United Work Force Harassed my Receptionist, Claimed not to be Selling anything, but still wanted my Money! Las Vegas Nevada

I received this email from a frantic business owner who is my client. They asked me to assist:

I know that Scott will get this 1st and he may not relay this message. I hate to say this but a simple message became a huge ordeal. I am looking for the owner because I am a liason for the union members in the state of NV and your salon received great reviews from some of our members be fore we can put you in our union newsletter i have to do research about the owner but your manager mad this very hard to do even after i told him i am not a salesmen. i am verey sorry to tell you that i will be writing about this experence in our next news letter and i hope for your sake that the old saying is true. ( any publicity is good publicity) I service over 236 unions in NV over 20,000 members, i will be letting them know about you poor phone service. again i am sorry we could not move forward.

I set everything down that I was working on, even put a hold on a meeting I was in, just to handle this matter. I called Alisha Smith and calmed her down and we schedule a time to chat the following Monday. She gave me a story about being 5 months pregnant, which I believed. I assumed the matter escalated because she was having complications with her pregnancy, and so I was sympathetic.

The following Monday she failed to call me. I called her and left a message, expressing my concern with her health and pregnancy and that I hoped to hear from her soon.

She finally called me today and went ahead with her presentation.

I was directed to this website: http://www.unitedworkforce.org

She asked if I was at the right site. I said, "I'm at a website that needs updating."

She said, "You're not at the right site."

I described the site further, and we determined I was on the right site, which was old, out-dated, and low-functioning.

She directed me to my State and County pages to see where businesses could, "not advertise, but sponsor."

I asked for clarification, "There are graphics on the site that say 'Advertise Here,' but you're telling me there are no advertisers on the site?"

She started to get rude: interrupting me, twisting my words and raising her voice.

I asked her what this would cost. She said they had to pay a technician to create the graphic, upload the graphic and maintain the site and that it would cost $365 to get started.

I said, "You're paying your technician too much."

She said, "It's only 50 cents a day."

I said, "It's a $25 graphic. So what you're telling me is that my $365 goes to cover the cost of maintaining the whole website."

She said something about how the site is in 13 different languages and that it takes a lot of work to maintain that.

I asked to speak with a technician. She connected me to a man who cut me off and hung up after my questions got too difficult. He was definitely not a technician.

They kept saying that they didn't work for ImageRight, the company that did the graphics. They said they were paid by the Union, but that the Union's website was free for them to use.

I was shocked at how defensive they were of ImageRight, a so-called 3rd party vendor.

I mean, REALLY, my web design company would take over the website and do the graphics for far less than $365 a pop!

I checked to see how the website ranks, as maybe it WAS a viable link source. Alexa rates them in the 2 million range, so they definitely don't have anything to offer my clients. Or any business.

Don't give in! It's a horrible deal!