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This web page details our experiences with and opinions of:
ProActive Advisors, Inc.
Ben Lawler, CPA
CEO & President
www.thinkproactively.com
"Show us your business we'll make it better"
A CPA firm specializing in Strategic, Financial and Tax Consulting
Ben Lawler, CPA blawler@thinkproactively.com
Wendy Fick, wfick@thinkproactively.com
On 12-13-06 we received an order for gift wrap printing from one "Wendy Fick", Marketing Project Manager for ProActive Advisors, Inc. (wfick@thinkproactively.com).
The order was prepared and shipped within a day or two, as always.
Since we print on actual gift-wrap paper, and since gift-wrap paper is, by its very nature and intended use, a cheap, printer-unfriendly media, we go to great lengths to make the customer aware of this fact on our product page. For instance, the product page says:
It so happens that enticing the public to actually READ things is always difficult and often impossible. Because of that, we want to be doubly and triply sure that the customer understands what s/he is buying -- namely, a throw-away product, printed on throw-away paper. If the customer wants fine art, the customer should hire the services of a fine art reprinter to print their color-corrected logo onto fine art canvas -- at a cost somewhat higher than thirty some dollars. To make sure the customer understands this we require the following form to be completed:
The customer in this instance, Wendy Fick of ProActive Advisors Inc. supplied a simple sl8up logo. We printed the paper and emailed Wendy several actual photographs of the finished product. She approved them in writing and we shipped the paper. Immediately upon delivery we received an email from Wendy Fick complaining about the quality of the product. She stated that the paper was covered with pink spots, that there were white streaks through the paper, that the color of the logo was dulled, and that the paper was shredded. We were horrified. We immediately suspected that some outrageous accident had happened to the paper en route and we advised that we would be happy to file a UPS damage claim.
As it turned out over the next dozen or so emails, the "pink spots" were the result of the print-heads ticking the edge of the paper during processing. There were about half a dozen pink spots total, each about the size of a third of a pea. The pink dots appeared only on the extreme edge of the paper, and only as shown:
Wendy's reference to the paper being "shredded" depicted a short section of the paper which had rubbed against one of the printer rollers during printing. Sometimes a roll will feed a little to the left, or a little to the right, and it will ruffle the edge of the paper during that portion of the run. The damage consists of about 1/2 to 1 inch of one edge of the paper, for a length of from 3 to 12 feet. When this happens, we cut off the ruffled edge, and do not count that linear length of paper in the customer's order. The ruffled edge is also shown in the image above. In other words, the customer doesn't pay for that section, but receives it anyway, and the entire 35 inch width of the paper is perfectly usable except for the tiny strip along one edge where the paper rubbed along the paper spool -- which is white space anyway. We felt this was a courtesy to the customer (something for nothing at our expense).
Wendy also complained that there were "black lines throughout". We couldn't BEGIN to imagine what the heck that was all about --- until we saw Wendy's picture. Here it is, below:
Turns out, there were not(!) "black lines throughout" after all. The black "lines" shown at the bottom of the above image are merely the beginning of the next row of logo images which didn't complete printing because the print job was concluded and the printer stopped printing. They appear ONLY at the extreme tail end (and only one end) of the roll. We might have offered to mail this woman a pair of scissors and an instruction manual so she could CUT THEM OFF. But we didn't bother.
The complaint of white streaks through the print was never seen by us.
The dulled coloring of the logo was exactly that -- a dulling of the black portions of the logo (see above image), exactly as described on the product page. It's doubtful that anyone would notice it unless they applied a colorimeter to the paper. Judge for yourself by the images above.
This customer was placed on our "do not sell to" list after receiving Wendy's first email. We found her commanding condescension off-putting. Fortunately we don't have to do business with objectionable customers. Still, we needed to resolve the current issue.
We emailed Wendy and explained all of the above. And we changed our policy of giving the customer any extra product for free. It was, we felt, akin to how milk shakes were served in the old diners: If the waitress made more milk shake than would fit in the glass, you got to keep the extra that was left in the stainless steel milk shake mixer. But Wendy didn't see it that way. Perhaps she instructs the waitress to throw her extra milk shake out.
Wendy demanded a new product to be on her desk by the following morning, and we advised her that (1) it was a physical impossibility. The volume of paper she had ordered required 20 hours of printing, and even if we started that minute, we would not complete the printing until mid-day the FOLLOWING day -- then another 24-48 hours would be required for rush shipping. We were in the marine rescue business for many years, for instance, and we watched yachtsmen wrangle their ways into more silly predicaments than one could imagine (we published a book on the subject). Usually, when some spoiled yachtsman found himself in some imagined, utterly avoidable predicament, he would scream Mayday on the VHF. The Coast Guard (or ourselves) would answer, and the coordinates would be passed. The radio would go silent, and either the Coast Guard or ourselves would begin the process of scrambling a crew, which would then run down the gangplank and begin slipping the lines of the rescue vessel (or the tug in our case) in preparation of the six hour run to the casualty-- and just about at that precise moment, before the lines had even been slipped from the pier, the yachtsman would be heard frantically calling again, demanding to know why no one had arrived at his position. We were dusgusted by that mentality then, and we still are today.
We traded emails with Wendy for the next day or so, each of us becoming more irritated with the other. Finally, utterly pissed off at this woman's air-headedness, we contacted her boss, Ben Lawler, CPA CEO & President of ProActive whatever. We received an email from Ben that indicated he wanted a refund. We replied as follows:
Ben, We explicitly state on the product page that colors may shift and/or be dulled. It is due to the nature of gift wrapping media.
In addition, we sent your employee an actual photograph of the printed product. She approved it.
The side [edge] of the paper was shredded, as it often is. To compensate for this we added a good deal of extra paper. We always do this. Have you unrolled the product beyond the short shredded area? The shredding of the margin does not in any case affect the usability of the paper. This is gift wrap, designed to be cut to size. The margins of gift wrap are never allowed to remain exposed anyway [in use].
We could not see any white lines in any image that was sent us. It is possible that occasionally white lines do appear. However if so, they will be small -- almost beyond human vision. We doubt even then that there are many rows with this problem. Again, we always supply more product than the customer pays for to automatically compensate for any flaws or irregularities.
This is disposable gift wrap -- not an art statement.. You state that the images are gray rather than the "requested black". We're aware of no such specific request. We print the images as they are supplied to us. We're not sure you've seen all emails in this case. We steadfastly refuse to provide any additional or other product to your company. There is nothing we could ever manufacture which would satisfy you. At this point our efforts are dedicated to extricating ourselves from you. Are you requesting a partial refund? If so, how much? If we feel the request is equal to or less than it would cost us to fight this issue formally, we will perhaps issue a credit for that amount on the condition that you never attempt to order from us again, and never contact us again. Please advise.
And Benjamin's reply, sent THREE TIMES in the space of one minute:
Hello,
I have never received an e mail like this as I have launched and advised over 100 companies and formally manage over 40. It is unprofessional and very defensive.
The purchase price of the paper was $251. Go ahead and Credit half back
today and we will move forward.Let me know what your decision is so we can take the appropriate steps.........I wish your decision was different as I think we have been tremendously patient with your unprofessionalism and insults. Take a look at our web site. My business partner and General Council is Gary Slavett. He will be contacting:
1. The Better Business Bureau;
2. The Secretary of State and;
3. The Credit Card Company.Ah! So now it was down to the usual tactic of the corporate dude, threats to use his friends and contacts to somehow "get us". We invited Ben to come ahead:
We're not willing to credit half back. In actuality, you received
more usable product than you paid for. At this point we're
willing to go the distance on this.Be advised there is no need to send three identical emails -- one
will suffice.Within a few minutes we received from Ben no less than FIVE identical emails (a little temper tantrum?), all of which we deleted without reading and his address was blocked.
A little while after that we received a written apology from Wendy, stating that she would be happy to "call Ben off". We advised that would not be necessary and, in fact, not desired.
Shortly thereafter, "someone" went into our feedback account at Yahoo and entered the following complaint:
When we sought out the author of this little turd, we found that the author had blanked out his profile, perhaps so that he could not be traced (so he thought).
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Update 4-15-06:
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We never heard from Ben, or Wendy, or Ben's enforcer Gary Slavett, or anyone else connected with this case. The company was placed on our "do not sell to" list, their email domain was blocked, their IP prevented from accessing our web site. And all future customers can thank this outfit, specifically, for our new policy which does not allow the customer to receive extra product for free.
Nice one, Ben!
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UPDATE: 5-9-06
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Yahoo Shopping has advised us on this date that the poster of the negative review took at least one or more EXTRA steps in an attempt to keep their identity secret.
Our Yahoo Store rating still reflects our outstanding service and product quality. This has been our service rating for many years, through tens of thousands of customers:
Unfortunately we're not willing to do business with a company (Yahoo Shopping) that allows society's spoiled brats to attack and defame a retailer while hamstringing that retailer from posting their own review of the offending customer, and we have dumped Yahoo Stores.
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UPDATE 8-29-06
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We assumed we were done with this outfit. Alas, that was not to be. It seems that having these folks as customers is a little like getting gum in your hair, or dog crap on your shoe. It's unpleasant, and damned hard to get completely rid of.
On 8-29-06 we received an email from this amazing company (Wendy Fick) (proactivem@hotmail.com) (this is a new address that wasn't known to our spam filters) lamenting the posting of this page, stating that they (Proactive Advisors) thought that by paying for the product they purchased from us, they had restored our "business relationship", and that it was then "on good terms", and asking us to remove this page.
"Our web techs [right] recently found a page posted online) in regards to an order was placed last December for a roll of wrapping paper. After we paid you in full, we took the position that our business relationship was on good terms. Therefore, Mr. Lawler did not post, nor authorize any employee to post, a review of the incident on Yahoo Shopping, as noted in your account. Having said this, we would like to request that you remove the content referred to above. We hope you will consider our request and resolve this matter quickly. We wish you success in your business and look forward to repairing this relationship. Best regards, Wendy"
Fact: We do not HAVE a "business relationship" with this company, nor would we ever allow one to develop. All such hopes on their part were dashed when they pulled the stunt they did way back in mid-December, 2005. This "relationship" was beyond repair after about the third condescending, commanding, argumentative email from Fick way back in December of 2005! Merely paying us the regular price of a standard product does not in any way entitle the customer to any sort of special consideration or "appeal" of our decision to fire them as customers. This bunch placed one order with us, it didn't work out to our satisfaction, they were fired as customers, end of story. There is no "business relationship" in any sense of the word or by any stretch of the imagination. The notion is ludicrous. Ms. Fick makes a number of statements in her unwanted and unsolicited email, but at the end a caveat cautions that the email (shown above) may not be disseminated publicly! Unfortunately for Ms. Fick, in order to have accessed the page from which she contacted us, she previously agreed to OUR terms of service which state that any emails sent using our server (any data AT ALL incoming through our server) are IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. (Encrypted credit card data does not come in to our server but is routed to a third-party SSL server).
Ms. Flick states:
"After we paid you in full, we took the position that our business relationship was on good terms. Therefore, Mr. Lawler did not post, nor authorize any employee to post, a review of the incident on Yahoo Shopping, as noted in your account."
Is that true? Proactive Advisors is not responsible for the ugly order-feedback shown above? Does Ms. Flick not understand that every interaction on the Internet can be traced back to an IP address? Does she not also realize that in order to post feedback about an order, the poster must have access to the credit card information that was used to place the associated order? So let's see.....what is it EXACTLY that Ms. Fick is suggesting? That (1) while the negative feedback was posted on the same day as our confrontation with Mr. Lawler, he did not post it or authorize it to be posted, and (2) while the feedback was directly related to this specific problem and actually quotes comments that were made specifically to Mr. Lawler, he did not post it or authorize the feedback to be posted, and (3) even though the poster of the feedback would have had to have access to the encrypted details of the transaction in order to access the customer feedback apparatus for that sale, Lawler did not post it or authorize it to be posted? So, on the very same day that we had our problem with Mr. Lawler, someone broke into his office, stole his password for his Yahoo Shopping account or other exclusive information which would have allowed them to access our Yahoo feedback file for that specific transaction, and that mysterious person then took it upon themselves to post negative feedback about us which directly quoted comments we had made to Lawler by email (see, this crook also broke into Mr. Lawler's email account and accessed those emails). And this mysterious evil-doer did all this for the purpose of.......WHAT?
To suggest that this guy (Lawler) or his minions (Wendy Fick, perhaps?) didn't post the feedback in question or wasn't directly or indirectly aware of it is an insult to anyone's intelligence, and we suggest that Lawler put his money where his mouth is and try his story on the judge.
This entire episode has gone from merely disgusting to downright revolting. Our suggestion to them is to stop providing us with material to post. We have advised this group to cease and desist contacting us. Our next remedy, should we hear from them ONE MORE TIME, whether by email, phone, fax, snail-mail, carrier pigeon, mental telepathy or smoke-signal, directly or by third party, will be the filing of a formal harassment complaint. If Proadvisors want to turn this into a 1st Amendment issue, we heartily invite them to come ahead. We've been through that process many times and we guarantee we're willing to take the fight to levels Lawler never dreamed possible. Our 1st amendment attorney is nationally known and has advised us flawlessly for nearly a decade while confronting some of the largest and most powerful (and most devious and scurrilous) corporations in the world. Were we to offer advice to this bunch it would be this: You've done what you've done, and someone has called you on it. Back off, take your lumps, learn to be better human beings (maybe), and move forward. Picking at this sore will, we promise, inflame it.
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UPDATE
Over the span of many months, all through 2007, we received emails from a person identifying themselves as follows:
Jeffrey Hawkins
www.hawkinsconsulting.biz
+1 (415) 462-1766 SF
+1 (646) 827-9882 NYC
+66 (89) 441-6919 BKK
jeff@hawkinsconsulting.biz
The sender explained that he had been hired by Think Proactively to do some "search engine optimization".
This person offered us the sum of $1000 if we would remove this page from public view.
Here's a direct quote:
"If you take it down immediately, I can give you $1000. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions"
We declined to respond to the emails for mon ths -- just filing them away in our "silly" folder.
Finally, toward the end of 2007, we got tired of filing them away and responded one time with one phrase:
"Cease and desist".
That seems to have worked -- we've heard nothing since (at least as of early 2008).
Where in God's name do these people come from.--------------------------------------------------------------------
