Saturday, May 5, 2007

Mainstreet Host is Run by Gangsters

Here's a little gem I found posted on a BBS recently...

Posted: May 28 2006
Post subject: Mainstreet Host is Run by Gangsters - Lots of good info!

Hello everyone, I'm posting on Mainstreet Host I specifically created a profile so I could comment or reply to posts about Mainstreet Host. I was cold called by some scumbag male from this shitball company as Incredible Help stated... he said "I'm returning your call about SEO services"...this was LD from New York area so I was a little puzzled and said "I never called you". When he insisted that I did call hime I told him he was an idiot. He laughed as if he was some harmless soul who only wanted to help me out. He went on about their services and how they are the greatest and that they can put my website on 6,000 search engines withing three months! I didn't even think there were that many SE's - this was about 4 years ago but don't even think there are that many today, are there? Anyhow, innocently, I told them that I wasn't ready for SEO yet as my website had still to be finished. When I told him my budget was under 600.00 he immediately went on ab how his websites are the best, awesome, I wouldn't be sorry, and he would skyrocket my status on the web in no time and create my site for only an extra 400.00!!! So the total would be about 1, 000.00 for website, support, SEO, website creation and maintainence etc for one year...I thought that this was ok since a good site was approx 5K back then. I warned him that I was very picky and that I'd be a pain if things didn't pan out the way I was promised. Well, the webmaster called me finally after two weeks (I had to email them about 5 times first), and we started working out the site plan. I spend countless hours sizing and resizing pictures, figuring out the text, fonts, backgrounds etc...basically I did all the work and they simply put it in html. The site actually never launched. Why? Because it took them 4 months to complete two pages and poor ones at that. The graphics were horrendous, cut the wrong way, streched, discolored and too small. Layouts were horrible. I spend many many hours at one point in the whole frustrating process, actually designing the page myself on Word which turned out fantastic and eyecatching - the only thing it needed was htlm! The ahole didn't even know how to do the html properly! Didn't know how to crop and size the photos or centre text even! Agoninzing i tell u. So after about 6 months the 5 ugly webpages were finished. I told them over and over i didn't like what they were doing, not what i asked for etc...to deaf ears. At one point, the gangster that originally called me out of the blue heavens, called me and sort of threatened me also. He said "what do you expect for $1,000, miracles?? You should have gone with the higher package". I had originally told him that I could not afford the fee at the time and that's when he went into "I'll give u a great discount and create a package to suit your budget". He didn't tell me tho that the package was worth nothing. I had "sucker" written all over me because at the time, I knew NOTHING about seo etc...but I learned real quick. So after di**ing me around for months and withdrawing the money from my card, they still had not even submitted my site to ANY of the search engines! I was investigating them long before the six months were up. I had tried also to get my payments stopped but, VISA doesn't do that for their patrons, be warned! Before I launched them to the curb, and after for months, I investigated submissions, link popularity, the html on the site, just everything that you check for to see if a website is done correctly to be fully optimized. What do you know, the scumbags never submitted my site to ANY SE'S! At all. I did multiple searches with multiple keywords on multiple engines on a routine basis. NOTHING. I also did robot checks, spider checks, you name it. NOTHING. EVER. And on top of this, i found numerous errors in the site and in the meta tags, keywords; all of it was wrong and poorly designed. I'm sticking to the main details but I have a folder two inches thick with all the facts. I had asked for a refund but of course the gangster said "no way". He did his part. Tough. Sol. So I decided that I would go to VISA and get the refund there. WRONG. Visa are a bunch of gangsters also. They don't give a fig about their clients. Before all the money was paid, VISA said the whole amount had to be paid before I could file a claim to get it back! I should have "lost" my card and stopped services immediately. I did do this as soon as the amount was paid after a few payments. I got someone else to "steal the site" from under their nose and host it elsewhere. I waited on VISA for an answer after spending months putting together my report which was 16 pages long. I spoke to numerous reps at VISA only to get dicked around some more. In the end, they sent me a letter stating that I was not eligible for a refund as I had authorized the sale. DUH, VISA. I f***g know this. If that's that was their policy, why didn't they just say, "know what, you're sol, take a nap, have a nice life" instead of telling me to write this report which took me a LONG TIME TO DO. Because I was so thorough in my investigation and had the facts and proof of poor service printed from the web onto paper, I thought surely, they would see the obvious. I even printed out the site I had requested and the site I got and that wasn't enuff. I checked thousands of SE's, large, small, all kinds and typed them onto a chart along with details of whether or not my site was listed. Well that goes to show you we are controlled by gangsters. I also want to say the Mainstreethost.com is seriously run by hoods, or gangsters. I mean this honestly. I was also afraid for a time when I got crappy with them and they were a little threatening. I don't recall exactly what the guy said but I remember thinking that if I pursued this and won, I would probably be hit. So even though I went to VISA, I also felt a little relieved that i lost although I shouldn't have, because they had my address and knew where to find me. Since then, my credit card is new (different number), my addresss and phone number are also different from the info they had on me before. So the moral of the story is: if you can do something on your own, dont' hire anyone else to do it. I have learned a lot since then; i do my own submissions and all that and have pretty decent luck. Mainstreet Host did absolutely nothing but cause me extreme anxiety and stress and robbed me 1, 000.00. Sorry about this looong post and probably some spelling errors as I'm going fast here. Had to get it out. Hope someone gets them one day and puts them out of business for good. Then again, we have forums like this one and there are blogs aren't there? Yup. _________________
Mainstreet Host are equivalent to larvae...that need to be eaten by other larvae....yes.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I too have been victimized by mainstreethost. Very pushy salesman got hold of my cell number by telling our receptionist he was a relative. Stay away from mainstreethost unless you like throwing money out the window.

Anonymous said...

We've learned the hard way as we are currently disputing MainStreet Host charges on our credit card. They have done nothing for us, but charged us as if they have.

The lesson here is: If an SEO company is soliciting you.....RUN FOREST RUN!!

Another company to avoid is TrafficLogic!!!!!

Michelle said...

I wish I had read this prior. I just allowed them to do an analysis of my site. IT was only $29.90 for 3 sites to do an analysis but at least I didn't hire them to do more. Thanks.

PS the Salesperson actually agreed to purchase $50 worth of products on my site so in the end I didn't really spend anything. I know not to do anything else.

Anonymous said...

I've done business with Main Street Host twice. I don't have any horror stories to tell like some people but a warning to those who might consider having them do SEO work. I had done my own SEO for years. Placed in the top 3 on Google, including #1 for my major keywords.On Yahoo and other top search engines,I was in top 7. After M.S.H. took over the SEO I fell in the rankings...into the teens on Yahoo. When I first quetioned it I was told..."it takes time...give it more time". A few months later it hadn't gotten worst, but it wasn't as good or better than what I had done. So I asked some more questions of MSH and was offered SEO for another page free of charge. (wow...what a bargain...nothing for nothing!) Another couple of months and no improvement I had had enough.
Here's the grand finale. After cancelling, a competitor is now using them and with the same meta tags,keywords, description etc that was set up for my website. MSH obviously approached my competitor after my cancellation and is now using what little they did for me, against me. Something a previous MSH Rep informed me they would do if I cancelled. In addition, I find it suspicious that a lot of my rankings on yahoo fell into the 20s and 30s and these odd pages are coming up. Obsolete pages that, while still in my FTP program, which they of course had access to, haven't been submitted or ranked for years. Something smells fishy and I think the bad odor is coming from Main Street Host.

Deb said...

I wish I would of read about MainStreetHost before. Every year they catch me off guard. Sam knew I didn't know much about hosting, optimizing & etc...and he kept going up on the price, saying that I've been on top & I couldn't afford to not keep it the same. Each year the price went up....Last year it was $3,000. Just call me stupid!

Anonymous said...

I am a Canadian resident and received a cold call where they claimed to be a seo company and they wanted to do a deatailed report of my website for 20 dollars and the report was to say the least inaccurate and based on only 2 keywords. I dont understand how your government have not shut them down, if this was a Canadian company they would be shut down and facing time and law suits. What protection is your government offering you from these scam artists.

Tish said...

I was also a victim of Mainstreet Host. I paid $3300, but after two weeks of complete ineptitude on their part - including misspelling the name of my company repeatedly, misspelling keywords, providing a link to a site that discusses how to commit suicide (!!) and other totally unrelated links, trying to create a Facebook page but botching it so badly that it was a mess - photos sized incorrectly, grammatical errors and spelling errors, etc., and IN EMAILS explaining that my php-generated site was not able to have SEO work done on it (therefore WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR YOU A-HOLE?). Since I CAN and DO build my own websites, and I HAVE some skills in that regard, it was obvious they were using people who were completely inept at any sort of web work. Some of the examples they had shown me of websites they had optimized turned out to be completely PHONY. Apparently they created their own "phony" google pages with customers that WERE NOT EVEN USING THEM (I had taken notes, written down the links, and later CALLED those customers. One had used MSH as a host provider several years earlier, and stopped using them because they were so bad. When I went to her REAL website, it was similar, but NOT WHAT I had been shown during my "tour" of happy MSH clients.) Anyhow, 15 days after signing up, with dozens of emails revealing their errors and omissions, I called VISA and had the charge canceled. Visa did refund my money, but said MSH had 30 days to dispute my claim. They did, with a two sentence dispute to my 10 pages of proof of their incompetence including an email where they told me they would be UNABLE to do SEO for my site. I sent a rebuttal, and they never responded back, so I did get my money back. BEWARE these people are total scam artists. They have NO CLUE about web development, web design, or anything web-related.

princessheadbutt said...

Hi Tish,

If you are still interested in having proper SEO done for your site, I would be happy to work with you.

I have been a webmaster for 14 years and have taken extensive training in SEO, SEM and Social Media Marketing.

$3300 is a ridiculous amount for those crooks to charge you - even if they knew what they were doing. Please call me toll-free at 1 (888) 642-6390 if I can be of service.

Regards,

DM