Iomart anniversary blog
It's sort of fitting that on the anniversary of my "Battling with Iomart" blog I had a meeting with a client whose domain we are attempting to move from that company.
The story so far. Iomart call my client back in February of this year saying they were recommended by a well-known organisation within my client's industry for providing websites.
My client decided to let Iomart do their website, and as it transpired were less than impressed with the end result, a two page website.
Interestingly, a Google search returned a ufindus directory entry on the first page, but when I looked for my client's site among the listings far more inappropriate sites were listed in ufindus way above my client's entry - and when I clicked on the link to their site it came up "Server not found". The link was mis-spelt and consequently of no use to man or beast!
Iomart, trading as ufindus, charged £199.95 plus VAT for the set-up of the website and an ongoing £29.95 plus VAT per month. Minimum contract period of 12 months with mandatory 60 days notice in writing to terminate.
Fortunately, my client didn't sign the contract. However, the domain transfer is proving to be as complicated and error-prone as all the other transfers I've done involving the parent company, Iomart.
First of all, ufindus require a fax on letterhead paper from the domain owners to request the transfer. Not unreasonable.
Next they require the customer to login to their control panel in order to pay the £50.00 (plus VAT, no doubt) transfer fee by credit/debit card. Now the first problem is encountered. The username and password for the control panel doesn't work. Neither does the forgotten details process. A phone number is given in case of problems with usernames/password. The number is called and my client was told ufindus didn't have an email address to send the details to. My client must now send a fax to ufindus requesting the username and password, with an email address for the details to be sent to.
I understand the organisation referred to earlier are considering legal action against ufindus to prevent them saying they are recommended by said organisation.
It is only my opinion, but I'd say there are better companies to deal with when it comes to organising a web presence.
And so it seems nothing much has changed at ufindus/Iomart.
I wonder what next year will bring...
posted by Richard Williams at 5/19/2006 10:45:00 pm
5 Comments:
Hello there Richard,
I just thought I'd keep you up to speed on the activities of ufindus, aka iomart and about ten other psuedonyms!
Cantufind.com is one of my companies and I have issues with them using a domain name confusingly simular to that of mine.
When I complained to them they said that despite the fact I have been going for over 6 years and have a very good rep they did not think that using a name so simular, UFINDUS -v- CANTUFIND as directories would not cause confusion?
Intillectual property abuse is hard to prove but now we feel that we are in a real strong position as there are literally hundreds of people who have confused them with us and the letters we get asking for help is incredible.
I truly hope that this company whatever name they use never get another 'Anniversery' for it will only mean that they have continued their unscrupulous and questionable tactics to dupe people out of hard earned money.
We're heartened to see people like yourself who have the guts to make comments on bad traders and it only goes to spur us on to take a class action against this company for a variety of activities that we believe border on illegal, and that's being kind!
The team at Cantufind.com
For your readers you might want to send them to http://www.theorangepages.com/blog/?p=7 There are some pretty interesting comments there!
I am now receiving reports from customers of Iomart's Rapidrank 'service' who cancelled their contracts in 2004, have heard nothing from Iomart since then, and are now being pursued by both Iomart and a debt collection agency based in Glasgow.
It would be interesting to know whether they've actually taken one of their 'customers' to court and won.
If Rapidrank was such a great product, why have they dropped it in favour of their new directory based Ufindus 'service'?
Given that Rapidrank never did what the sales team said it would, the exploitation of a legal B2B loophole which meant those sold the product were not covered by consumer legislation, and the subsequent retrospective application of punitive terms and conditions as a result of that, pursuit of erroneous debts 2 years later really does add insult to injury.
It would be interesting to know how many people are being targeted in this new scheme of Iomart's to generate additional revenue.
get a life you sad little man. As you say "its just you opinion" thats right it is, and not worth much either is it in the scheme of things.
poo breath shitty pants
ha ha ha ha ha ha ah . keep the internet crazeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey mo fo
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