PromoterOnline Sucks!

(Updated after PromoterOnline's pet lawyer, who also happens to be a partner with PromoterOnline, threatened to sue for defamation. Updates in italics. Damnit, I'm boiling mad right now. A few months ago, I quit my job at PromoterOnline to pursue a job that had a future. Specifically, I was making about half of what a web developer should make and no benefits (which had been promised to me when I was hired). In addition, they had taken me off salary, put me on a lower hourly rate and refused to hire necessary personnel! They found someone to replace me on my last day, so there was no opportunity to "pass the torch". At the time, I left with a promise of a good recommendation from my boss (Mark Jones, the President of the company. A company of about 10 people, most either sales people or directly related to him, but a company nonetheless). We talked about the possibility of future contract work, especially in regards to my Control Panel that I had been working on (Removed on 10/11/2006 after PromoterOnline's pet lawyer threatened to sue for defamation. ) A few weeks later, I talked again with Mark to find out if I could come back (the contract I was working on paid more hourly but still no benefits and I had enjoyed the web development opportunities) and we agreed to discuss contract arrangements. My replacement evidently disagreed, and abruptly stated that they would not need my services and would not be using any of the code I had developed for the Control Panel.(Italics section added 10/11/2006 in response to David Steffensen's threatening email)
From: Resha (rwhitaker@promoteronline.com)
Mailed-By: promoteronline.com

To: Samuel Jones (elsimer@gmail.com)
Cc: mjones@promoteronline.com
Date: Apr 20, 2006 3:40 PM
Subject: RE: FTP access via 64.72.210.6

Sam,

Thank you for your time.

We will not be needing your services anymore.
I am going to have another programmer take over the project.
We will not be using any of your existing code that you made
for the control panel either.

Thanks,

Resha B. Whitaker | Systems Development Manager
rwhitaker@promoteronline.com
Direct: (801)705-5117
I have full headers on this email as well as the entire conversation between Resha and I after I had quit in which she gives me access to the company ftp site to begin work on the Control Panel. Is it possible that this 'other programmer' (evidently hired after I left) made use of that code without the knowledge of Resha or Mark? Sure!


(Removed on 10/11/2006 after PromoterOnline's pet lawyer threatened to sue for defamation. ) nor can I afford the legal fees necessary to cover the lawsuit. In my opinion any real estate investors or agents to steer clear of PromoterOnline specifically and Coaching Institute (who contracts with PromoterOnline exclusively for their "customized website")(Edited on 10/11/2006 after PromoterOnline's pet lawyer threatened to sue for defamation. New text is in italics)The website itself is actually a mix of IFRAME and ASP-based pages that draw from PromoterOnline's database, allowing their employees to "create" your website in about 5 minutes. Of course, the website looks terrible on anything but Internet Explorer but who uses anything else, right? Bear in mind that as a customer of PromoterOnline if you want anything that doesn't fit into that template you will be given the runaround, then told that you can be referred to their web designer who will be more than happy to give you what you want for an additional cost. This could have changed since I was employed there, but since their business model is predicated on spending as little time as possible on the websites (Their rationale at the time of my employment as stated my Mark Jones was that they're a website marketing company, the websites are just there to give them something to drive traffic to) I doubt it. For your money, you will be given the privilege of having your business name,name, phone number, email address, and one picture that fits their constraints put on their generic front page. In addition, you'll be able to write up (in standard text) whatever you want to put in their section entitled 'About Us' along with another picture which they will fit to their constraints. On their latest template (again, as of April 2006 when I quit) you could also choose one of the 23 pictures offered by PromoterOnline for display on their 't6' template. To be fair, while I was there the FAQ was changed to reflect the fact that only parts of the website could be changed. As of 10/11/2006 (the day after I received their threatening letter) the FAQ still stated that this was the case.

Incidentally, if you are unfortunate enough to be a customer of PromoterOnline you can have a look at what your website would look like on their other templates by replacing the template number in your URL. For example, http://www.joannafabro.com/t4/index.html becomes http://www.joannafabro.com/t6/index.html. If you decide that you don't want to pay for the service, your redirect template number is simply changed to t0 (http://www.joannafabro.com/t0/).

Remember that the agents who have been (Decided to change the word due to lawsuit letter) persuaded into paying for these websites are generally honest people who don't know that they don't really have to spend $100/month (minimum) on website marketing nor do template websites (Removed on 10/11/2006 after PromoterOnline's pet lawyer threatened to sue for defamation.) have to cost $30/month to maintain (although the threatening letter mentions that I "forget that 'worth' and 'value' are market driven and have nothing to do with costs of the delivery of those services." For example, a .com domain name of your choosing will cost up to $10/year from GoDaddy - less if you buy in bulk as PromoterOnline does. A program called Open-Realty generates a better website for free! A demo of the user's Open-Realty site is available at http://www.open-realty.org/demo/. The flexibility and functionality for an agent are demonstrated at http://www.open-realty.org/demo/admin/. (Username is "agent", password is "agent").

Don't have the technical knowledge for that? Transparent Technologies hosts Open-Realty and is at least honest about costs and exactly what you get for your money. Their lowest hosting package is $40/month and $180 setup.