Specialty Merchandise Corporation Who's Making Money Here??? How many SMC on-line stores can they honestly sell? They offer NO support, no straight answers and don't reply to letters faxed to them (after they tell ya that's the procedure!). Chatsworth California

I became an SMC member in 1996 just to buy cute gifts. Shipping was less at that time, it was a pretty fair exchange for my purposes.

Then I found myself umemployed and enquired about their on-line store. I needed an income and was willing to try to make it with SMC.

My initial interest was the 40 or 100 product store but was made to feel that the cost would be prohibitive later if I chose to upgrade to a larger store. I ultimately purchased the full store, the deluxe search engine pkg., my .com domain, etc. to the tune of $2,550. It took what seemed like forever to get my site up and running. When it finally was accessible, it was a nightmare to operate. They make everything difficult with the .asp and html coding. You can only have an item at one place at a time and are limited to the design of your store to their array of boring layouts. Of course, for a fee, they would gladly sell you a better looking storefront. Their store manual is not written for the layperson to understand, so hours are spent with trial and error in effort to make your store appealing and professional looking.

The 'deluxe search engine package' that I bought for $300.00? I found out later that it didn't even exist. Either they were dropped or they dropped whoever provided them the service. In the meantime, I am paying a $30.00 monthly hosting fee. I could only find my store if I search for my .com address.

I never come up in the search engines if searching for a specific item. I have marketed my site from here to California on a road trip, and passed out business cards locally. My store has been on-line since February, 04 and I have NOT sold one single item. My family doesn't count! They were trying to make me feel better about my folly. My store e-mail box is full of offers to sell me banners and storefronts and full of warnings about SMC. There must be people out there looking for people screwed by SMC to prey upon. So now I see a million people trying to 'save' me from SMC but in reality, they too only want my money and are trying to get it by pretending to help me...wolves in sheeps clothing!

I think this should be somehow submitted to 20/20 to alert America about this scam set up by SMC. I believed them. I trusted them. And they robbed me and they robbed you!

I requested a refund early on while waiting for my store to be 'built' but since I signed some pink form, that was not an option. It said in small print, on the back of the form that once signed 'it sucks to be you'. After finding out about the non-existent 'Deluxe Search Engine Package' I request that my $300.00 be refunded and was told to submit my request in writing and fax it to them. Which I did...THREE TIMES...with no reply what-so-ever except that my site came up for them on MSN...but only (as I said before)...if you type in my .com address.

That's not the way I shop on-line. I search for the item I am looking for and choose a site. I NEVER come up in those searches. I was told that I didn't have to be computer literate to run a store when I bought it. Now I am being told that I have to check my meta tags and work with them until I get them right. I don't know from a meta tag!

By now I am not only out my initial investment ($2550.00), but also $150.00 in hosting fees. I enquired about closing my store to save the $30 mo. hosting fee until I get back to work and was told that I can do that for up to a 6 month period but then what? Will my store be dropped from the server? Will I then loose my entire investment by no longer being able to access my storefront? I was told to fax my request to close the store and once again they probably will not reply but ignore as they do so well.

Then what? They have my money, I have no store (at least I could look at it and PRAY for an order)and SMC is the only one to come out ahead. One less member's store to deal with and more money in their pocket. They come ahead by taking my money and providing me with NOTHING in return!

How does Kerry Cox (VP) sleep at night? They prey on those of us who are already down and out, desperate and in need of cash with their infomercial then sucker us into their program and make our financial status even worse. You can't sell what you can't afford to buy in the first place!

I get a weekly e-mail from Mr Cox with a 'pick of the week' "....sure sucker! Spend more money! Buy more SMC products that you can't sell..." Who is making money here? I've exhausted my resources both financially and mentally and am completely beaten down with this on-line store thing. I gave SMC money for nothing.

It can't be that expensive or that time comsuming to set up a store cuz they are all basically the same with basically all the same content(40 items, 100 items, full store etc). Seems like they could put the darn 'store program' on a disc and just keep running the program for all us fools and get us set up really fast so they could sell more and more stores to compete against each other with no one making money except SMC.

Please, don't get sucked in by these kinds of corporations/companies. There are alot of them out there. They will promise you a better life for a price. The price is way too high! Especially if you are hurting already.

There is no easy way, don't believe them. Save what little money you have now, don't give it to them! and take whatever bonafied employment you can find. A small paycheck is better than no paycheck at all.

Don't make the mistake that I did. I was so nuts that I thought in 10 yrs or so, I could retire to the beaches of Hawaii with an established store on my laptop and run my site to supplement my social security income.
Like I said, I trusted them!

Steph
Ashtabula, Ohio
U.S.A.

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