Avalon Business Direct AKA Av Epenzio, Liberty Vending, Pacific Webworks, Bring-It-Home, Usight Ripoff, False Advertising and representation, no services delivered yet still billed, THERE IS HOPE - READ THIS! consumer fraud ripoff Salt Lake City Utah

I to am a victim of Brad Crawford and his deceptive business practices. I purchased five websites, a merchant account and the Ad Wizard advertising services from the company.

I could never get the shopping cart to link to the merchant account due to software problems at Avalon. It seems that Avalon does not work with Internet Explorer - the largest search engine in the world. Of course Avalon is trying to blame it on Internet Explorer but that is another issue.

I also purchased the Ad Wizard software that was demonstrated at the seminar and appeared to work great. This cost me $1500. From the time I purchased all of these services to the time I sent a cancellation letter, this service never worked.

I was given a variety of bogus start dates which never worked. I cancelled the services via fax and certified letter on March 4, 2003. Avalon continued to ding my bank account and charge my credit card. I had to cancel my checking account and open a new one in order to get them to stop taking automatic withdrawals.

I also had to allert my credit card company and it is under investigation at this time.

THERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN DO!!!!! Contact Ol Pauga ( I think I spelled his first name wrong). He works for the Utah Consumer Affairs department and he is well aware of who this company is and what has been going on. Please file a complaint with his office.

The State of Utah took Avalon Business Direct to court on March 28th to site them for violation of the Business Opportunities Act for violation of selling a business opportunity without a permit or registration.

Unfortunately, when I contact Ol, I was too late to get in on this lawsuit. However, the more complaints that he gets he will then consider filing a class action against this company and we all may get our money back.

Here is Ol's information on how to contact him:

Ol Pauga
Utah Division of Consumer Protection
Heber M. Wells Building, Second Floor
160 East 300 South, SM Box 146704
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-6704
(801)530-6601 (801) 530-6001
www.consumerportection.utah.gov

You can go online and file a complaint but Ol is your key contact as he is handling this issue. Also, please file a complaint with the BBB of Utah. The person working on this case for me is Benjamin Benally. He was very interested to hear that the State of Utah took them to court. I also printed out about 35 complaints and faxed them over to them.

Here is Benjamin's contact info:

Benjamin Benally
Better Business Bureau
State of Utah
5673 S. Redwood Rd. #22
Salt Lake City, Utah 84123
(801) 892-6009
(801) 892-6002 fax
1-800-456-3907
info@saltlakecity.bbb.org

Also, please file a complaint with the Consumer Affairs Department in the County in which you purchased these fraudulent products. Let them know that there are other people out there like you who are filing complaints with the State of Utah and with the county in which it was purchased. They can do a search to see if other counties have any complaints and they can ban together and take action too.

In addition, check with your state's law. I spoke with a gentleman the other day who is actually taking them to small claims court in MN because they have law that states that if the product was purchased in that county, it can be brought to court in that county.

Unfortunately, my state does not allow that but your's might.

We must all ban together and support each other in this endeavor so that we can get our money back. Ripoff artists like this should be doing time behind bars just like corporate CEO's!!!

Duped in
Westminster, Colorado
U.S.A.