done - didn't match the main site at all. The design was supposed to take 4 weeks. It's now been 5 months and it's still not done. I haven't seen anything about the mobile site design yet.

Pinnacle has been a 6-month headache so far.

They've charged $38,000 and haven't delivered

You have to hound them constantly: "Are you getting things done? Are you getting things done?"

They constantly promise: We should have something for you by this evening. We should have something for you by tomorrow.

I've had to make a new contract with a company called "[redacted]" - I'm having a MUCH better experience with my new provider.

Meanwhile, PinnacleCart still hasn't delivered, and we have begun legal proceedings with the bank to recover our losses.

[redacted] - [redacted]Desired Settlement: Refund me. I've set up a website with another company

Business

Response:

With regards to the complaint, we are in direct contact with Mr. [redacted] of [redacted] and both parties are actively working together. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Review: Web site shows ecommerce plan starting at $30/mo.

However, they require you purchase an SSL for additional $15/mo or $150 year. They will not allow you to purchase the $30 plan without this additional cost.

This is not disclosed when you sign up for a free trial.

So, in my case, and I am sure I am not the first, several hours were spent uploading products, settings, etc; only to find out my $30 plan is really $45!!!!!!Desired Settlement: Not only is a refund in order, but they need to change their ads to show the ACTUAL pricing OR they need to change the policy to reflect their advertising.

Business

Response:

We are very sorry to hear this:The customer is entitled to a 14 day money back guarantee they just need to follow the cancellation process from their account area. This is posted in our terms and conditions (see Cancellation - [redacted]/). To date the customer has not issued a cancellation.With regards to the pricing it clearly states on our page the monthly cost for the platform and the starting costs for SSLs are stated on our pricing page. As there are many options the price is presented and calculated before purchase based on the choice for SSLs the merchant needs. SSLs are not an optional item any longer in the eCommerce space and for us to help keep the merchant PCI compliant we like the rest of the industry have had to enforce. (PCI compliance is a requirement of any merchant services - their payment provider). A customer cannot checkout in our system without first choosing an SSL option and seeing what the monthly price will be. Secondly they must agree to the terms and conditions before proceeding so I can assure they were not presented one price and then charged another the order is built as they interact with it. They must choose to proceed and accept the terms for the monthly charge presented.I hope this clarifies the situation. I did see in several email chains were the SSLs were explained to the customer as for options in pricing and even bringing his own SSL. -[redacted]

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

There wasn't a proposal to rectify or resolve the issue for me, nor future clients. Also, the merchant is misrepresenting how the SSL fee is presented to the customer on their site. The fine print of Pinnacle Cart's requirement to collect extra funds for an SSL is presented as an additional and optional fee at the time a customer signs up for a trial. Competing carts require SSL if storing customer data or collecting payment only. However, when a customer uses a third party like [redacted], for example, for payment processing, SSL and PCI compliance is handled by [redacted]. The fact that Pinnacle will charge a customer $100 to cut and paste the SSL code shows that unnecessarily requiring SSL is done purely for profit.

Regards,

Business

Response:

We are presenting pricing fairly and accurately as shown on our site. We wish our previous explanation would have sufficed as we aren’t doing anything nefarious. Here are the key points and the page we are referring to - [redacted]/1. We clearly list SSL’s at a cost on this page. Every package says “SSLs starting from $14.95/mo.2. You knowingly ordered from us and agreed to standard terms and conditions. This point alone doesn’t make sense to us because if you had such an issue why order in the first place?3. We are doing nothing that any good company doesn’t do. We clearly outline costs and use language like “starting from” to be clear about possible costs. I could watch 10 commercials tonight and see the same pricing structure ½ the time4. We have never, and I mean never, had a complaint about our site pricing or marketing in the 10 years we have been in business and the 8 years we have been with the Revdex.com.We would love to have you back as a customer and we would be willing to compensate you in some way if you committed to using our platform. If you’re open to such a dialogue we would love to earn your business & trust back again.If you’re not willing to move forward with us, we would like to offer you advice as it relates to using an SSL. Your point about customer information not being relevant to PCI compliance is completely inaccurate.Here is an article from the industry authority about protecting Personally identifiable information (PII) as part of your PCI Compliances. It is worth noting that this is the website that we are also listed on as being PA DSS compliant. [redacted]/Almost as important as being PCI Compliant is getting your website into a position that [redacted] considers user friendly. That means your ENTIRE site should be in SSL mode as you can see Pinnacle Cart is at [redacted]. All sites should be in secure mode at ALL times, not just during checkout. [redacted]We are in the business to provide secure, quality software for small businesses. We are also in business to make a profit. It is our responsibility to provide all of our merchants with the most secure system possible. We are in agreement with the heavyweights in the industry like [redacted] and [redacted] to fully protect its customers by always being in a secure mode and. If our competitors choose not to do this, that certainly is their prerogative, but we feel we are leading by requiring the SSL for all stores in our network and we state that very clearly on all packages offered.We hope to hear from you to bring you back into a platform that considers security first.

Review: I have sign up for one month promo period on 27/1/2016.

now today on 26 /2/2016 they charge me

1.they withhold the information of recurring billing and they didnt make it clear about recurring but only mention about one month promo period

2, I cancel on 26/2/2106 ,still they are refusing to refund the money/

3. even they dont give back money under their 14 days money back guarantee .Desired Settlement: I want them to refund me 44.90$ i.e full amount

Business

Response:

Dear Revdex.com,This customer's transaction was voided on 2/26/16 and he was notified it was voided, please see attached-the same day he requested it be refunded. Pinnacle Cart offers a 14 day free trial for which no credit card information is collected. This customer wanted his trial extended and this request was not granted-however, the Sales Rep discounted his first month's hosting and SSL from $44.90 to $.01 and he was told he would need to cancel this service 24 hours prior to the next billing date. The transaction took place through Pinnacle Cart's website, where this customer agreed to the terms and conditions-he knew he was purchasing this service. This matter was resolved to exactly what the customer requested within 24 hours of receiving his request.

Consumer

Response:

Review: The issue is that the platform purchased has not functioned properly and does not offer the necessary requirements outlined in in advertising and pricing structure. Orders did not properly filter to the order page, and money would be taken from customers, but would not show as orders in the admin area of the cart. The only way to know about some orders was to be alerted by our bank that money was accepted. Other orders accepted payment and showed up as orders but did not list any details, causing us embarrassment by having to alert our customers that we received an order but did not know what products they purchased. Proper orders were also listed as abandoned. We do not consider this a properly functioning e-commerce cart. We have lost several hours working on the phone at our expense trying to get shipping straightened, when the end result was a coding error on Pinnacle’s end. An e-commerce platform should provide the efficiency of allowing online customers to place items in their cart and purchase with ease. This remains an ongoing issue as customers have contacted us that deleted items cannot be removed from the cart, therefore they cannot place the order. The embarrassment that Pinnacle Cart has caused is overwhelming. After reaching out to Pinnacle about this last issue, we were advised to not delete any items from the admin area (even when items are no longer available); however [redacted] Store was charged overage charges for space. This is contradictory to the advice Pinnacle staff is giving. Deleting items also causes customers to locked out of submitting an future orders if the deleted item was placed into the cart during a previous session and not removed. It is even more embarrassing that our most loyal customers have resorted to calling in orders because they know our website does not function properly. After submitting countless tickets, these issues, along with others, have failed to be resolved by Pinnacle Cart. They choose to close tickets rather than simply solving the issue. They refused to honor the performance guarantee when a refund was requested. They can access the multiple tickets submitted and see the countless orders that were blank or abandoned (yet payment was received) by looking in our admin area. We also have several emails stating our frustration with the cart, and do not get any help. There only response is they cannot pinpoint the problem, and close the ticket, rendering us helpless and with an inefficient cart. We have requested cancellation and was alerted that we would be put on the cancellation list.Desired Settlement: I am requesting an apology and a refund of the total amount paid to Pinnacle Cart since service started over a year ago. I believe this to be reasonable on our end due to (1)the amount of business lost as a result of cart failures and (2) [redacted]e spent trying to solve issues alone on our end after reaching out numerous [redacted]e to Pinnacle Cart and not receiving any help. Pinnacle Cart has damaged [redacted] Store’s reputation among clients and has caused humiliation by forcing [redacted] Store to contact several clients directly asking them what they ordered because there are blank records on the site. We have countless text messages, emails, and other documents to prove that the cart has failed to work properly from the beginning and major cart issues remain unresolved, thus proving that Pinnacle Cart has offered poor customer service.

Business

Response:

We are in an unfortunate and regrettable situation with [redacted] Store and apologize for the inconvenience they experienced.

Over the last 10 years we have serviced over 40,000 accounts and tens of thousands of trial customers and have always put our best foot forward with the software and our support of the software.

To paint the entire picture of our relationship with [redacted], we can provide statistics and data to more clearly see what really happened. [redacted] became a customer of Pinnacle Cart in August of 2012. They have been a client with us for 18 months.

In 18 months, 21 support tickets were submitted, 21 support tickets have been closed. Over the same period we have fielded 29 phone calls. All calls were answered live or their voice mail was returned. Bottom line is this was a very active account for our company. It is important to note the contact with our company was almost exclusively with [redacted], not [redacted], the person who submitted the complaint. We feel the reason for noting this communication of events can be somewhat skewed when done through a third person and we feel that is a factor in this case.

Our service is offered as a "pay as you go" model. When [redacted] purchased the store in 2012, the chose a plan that was $29.95/month.

Over 18 months, their investment in our monthly service is only $539.10. The majority of their investment was with web design that they ordered seven months ago. The cost totaled $1500. The design work was completed to their satisfaction. In fact, we did additional design work for them in January for almost $200. So just on the surface, it is really hard to see how much they disliked the software and our company when they continually ordered more services.

But let's address their key concerns.

Whenever issues arise, and they simply do and will as a software provider, we rate the severity of the issue and handle it according to a level 1, 2 or 3 response. Level 3 response will always include issues related to checkout. [redacted]s issue was related to checkout and it was escalated to the desk of the CEO, Mr. [redacted]. In February, Mr. [redacted] personally reached out to their owner and began to have dialogue in an effort to understand, detail and fix any issues. He provided their owner with his cell phone number and had many text messages with him to keep him apprised of progress. During this [redacted]e, we dealt with [redacted] who is very challenging to deal with and quite unprofessional. She would scream, berate and swear at our support staff who were only trying to help. In the end, we certainly tried to do our best but she became part of the problem. In fact, one of the early ideas we had to better understand the issue was to turn on another piece of software that would track and monitor all activity on their store. She refused to allow us to do this and until Mr. [redacted] stepped in an demanded it we would have never figured out the issue. Her position delayed the fix by a few weeks.

It is also important to understand how we fix issues. First the process begins by identifying the issue. In this case, they were able to show a few orders that had issues. Step one complete for us. We then must go into a mode to try to replicate the issue because there are so many variables that you end up looking for a needle in a haystack in some cases. This was definitely one. When we can replicate, we then rate the issue as noted above.

After we turned on the software to assist us in tracking the issue happened again about 10 days later. It is also important to note that the issues referenced did NOT happen all the [redacted]e and was very sporadic and infrequent. Though we do agree, it was an inconvenience for the [redacted] customer.

We went through our process, deemed it to be a Level 3 concern and immediately began working on the fix. The issue only occurred when a user made a purchase from an iPad with iOS7 AND used paypal express on checkout. Honestly, it really is amazing to actually find issues like this. From the day we were able to identify the issue until it was fixed and ready to be deployed to our customers it was five business days. We reached out to [redacted] when it was completed and let them know we could deploy the fix on their store. Unfortunately, they didn't stay current with our releases and they would have to upgrade their store to get to the most recent version of the software. We can't possibly provide fixes for all of the 95 different versions of the software we have had over the last ten years. They didn't want to do the upgrade on their own and didn't want to pay us to do it for them.

While all of this was going on, our CEO did a review of their account and offered their owner compensation for the challenges without being asked. Their plan was moved from $30/mo to the $60/mo plan without any changes in what they paid! He saved their account $12/mo or over 20% + plus doubled all of their resources. It is important to note that nothing related to our terms and conditions requires the concession offered. We feel that their current request is simply based upon the idea that the generosity offered by our CEO would simply be rubber stamped and we would somehow pay them back everything they paid us for services we provided.

In the end, their cart issues covered the last two months they were with us.

To close the issue, we have decided to credit the last two months of service to have the issue go away. That is an additional saving of $59.90.

In addition, our CEO continues to honor our "Guarantee to Increase Sales" offer. The challenge is [redacted]'s owner will not provide the details that Mr. [redacted] requested three [redacted]es. In order for us to validate the guarantee, we compare the last six months on the previous provider they used with the first six months using our system. This is a very simple and straight forward request that goes unanswered. Even though they are no longer a customer, we will honor this offer until the end of April.

Here is the last email chain related to this topic. Please read from the bottom up. The conversation is between Mr [redacted] and the [redacted] owner.

---------------------------------------------------

From: [redacted]

Sent: Monday,

March 31, 2014 11:23 AM

To: [redacted] Store

Subject: RE:

Refund for [redacted] Store

[redacted] I’m not sure why you need to try to read into something I’m saying.

I have made it very clear that we stand behind our product, provide services that satisfy thousands of customers and are willing to pay you back money based upon our guarantee. It is you that choose to not comply with our simple request to validate.

From: [redacted] Store [mailto:sales@[redacted]store.com]

Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 9:44 AM

To: [redacted]

Subject: Re: Refund for [redacted] Store

So what I am concluding here is that you do stand behind your product, you do not provide the services that that you agreed to provide, and you have scammed us out of the money we paid.

-----------------------------------------------

In conclusion, we do make every effort to make all of our customers happy and from [redacted]e to [redacted]e recognize that we can't always make it happen. We take ownership for having software issues,

We also take great pride in the overall quality that supports thousands of store owners and how quickly we turn around issues when identified.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The support tickets that Mr. [redacted] is referencing should never have been closed. To simply state that "Pinnacle Cart cannot duplicate the errors" that many of our customers experienced does not resolve the issue. An e-commerce cart should successfully allow customers to order with ease, and allow the company to fulfill that order based on the generated invoice. This is something Pinnacle Cart's software DID NOT DO. Also, Mr. [redacted] did not reach out to the company. I had to request to speak with the CEO on multiple occasions before finally having the opportunity to communicate my frustration to Mr. [redacted]. Mr. [redacted] simply stated that they needed [redacted]e to fix the issue. This response came months after Pinnacle Cart's support staff was first alerted of the issue. There were multiple no call backs, and no texts back. No problems were solved. Again, simply not solving the problem and only offering that "the error cannot be duplicated" is a lack of ownership for a failing cart. Our customers were repeatedly having issues, so it was not a one [redacted]e instance that could not be duplicated. We were simply passed on the to the "next level" of support, yet tickets were closed and the problem still remained.

Mr. [redacted] should communicate with his support staff. The "added features" that were supposedly added did not fixed the issue. We were advised to add features and were in a bind. We were willing to try anything to make our cart work properly. The support staff was also suggesting to leave items that we no longer offered for sale on the back end to avoid problems with completing orders. As advised, we left items open on the back side of the cart but switched them to inactive. We were charged overage charges for taking the advice of the support staff.

I was present for the conversation between [redacted] and [redacted] regarding the error of the cart not charging shipping on some orders. To state that [redacted] berated Pinnacle Cart's support staff is simply wrong. It is just another instance of Pinnacle Cart placing blame, yet again. [redacted] first accused FedEx and then went on to accuse [redacted] of not setting up the shipping rates correctly. The end result was that Pinnacle Cart was sending code containing the wrong state abbreviation, even though my staff had properly entered it into the back side of the cart. I was out the cost of paying my employees to try to solve the issue as well as the $200 freight cost. This was a CODING error on Pinnacle's end, and was completely out of our hands to fix. [redacted] never received an apology for this instance as well. [redacted] has been highly praised by our customers and is highly professional.

At no [redacted]e did [redacted] deny turning on dev mode. She wanted the issue resolved any way possible. Pinnacle Cart wanted access to our PayPal account, as Pinnacle blamed PayPal for the issue. Her hesitance was with allowing another company access to secure financial information. She did not feel that she had the authority to grant access. After discussing with our Accounting Department, we granted them access. The result was "Pinnacle Cart cannot duplicate the error".

At this point, I just want to alert all other businesses that Pinnacle Cart is a pure scam. The issue was never about the money. We would not ask to be reimbursed if the cart had in fact worked properly. Our main challenge is that Pinnacle Cart did not offer a cart that accurately recorded and accepted orders online. We stayed with the company because we did not have the [redacted]e to invest in a new cart provider. To simply not fix a reoccurring error is unacceptable. We supplied all the necessary information such as: order numbers, confirmation numbers, emails to our customers, and even our Paypal account information to try and help. Pinnacle Cart chose to close the tickets with no resolution. I have attached two documents proving that we had to reach out to our customers when these errors occurred.

We have since switched to another cart provider and have not had a single issue. Orders come through smoothly and even tripled in amount. Mr. [redacted] is welcome to compare our new cart to our "cart" with Pinnacle Cart. When Mr. [redacted] states that he has never had an issue like ours, I would disagree. Pinnacle Cart's Facebook page is covered with negative reviews as well as other online forums. The bottom line is -- Pinnacle Cart did not offer a functional e-commerce cart and did not provide the proper customer service/support to fix the errors.

Regards,

[redacted] Scheer

Pinnacle shopping cart is one of the best eCommerce shopping cart systems around the globe I my self found it really interesting after I read about it in http://yummyinternet.com and I will encourage you to read once about it and then decide whether you want it or not.