SMC, Specialty Merchandise Corporation, Charge Ridiculous Money for Websites that Do Nothing! Not One Sale Generated from this Site! So Many Technical Problem! Tech Support is Horrible, and Mostly Use Very Scripted Responses to Customers Concerns! Ripoff Simi Valley California

Oh boy, Where do I start. I must warn anyone who is currently a member of SMC, to NEVER purchase a website from them. That's what I did, in hopes to build a successful business, selling their product. My dreams, along with my bank account were crushed! They know nothing about e-commerce, and have no business selling e-commerce sites, as part of their business. I've only read too many stories like my own, and it's very sad, that a company can get away with this. First they sold me a ridiculous promotional site, they called a "Gift Card Website", after I told them, my intention was to have a full-service e-commerce site. This was certainly not! No one could place an order from your site, unless they already had a gift card in their posession. What good is that! You now have to manually hand out cards, or promote that you offer cards for people to shop in your store. Utterly ridiculous idea! When I told them I was not happy with this, they said, of course, NO PROBLEM, we can upgrade you, for an additional cost. And boy, they weren't kidding! It was quite a hefty cost, to upgrade . . . they charged me over $2,000. But they stated, now, this new site, would do everything I wanted it to do. LIES...ALL LIES! It did absolutely NOTHING! I did not get one single sale, since it was made live over 6 months ago. I've experienced nothing but constant technical issues, where either the shopping cart did not work, the promotions I set up did not work, or even just the basic admin functions, for me to make changes to my site. . .you guessed it. . .did not work! Their technical support doesn't know enough about how their system works to help you with problems. They just use very scripted answers, such as, "we will submit a report to technical support for your problem" and it will take approx. 7-10 days to repair." Their standard line of 7-10 days was just NOT ACCEPTABLE, when I am losing money for every day a customer cannot place an order. I found out things like, their sites have 13 year old technology, which make them basically not compatable with anything, including all the major search engines. And search engines are your lifeline to promoting your online business. And, I realized they are selling sites that do not work, with staff that have no clue about the technology, nor how to help their customers. The other part I also found out, is that they charge whatever they want for these sites. Not only are they way more expensive than they should be. But each person buying the exact same site, with the exact same functions, will pay a different price; depending on the day, and who they speak to, and how much commission that salesperson would like to make. This is truly pitiful! Truth be known, these sites, are barely worth $5!Over time my frustration just grew and grew, to the point, where I finally decided, to do everything possible, to #1 attempt to get a refund from this company, for this pathetic excuse of an e-commerce website they sold me, that screwed me out of alot of money-that I could not spare to lose. . .and then to make sure I report what happended to me, in hopes of saving millions of others, from getting caught in the same trap. My wish is that I can get together with all the others out there, that have lost money from SMC's fraudulent e-commerce scheme, and put together a CLASS ACTION lawsuit! Anyone interested, believe me, when I tell you - I am so there!

Caryn
Centereach, New York
U.S.A.