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Report: #1382636

Complaint Review: Bridge Technology Partners - San Diego California

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: MickeyC — Beverly Hills California USA
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  • Bridge Technology Partners 9466 Black Mountain Rd. Ste 260 San Diego, California USA

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BEWARE of Bridge Technology Partners.

This is embarrassing but I do not want it to happen to anyone else. So, here goes….

I signed a contract with Bridge Technology Partners to build a social media website and app over a year ago. I drove to San Diego to meet with Rob Clasby (the co-owner) in person. He seemed very genuine and honest. There were over 14 milestones with many technical terms. I went over everything with Rob, and clearly explained what I wanted. He also explained that all the work is done in the Philippines with the (co-owner) Mark Jones managing them onsite in the Philippines.

I needed to pay a deposit up front and stage payments before starting each work order. The problem was that they started the next stage without completing the first. They gave me a lot of technical excuses (work not updated yet, waiting for Apple, blaming me for changes which were grammar and typo errors on their side)

Whenever I complained, Rob told me that everyone releases their apps even with many big bugs because there will always be something to fix. Thankfully, I did not listen to him. I asked a friend of mine to sign up on his phone in front of me and it did not work. Needless to say, I was embarrassed and if I had released it to the public or even just to friends, they would have thought it was a joke and first impressions are very important.

I would meet once a week with Rob’s (project manager) Alex Titilah and he would make excuses for months about why the project hasn’t been finished.

The bottom line is that little is in working order and I have paid over $130,000. 

At this point, Bridge Technology Partners are over 5 months late from the maximum estimated time of the change order and more than 8 months from the original agreement.

What I have learned since signing with Bridge Technology Partners is that there are a lot of greedy companies out there that are hiring technicians in India, Philippines, and paying them a low price and making as much profit as possible. There is very little or no regulation in this field so they can get away with charging whatever they think someone will pay. Once they get you to invest a large amount to build the app/site, they can keep on making excusing and charging because you want to see a finished product. If you don’t pay, you will have wasted the money so far. It’s like a bottomless pit.

I take responsibility for agreeing to pay the initial $110,000. Even though I was overcharged. However, I SHOULD HAVE A QUALITY PRODUCT THAT IS WORKING FOR THIS PRICE.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 07/01/2017 09:18 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/bridge-technology-partners/san-diego-california-92126/bridge-technology-partners-more-than-5-months-late-and-little-is-in-working-order-and-i-h-1382636. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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Updates & Rebuttals

REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
3Author
0Consumer
2Employee/Owner

#5 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Response to (Update)

AUTHOR: Representative - (USA)

POSTED: Thursday, October 12, 2017

As COO of Bridge Technology Partners, LLC (Bridge), I feel it is necessary to provide a further response to Mickey’s review, based on his addition to the review. 

Bridge is and has always been a Colorado limited liability company.  Anyone may confirm this by going to the Colorado Secretary of State website.  Bridge has never been a California LLC or a New York LLC.  Bridge has an office in California, and the three original founders of Bridge were from California, Colorado, and New York.  But there has always been only one LLC.  So the statement that Bridge somehow hides behind LLCs in New York and Colorado is reckless and false.  Bridge is not hiding and there is nothing to hide.

Bridge stopped working on the project for The Friend Connection (TFC) because the project as originally agreed upon was finished.  During the course of the project, Bridge even continued its work, in good faith and high integrity, after becoming aware that Mickey was following through with his threat to put Bridge out of business using bad reviews.  We finished all known contracted work and fixed any bugs that were related to that work.  TFC simply needs to publish the correct version of the software.  

All monies paid to Bridge by TFC were approved, planned expenses.  Every contract was discounted, some times as much as 50%.  Some work was even done for free.  There were no unexpected, unbudgeted charges.  Bridge completed all contracted work and refused to continue to work for free.

It’s unclear to us why TFC would go out of business.  TFC received the highly valuable software that Bridge was hired to create.  Bridge wants all of its customers, including TFC, to succeed, and Bridge worked hard to assist TFC.  But we could not continue to provide services outside of the contract for free and in the face of what we contend are false and reckless reviews.  Our recommendation to TFC, rather than giving up, going out of business, and wrongly blaming Bridge for TFC going out of business, is to learn how to publish versions of the software obtained, or hire someone else to do it.  TFC should market their business. If they didn’t budget for marketing expenses and other ongoing expenses like system administration, they should probably get additional sweat equity partners or investors.  For the Apple version of the app, they should do as they did before and follow Apple’s procedure for having rejected apps approved - while promoting the android and website versions of the system.  It probably makes sense to get a business coach as well - https://www.score.org/ might be a good resource - and it’s free.  Many companies have their apps rejected by Apple - it’s a normal part of their process and it should not be a reason to go out of business.  


A few recommendations to anyone who is starting a software business (this is not directed to or a reflection on TFC unless otherwise stated, but is more of a guideline for anyone interested):

• Have a written business plan.  Having an idea isn’t enough. The idea or software isn’t going to do all the work for you.  

• Have a marketing plan.  “My software idea is going to be so impressive that it will grow virally” is not a marketing plan.  If you don’t have marketing expertise and don’t want to learn, consider hiring a marketing firm or hire a marketing staff.  At Bridge, when we identify that a client doesn’t have a solid marketing plan, we refer them to several marketing firms (we referred TFC to marketing firms).

• Budget for ongoing expenses.  Building a software platform is just the beginning, not the end.  You will need to budget for hosting, marketing, operations, system administration, and ongoing software maintenance.  Just because it’s software, doesn’t mean it’s not a business with ongoing expenses.

• See yourself as the software company, not the customer.  What I mean by this is that you will need to learn how to manage your software platform, or hire someone or partner with someone who can do that part of the business for you.  Just as if you bought an airplane, you would need to hire an airline pilot to fly the airplane and a maintenance crew to maintain and repair the airplane - or you would need to learn how to do these things yourself.   While your passengers may be able to sit passively and enjoy the flight, someone will need to fly and maintain the airplane.

• Expect your software to have bugs.  It's part of owning a software company.  All software has bugs - at least initially.  Bugs are not an exception and certainly not something to get upset about, as they are a normal part of software development.  If you going to own a software company, you will need to learn how to handle bugs.  It’s an industry standard that software companies usually work out the bugs over several releases and updates.  You should prioritize your bugs in a list and fix the most critical bugs first. Release updates on an ongoing basis, with a batch of bugs being fixed.  If you are doing a beta release, inform your users that it is a beta release and give them a way to report bugs.  Typically, software companies will have a goal to get to a stable release, and then get to an acceptable amount of bugs.  They don’t typically fix every single bug before they release and market their software. 

• Have the determination to succeed.  Building a successful start-up company is not easy and it’s not for everyone.  If you have no experience starting up and building companies, you should expect to have to overcome many obstacles.  You will need to have the right attitude to succeed, as well as emotional stability and persistence.

• Be willing to educate yourself and listen to the advice of subject matter experts. I often recommend the E Myth by Michael Gerber for generic start up information and/or The Lean Startup by Eric Ries as a starting place for anyone who wants to start up a software based company.  (We recommended The Lean Startup to TFC founder Mickey, but I don’t know if he read it or followed its recommendations).  You will also need to learn some things about marketing, sales, finance, and management.  You don’t need to be an expert in all things, but you at least need to learn enough to work with experts that you hire. Hope this helps, and thanks for reading this reply. 

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#4 Author of original report

Final

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, September 27, 2017

This is just another example of what I had to deal with for close to 2 years. Bridge still is constantly blaming and belittling me for work they did not complete. Attached are images of how the software was working before I went out of business

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#3 Author of original report

Continuous lies and thievery

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Sunday, September 24, 2017

 

The owners of Bridge Technology Partners signed personally and on behalf of Bridge a non-disclosure agreement. This agreement is still active today even though the business is closed. By writing about TFC online they are most likely in violation of that agreement.

 

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#2 REBUTTAL Owner of company

False and misleading

AUTHOR: Representative - (USA)

POSTED: Sunday, September 24, 2017

Response to the complaint lodged by M. Cohen relating to the services performed by Bridge Technology Partners, LLC (“Bridge”) for The Friend Connection, LLC (“TFC”).
 
Preliminarily, Bridge would like to point out that it was extremely responsive with TFC, as shown by the following: 
- Bridge’s project coordinator met with TFC on a weekly basis and demonstrated work as it was completed.
- Bridge responded to all calls and complaints within the same business day. 
- Although contractually TFC was to work with a project coordinator, complaints were escalated to Bridge’s founder, Rob Clasby.
- Mr. Clasby took phone calls after business hours and took the time to resolve issues for TFC.
- Mr. Clasby responded to emails promptly, even after business hours.
- Mr. Clasby voluntarily joined the weekly project status meetings to help ensure the project was completed successfully.
- Mr. Clasby took calls with Mr. Cohen’s parents after hours to resolve issues second hand.
- Several Bridge team members worked exhaustively during business hours and after business hours in an effort to please TFC.
- TFC brought the case to the Better Business Bureau, who after reviewing, awarded our business an A+ Rating
 
Unfortunately, TFC became irate because Bridge refused to continue to provide out of scope work for free.  Specifically, after the Apple version of TFC’s app was published on the Apple Store on 12/7/2016, TFC requested a change to the sign up requirements for the service.  Bridge modified the API, the website, the iOS app, and the Android app as requested.  TFC approved the changes and paid for them.  Only the iOS app was rejected by Apple when submitted for review, citing the changes to the sign up requirement - not a technical reason such as bugs.  Apple's review also rejected some previously accepted aspects of TFC’s business model (Apple is at the liberty to do this for arbitrary reasons since its marketplace is private).  TFC declined to promote the release of the updated website, API, and the Android app without the iOS app update.  Four months later, TFC followed Apple’s review escalation process and was able to get the app approved without any code changes.  However, when releasing the next version of the Apple app, Apple rejected the app again. We are unsure if TFC followed Apple’s process and asked for a discussion with Apple to get the app approved.   TFC did, however, then contact Bridge with a threat that, if we didn’t change his software to add features Apple suggested, that he would ruin our business through bad reviews online.
 
The following discusses each specific claim made by Mr. Cohen:
Claim: "I needed to pay a deposit up front and stage payments before starting each work order. The problem was that they started the next stage without completing the first. “

This is false.  There was a deposit of 5.5% of the total project that was collected in advance. The “stage payments” mentioned were actually not paid at the start. The stage payments were actually Milestone payments.  Per the contract (page 16 of our standard contract, see attachment), Milestone payments are due upon *completion* of each milestone.  Milestones were completed.  Every functional detail required to satisfy each contract milestone was demonstrated to TFC, and approved by TFC before TFC made payments by wire-transfer.  TFC was in control of the payments throughout the process.
At the request of TFC to make the project go faster, we did work on more than one milestone at a time; however it is very important to correct TFC’s claim that we were paid at the start of the milestones.  This is again false. We were not paid for milestones at the start.  We were paid milestone payments after the work was completed, demonstrated, and approved by TFC.  At any time if TFC did not accept the work, Mr. Cohen could have simply disapproved the work withhold payment, which did happen from time to time.

TFC did not have to pay for any milestone if he did not approve of it.  There were 18 milestones in the original contract. TFC paid for 16 milestones, and the last two milestones were replaced with change orders that TFC initiated.  Accordingly, TFC had 16 chances to reject any work and simply not pay for it until he was satisfied with the work.  Yet TFC approved and paid for all the work in the original contract, and continued to buy more services in the form of three more contracts of change orders.  In the event that TFC found a bug after the payment was made, we fixed it for free.
 
Claim: "Whenever I complained, Rob told me that everyone releases their apps even with many big bugs because there will always be something to fix."

This is known as a Beta Release, which is a universally accepted standard practice for software companies. Virtually all software companies have Beta Releases to give a small group of users access to the system to give feedback about their application - not only to find more bugs, but to give feedback on what features they would like changed or added.   In clear and unambiguous language, we explained to Mr. Cohen the nature of a beta release (for reference: https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/welcome ).  Therefore, bugs will and did occur, as is standard in virtually all apps during Beta Release.  Mr. Cohen does not provide the accurate context of the Beta Release in his claim, and therefore it is inaccurate, misleading, and does not demonstrate any type of substandard service by Bridge.
 
Claim: "The bottom line is that little is in working order and I have paid over $130,000.”

As mentioned above, TFC approved the 16 milestones of work as being in working order before paying. Additionally, two independent 3rd parties, Apple and Google, both rigorously reviewed and accepted the completed mobile applications. These third parties have rigorous requirements for mobile apps that are distributed on their platforms, including privacy, security, proper functionality, complying with respective terms of service, and applicable laws and regulations. (see: Google: https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy-print/ and Apple: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ )  Apple first accepted the application Bridge prepared for TFC on 12/7/2016, and Google did so on 12/9/2016.  Accordingly, the claim that “little is in working order” is simply untrue.
 
Claim: "At this point, Bridge Technology Partners are over 8 months late from the maximum estimated time of the change order and more than 11 months from the original agreement."

 This claim is not accurate.  The project commenced on 1/19/16.  As mentioned above, versions of the application were released on both platforms: Apple on 12/7/2016, and Google on 12/9/2016.  These versions of TFC’s application, as well as the updated versions of the application, are still available to the public.  The original project ran ahead of schedule. Change orders TFC added toward the end of the original contract caused the timeline to expand past the original deadline. While there were some delays, the major causes of delay were the changes and additions. One issue Bridge faced is that TFC’s opinion of “done” does not correlate with the scope of work in the contract.  In some cases Bridge gave TFC free services as a gesture to try to wrap things up, but Mr. Cohen would keep finding more and more free out of scope work he wanted Bridge to do 
 
Claim: "I left bad reviews on many websites and several of their clients contacted me and mentioned they went through the same circumstances down to a T. "

While it is true that TFC has left bad reviews on many websites (reviews that we contend contain false and misleading information), we find it unlikely that any other clients have contacted him or made these statements, for the reason that for the six years Bridge have been in business, we have always been able to resolve issues reasonably with any clients who had them.    

Although we attempted for a significant period of time to work with Mr. Cohen and TFC in order to satisfy their requests for additional out of scope work, and even did a substantial amount of work for free in this effort, their continuing demands in this regard were unreasonable.  We ultimately had to hire an attorney to inform Mr. Cohen and TFC that the services Bridge agreed to do were complete and we could not perform any more services under these circumstances.  We believe our position in this regard, based on the above-referenced facts, is more than reasonable and that Mr. Cohen’s claims are without justification.  Thank you very much for considering this response.  Feel free to contact us if you would like to talk with any of our long list of satisfied reference clients.  

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#1 Author of original report

Bridge Technology Partners (Update)

AUTHOR: - ()

POSTED: Saturday, August 19, 2017

Update 08/19/2017

I found out the Bridge Technology Partners not only has their company in San Diego but they also have other locations. As you can see my website is down thefriendconnection.com. Bridge has stopped working on my project and they already have all my money. I'm out of business.

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