Robert Plank Customer Focus SUCKS!

April 22, 2010 by Russell Hall
Filed under Guru Focus

Oh Heck yeah folks… it had to happen,… another hard working and industrious young entrepreneur on the way to becoming a “Guru” forgot how important real people and customer focus are to any business.

How I became an “ex-Robert Plank believer”

The basic story goes that I attended one of Robert Plank and Lance Tamashiro’s webinars about Membership Cube. At first I had no intention of subscribing but they did such a great job of presenting their new “Membership Cube” membership site that I subscribed at $47USD per fortnight.

After signing up I got sent my access link which took me to the site but wouldn’t let me in. I just kept seeing a “500 Internal Server Error” page. So I emailed Lance and he said he’d look at it. This he did and he offered some suggestions but still no access. So knowing that Robert is a php programer and also knowing that this was their server problem and not mine (viz-a-viz “Internal Server Error 500″) I asked Lance to get Robert to take a look. Several days had no elapsed and yet still no fix in sight and the only respnonse I had from them was that “everybody else can log in,.. so it must be your problem” … unreal I thought,… blaming me for their “Internal Server Error 500″ issue.

I then suggested to Lance that I thought it could be a firewall protocol keeping me out because I had a Thailand IP address and that I would test this by using a proxy server to log in. “Good idea” said Lance. That didn’t work either.

Finally (after a week had transpired) I urged them to get it fixed, but Robert’s response was “oh, we checked the server records and noticed that you tried to log in twice the same day with two different IP addresses,..1 from Thailand and 1 from Chicago,… so sharing your member login detail with your buddies will get you logged out for sure!” I couldn’t believe the arrogant, presumptuous and totally ignorant remark that he made there. I’d already told Lance I was going to use a proxy server to test the firewall and yet Robert comes along (supposedly after discussing it with Lance) and accuses me of sharing password keys.

They gave me an instant refund (to their credit) but clearly this was a matter of something having gone wrong at their end that they weren’t willing to get fixed and the easy way out was to ignore me, blame me, and just palm me off. Evidently they must have wayyy too many customers lined up.

The thing that gets me though is the line that they push all the time “We Care About Your Success”,…. that’s a total CROCK guys,… you don’t really give a shit!!! All you care about is your own profits. Just another pair of Internet scumbags as far as I’m concerned. Which is a shame because they do have their brilliant points even though they appear to look at this entire Internet marketing thing as a game and have started to become known by many people as just packaging up the trashiest PLR materials and then presenting it as worthwhile content.

I, like many I’ve spoken to recently will NEVER do business with Robert Plank or Lance Tamashiro ever again! They are no better that the profit hungry integrity lacking scum that are parasites on an industry that I hope will one day turn around and bite them on the arse!

I hope you read this Plank,… what’s the point of being brilliant when you treat people like trash and with so much disrespect?,.. YOU ARE A MORON!

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Brad Callen Customer Service Sucks!

August 30, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Guru Focus, internet marketing

1 Comment

Brad Callen Sucks

Brad Callen without doubt produces some excellent products and clearly understands SEO and Keywords very well. I invested in his Keyword Elite 1.0 a couple of years ago and it has been great. I still use it quite regularly as a major keyword tool.
The only problem I have with Brad Callen is that whilst his products are great, his customer focus and support really SUCKS!
Let me explain that by saying that I have experienced two counts of lousy customer service and lame responses from Brad Callen’s people where problems and complaints were dropped at the point where my requests conflicted with Brad Callen’s policies (namely,.. I win,- you lose!). Ticketed response issues were just ignored and left hanging when it was realized that my issues of discontent would require actions that they were not prepared to make,- actions that would have required Brad Callen and his team to bend a little and to consider the customer’s issues as having more merit than nuisance value. For all the money that Brad makes it wouldn’t hurt him to reinvest a little of that back into keeping his customers happy and satisfied. Perhaps one way of making such an investment would be to employ more capable and customer focused staff that give real attentive service rather than offering trite and self preserving company policy jargon that purely serves (or so they think) Brad Callen Inc.

The issues:
The most recent issue revolves around the new release of Brad Callen’s Keyword Elite2.0 which is truly an excellent product that can perform some amazing tasks that just blows many competitors right out of the water. This is the way I felt about K.E. 1.0 as well. The problem is though, that whereas other marketers of similarly excellent products will provide free lifetime upgrades on the original version, Brad Callen insists on a fee of $97 to upgrade from Keyword Elite 1.0 to keyword Elite 2.0. He (actually, his staff,.. but I assume under his complete authority and approval) insists that KE2.0 is not an upgrade of KE1.0 and that it “doesn’t merge” and therefore represents a completely new stand alone product. To that I say “Brad Callen,..you are full of S.H.I.T.”. Of course KE2.0 is an upgrade (granted it is a major upgrade) because it essentially performs the same job as KE1.0 and has simply had some features added to make it compatible with keyword control and marketing in 2009 rather than that of 2007 (a massive time span in the Internet perspective). And of course it doesn’t “merge”,.. I don’t know of any upgrade that does “merge”,..that’s why we call them “upgrades”,.. because they replace the previous version,.. that’s like saying WordPress 2.8.4 won’t merge with 2.6.3! Clearly, Mr. Callen and his team think that customers such as me are complete idiots. Having said that, I expect that with due respect to other purchasers of the original KE1.0 that many have probably by now paid the upgrade fee of $97 because they realized they needed it’s functions to stay competitive. Most people don’t have the time or inclination to complain and insist on fair play as I have and so they relent to coughing up the money.

This is a disgusting and dirty practice Brad Callen,.. and you should be ashamed of applying such nefarious and narcissistic policies just to increase profits.
I could hardly believe the gall of Brad Callen’s customer service manager (Charles Livingston) when he proudly announced that KE1.0 customers “will receive a very large discount, via this coupon code at launch”,.. yeah,.. a hundred bucks off $197 which equates to getting slugged for $97,.. something that your average village idiot wouldn’t notice.

I noticed that the “ticket” that I opened with Brad Callen Inc. (AKA Bryxen Softaware) was declared “closed” immediately after the not-so-brilliant customer service rep Charles Livingston had provided only one reply which was just full of company rhetoric and self serving BS. So I then re-opened the ticket and left another message that clearly indicated my disgust and pointed out their lack of integrity and opportunist attitude. Of course, I got zero response and the ticket was again declared closed! This reminded of the previous time in November 2008 I made an inquiry via Brad Callen Inc. (AKA Byxen,.. rhymes with “thick-skin”) and encountered Nancy Fahey. At that time I was complaining about a forced-continuity issue regarding SEO Mindset Club, and the fact that my “FREE” copy of SEO-Elite was deactivated when I ceased to agree to ongoing monthly charges for the SEO-Mindset membership. I also was locked out of the remainder (3 weeks of it) of my SEO-Mindset membership that had been paid for by the $29.95 that I’d been charged and was refused a credit. The brilliant Nancy, told me that the $29.95 charge was justifiable because I had received the benefit of the “course” (that being the free book “SEO Mindset” that I paid $16.95 to have delivered,.. plus the first 30 days “free” trial membership to SEO-Elite membership club). When I argued the point with Nancy that “Free” means FREE, and that I should at least have my 3 weeks of SEO-membership (that I’d paid for) reinstated,..I was completely and bluntly ignored despite sending two more polite follow up requests.

I just let that one slip by and thought I’d put it down to experience and just console myself with the fact that the free “SEO Mindset” book (plus $16.95 deliver costs) was quite brilliant and I learned quite a few worthwhile things from it.
But when this latest issue with the KE.1.0/2.0 smoke & mirrors routine occurred, I decided to do something about it by writing this blog post at least as an expression of my extreme dissapointent in Brad’s apparent lack of forsesight and valued customer focus.

I doubt that my efforts to have my complaints heard and noticed will make too much difference to Brad Callen Inc and “Thick-Skin” software, but if it at least raises some awareness and just slightly annoys Brad Callen as much as his company policies and actions (or lack thereof) have annoyed me then I will feel justified.

In conclusion let me confirm that your products and your ingenuity are quite brilliant Brad Callen,.. it’s just your customer focus and belligerent attitude that TOTALLY SUCKS!