Einstein Industries Inc

Review: I hired Einstein Industries in October of 2014 to complete a new website design. I paid them $13,812.50 (most up front) yet never received the completed, agreed-upon product. I fired them in June 2015 after 8 months of frustrating communications, delays and misrepresentation. I sent a letter to the CEO, Mr.[redacted], explaining my experience, requesting the partially-completed work and a refund of $10,000. I never received a reply - no product was provided for the moneys paid.

Since last October, I exchanged more than 90 emails, as well calls, with Einstein staff. I was painstakingly specific in my requests and descriptions in an effort to get the product and service I was promised. They repeatedly overpromised and failed to deliver on many fronts. Issues include:

Fraudulent sales process: There is a serious lack of transparency, leading to a misrepresentation of the product they offer. After detailed discussions of my needs with the team, I was assured the product would be a good fit. The few edits presented were slow to come and incomplete.I was assured it was portable when I asked specifically if I would own the site, all its content and could move at will. This is not true. I found out from other vendors and unhappy customers that Einstein uses a proprietary CMS, which makes the website NOT portable at all. They admitted this when confronted.

Deficient and unacceptably slow design process: Since the first call, I was advised that the graphic artist ‘does not talk to clients’. The design presented had none of the artistic elements I had requested and that were promised. The content was so 'lite' that it would provide a worse user experience than my current, content-heavy site. I spoke with the director project management on May 19 after many months of delays. She promised to review the email exchanges and to get back to me within a week. A month later, no further communication had occurred. That is when I requested the refund and partial product.Desired Settlement: Einstein should refund at least $10,000 of the $13,812.50 paid and provide me with usable content that was built to date for the balance paid. If they cannot provide this content, then a full refund should be made since no product was delivered. Note that there are numerous similar complaints posted online by other customers, so this company has a history of this dishonest behavior.

Business

Response:

Re: Complaint ID [redacted]Dear Ms. [redacted]:I apologize for the delayed response to your inquiry. I received the original letter quite sometime after the date on the letter and we have been researching this issue since then.Dr. [redacted] engaged Einstein Industries in October 2014 to complete a website for her practicewith a total cost of $18,200. Dr. [redacted] signed a contract with us to provide the requestedservices and Einstein fulfilled in full our part of the contract while Dr. [redacted] has not fulfilled herresponsibilities. In fact, Dr. [redacted] still owes us a balance on the account of $2,775. EinsteinIndustries disagrees completely with the assertions made by Dr. [redacted] as presented inthe complaint letter. We have detailed and extensive project and history notes as well as copiesof numerous communications with Dr. [redacted] throughout the project which shows that wecompleted the project as contracted and that in fact Dr. [redacted] was continually unwilling tocollaborate with us to resolve any of the issues she asserts in her complaint.In an effort to satisfy Dr. [redacted], Einstein Industries presented 14 design mock-ups as opposedto the usual2 requested by the majority of our other clients. Dr. [redacted]'s fully functional website(see: http://[redacted]plasticsurgery.com--lucid-4066232.cms.eiidev.com/) was complete andavailable for final approval on 4 May 2015. It is interesting to note that Dr. [redacted] would like tokeep (own) the website that was created as a result of a definitive formal contract between herand Einstein Industries and would like to establish ownership of the website for an amountsubstantially less-than the contract price despite her stated dissatisfaction with EinsteinIndustries' work product.An example of a technical misrepresentation is Dr. [redacted]'s assertion that the website is notportable to other platforms because of the use of a proprietary content management system(CMS). Einstein Industries copyrights all content of the website (ie. copy. before and after photogalleries, videos, blog posts) to the client and they are free to take that content to any platformthey wish. The theme (ie. design) of the website is only portable once a client has met thecontractual requirement of 2 years payment for the CMS license fee.In addition, the "content" which Dr. [redacted] addresses in her complaint was provided to her onMay 27, 2015 and prior to Einstein Industries' knowledge of Dr. [redacted] filing of a complaint withthe 888.It is our belief that we have fulfilled all our responsibilities under the contract addressed by Dr.[redacted]. We have acted in good faith, have treated Dr. [redacted] in a courteous manner, and havecertainly made every effort to fulfill her numerous requests. In addition we have completed allthe subsequent sales orders as agreed to by Dr. [redacted].It is Einstein's position that the best resolution to this dispute is for Dr. [redacted] to compensateEinstein in full and in accordance with the terms of the contract dated October 7, 2014.