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  1. #1

    Thumbs down Do not use WebSecureStores.com , here's why

    All,
    We wanted to write and warn everyone about a company named WebSecureStores.com.

    We signed up about 6 months ago for the asp hosting. This was supposed to be asp code and a sql 2000 database.

    A week ago, with no notice at all, everyone of our sites was shut down. They did not even bother to send an email.

    We contacted them through the email support and a few hours l ater we were told that ASP is no longer secure and that all sites controlled by websecurestores.com was turned off and we could move if we did not like it.

    1. We asked for the name of thier owner and they refused to tell us.
    2. We tried to call and no one EVER answered the telephone.
    3. None of our message were never returned
    4. No refund has been offered or given to us

    We finally figured out that Jeffrey Houck owned the company and tried to contact him, leaving several messages. He refuses to return any of our calls.

    We ended up reporting WSS Concepts Inc. and WebsecureStores.com to the Washington State attorney generals office. When his attorney found out, he contacted us and threatened us with extensive legal action if we did not stop.

    They also immediatly shut off our email accounts also. Also without notice, also without a refund of any kind.

    WebSecureStores.com is owned by a company names WSS Concepts inc, located in Washington state. The funny thing is, all of the phone numbers relating to them are disconnected or unpublished.

    Who has ever heard of a legitimate company not publishing thier phone number?

    All we want to do is warn everyone possible about this company. On one of the sites we have posted warnings on, Jeffrey Houck even had his lawyer post a reply!! How funny! They must be hiding something if Jeffrey Houck can't even respond to a customer complaint himself.


    So ask it stands now, we have no sites, no email and no refund. All of this when we have a legal contract with them that states they have to provide us service.

    Just be very very careful if you deal with this company.
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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    432
    Where is the site with the lawyer's reply? Sounds like a good read...
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  3. #3
    is it ok to post links? I know some forums don't like that. If it is ok, then I will post the link. It is a hoot!
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  4. #4
    You need more posts to post a link....why don't you just tell us the domain you had hosted with the company and paste the email?
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  5. #5
    Post what email?
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Newport Beach, CA
    Posts
    2,923
    Well to verify your claims there has to be a domain that can be tracked back to being hosted with that provider.

    Without it there is no way to say you're not just pissed for other reasons and not even a real customer. it's not personal, just standard procedure.
    Show your reciprocal links on your website. eReferrer
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  7. #7
    Ok, now I get it! Sorry, I have never posted to sites before. The domains they hosted for us were purefudge.com and joeroast.com
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Newport Beach, CA
    Posts
    2,923
    thast definitely checks out. If you don't want to show it publicly you can submit that info to a moderator too.
    Show your reciprocal links on your website. eReferrer
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  9. #9
    We don't care if they know it is us. People need to be warned about them. All they had to do was give us a weeks notice, refund our money and it would have been settled.

    They have apparently decided they deserve to keep our money and not provide any service.
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  10. #10
    A quick google found the link http://www.xomreviews.com/websecurestores.com
    We do the best we can.
    I am the legal counsel for Web Secure Stores. We have very, very few complaints with our service. Unfortunately, you can't please all the people all the time.

    With respect to Dean's complaint, his posting is not entirely accurate. Yes we did disable his site, but only after giving him notice. Without going into the particulars, WSS was not willing to continue to provide him service, at the risk of exposing the rest of our customers to hackers.

    He says we did not offer him a refund. That is not true. We gave him back his money for any service he had pre-paid for, but had not used yet. He wasn’t happy with that. He wanted all of his money back for as long as he had been with us…even for the time before we had to let him go. He threatened to sue us if we didn’t give him a refund from the first day he was with us. Sorry, but we just don’t do that. We did give him back his money for future service not yet used...seemed fair to us.

    As far as his accretion that we did not honor the contract, we believe we did. Our terms of use are extremely clear and all customers must agree to them before they can sign up for our service.

    The bottom line here is that WSS was not willing to expose ALL of its customers to security issues, and down time, because Dean (or any body else) did not want to upgrade to a more secure situation; we had to let them go. He is the only customer that we had that complained about the situation. ALL other customers either upgraded, or took their business somewhere else…no big deal.

    We viewed the entire situation as our customers having the choice to either upgrade, or simply look for another host. Dean thought it would be fair if we gave him back all of his money since he had been with us, even before we informed him of his need to upgrade, and then he threatened us with a law suit if we didn't meet his demands.

    We do our best at WSS to give the best possible SECURE service, for least cost to our customers. We apologize to any of our customers that are inconvenienced by our need to continuously strengthen our security. We believe a secure host is part of what everybody wants with our service, and WSS will not jeopardize all of our customers for the sake of one…we believe everyone understands, and likely agrees with that.

    Like I said, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

    Richard P. Patrick, Gig Harbor, Washington

    Posted By: Richard P. Patrick, on Wednesday, December 27, 2006
    Technical Advisor for new A&E Series The Killing Season
    There are no random acts of violence
    Starts November 5th!
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  11. #11
    Thanks for posting that. I love the part that states "we feel that we did" when it comes to keeping thier end of the contract.

    We paid them for one year of service,
    They cancelled it without notice of any kind.
    They refuse to refund our money.
    They refuse to give us our emails.
    They NEVER answer the phone.
    The owner refuses to step in and help
    They have thier lawyers threaten people if they complain.

    Is this the kind of hosting company you want?

    Well hopefully, this post and all the others we will be doing over the next few months will help warn people about them.
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  12. #12
    I just had to add a comment about the supposed insecure nature of asp. You can argue for days about that if you want, the simple FACT is that asp is used in actually millions, maybe even tens of millions of websites all over the planet.

    The thousands of other hosting companies don't seem to have the same issue with "SECURE service" that websecurestores has.

    And the issue is not if they wanted us to move because they lack the credentials to really support asp servers, the issue is they did it with NO notice and then when we complained, they shut off our email also.

    It is unprofessional. plain and simple.
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  13. #13
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Newport Beach, CA
    Posts
    2,923
    ASP is the only certified language. But, that doesn't mean that all asp sites are secure. bad programming isn't restricted to any language.
    Show your reciprocal links on your website. eReferrer
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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    432
    I would never use them just for the fact they have their "legal council" posting on message boards for them. He is trying to sound like a lawyer, but I don't think he is a lawyer.
    Last edited by Festus2005; 12-28-2006 at 07:42 PM.
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  15. #15
    interesting thread. maybe he is owner/legal counsel, like those fish who puff up to scare off would be opponents.

    i better watch it though, i might get some PM's from mr dick p patrick.
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  16. #16
    You might be interested in knowing that we have called "Dick" and he refuses to take our calls or return them.
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  17. #17
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Posts
    9,264
    Quote Originally Posted by bodhisattva
    interesting thread. maybe he is owner/legal counsel, like those fish who puff up to scare off would be opponents.
    I think you've hit the nail on the head.
    Dave B's previously quoted message just about confirms it as well.
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  18. #18
    You said they didn't reply and refund. Their post said they did, partial for the latter.

    The host believes it's fair (and you'd be surprised to find that others here do, too)
    they give you a partial refund for services not used for the future. You believe it's
    fair they refund all your money, and don't care about the costs they incurred doing
    business.

    Unfortunately without further details from the host (which they don't have to give
    at all), then people here really have no way of knowing what exactly happened.

    And there's nothing wrong with an attorney answering an online post. S/he has a
    choice to do so or not, depending on their judgment.

    Took me a while to find this based on limited data:

    http://pro.wsba.org/PublicView-Membe...&Usr_ID=790371

    Disputes happen daily. That's what Courts and mediation panels are for.
    Last edited by Dave_Z; 12-29-2006 at 12:08 AM.
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  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    432
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Zan
    Disputes happen daily. That's what Courts and mediation panels are for.
    That is why a company and a lawyer looks lame for the lawyer replying to message boards. They should stick to the courts and mediation panels.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Zan
    You said they didn't reply and refund. Their post said they did, partial for the latter.

    The host believes it's fair (and you'd be surprised to find that others here do, too)
    they give you a partial refund for services not used for the future. You believe it's
    fair they refund all your money, and don't care about the costs they incurred doing
    business.

    Unfortunately without further details from the host (which they don't have to give
    at all), then people here really have no way of knowing what exactly happened.

    And there's nothing wrong with an attorney answering an online post. S/he has a
    choice to do so or not, depending on their judgment.

    Took me a while to find this based on limited data:

    http://pro.wsba.org/PublicView-Membe...&Usr_ID=790371

    Disputes happen daily. That's what Courts and mediation panels are for.
    Well dave, they may SAY they gave a refund, but they did not, plain and simple. As for others agreeing with thier actions, all I know is you are the only person who seems to agree with breaking a contract, far less breaking one without notice.

    I suppose it is your right to defend them, everyone has an opinion. I myself have never, ever seen an attorney answer a post for a company, maybe you could point out another one?

    We feel that the public at large needs to be warned about what we feel is a very shady company. That is what we have done.
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  21. #21
    WebSecureStores asked xomreviews to remove the page about them, and they did. So much for the integrity of thier review process.
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  22. #22
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    San Jose, CA.
    Posts
    1,624
    Dave wasn't agreeing with their actions or defending them.

    He simply pointed out that you made your side of the case, and they stated theirs. With no way for any of us to know the facts (as the accounts differ greatly...) most people probably don't really care.

    The bulk of the dispute as you say is that they didn't give you notice while they clearly say they did. You say they didn't give you a refund which they say they did.

    In the issue regarding a refund, I think you'll find that almost everyone here would agree that you would in no way be entitled to a full refund of every payment made to them (if what the host's purported lawyer is saying is true)... solely a refund for any pre-paid services not utilized at the time of their cancellation.

    So, Did you ask for a simple refund of the pre-paid services not rendered at the time of cancellation, or were you actually asking for a refund of all payments ever made?

    It reads to me from their reply that they asked you to perform certain upgrade steps (that others did and had no problems with). You either didn't receive the notification, failed to act on it, or refused to act on it. The latter two of which, I think they properly dealt with the situation.

    I think the biggest reason this came up with, is simply you're saying you didn't receive notifications they say they sent, and no offense, but they come off as the more believable side in this story.

    Lots of us here deal with many many clients who are too lazy, dumb, or accidentally don't keep their contact information up to date.

    Heck... dozens of domains expire daily because people don't keep their contact information up to date... then hosting companies get to hear customers bitch and whine and make posts about how they provided a horrible service because they didn't receive notification of a pending issue.
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  23. #23
    As I said before, they simply are not being truthful. I think you can look at the fact that they never answer the phone, the parent company has an unpublished number and thier lawyer answers the posts for them says a lot.

    Look at the fact that they have shut down the email also, even though they have been paid in full for that service. They are dishonest. It is that simple.

    I don't need to defend thier false allegations, but I will.

    1. They NEVER notified us that we needed to "upgrade"
    2. We NEVER asked for a full refund.

    You seem to be forgetting one basic principle here, we had a contract. That contract was written by them. We paid them for one full year of specific, advertised services. They accepted payment for the term of one year, for specific services.

    At that point they had no choice but to provide those services for the length of time contracted for.
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  24. #24
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    San Jose, CA.
    Posts
    1,624
    It's not a "fact" to any of us. Just you simply stating your version of what you say happened. The key point being that we have no way of verifying anything you're saying. What you say, It could be entirely true.

    I'm not sure if them not answering their phone is important. I don't see anything on their website indicating they offer phone support with their packages, simply a "24/7 Online Support Desk".

    Whether their parent company has an unpublished phone number is irrelevant... you don't have services with their parent company. You have services with them.

    However you feel about their "lawyer" posting a reply on a forum is irrelevant... It just sounds as if they were trying to protect their online reputation... Normally, I'd consider that a good thing. Whether everything they said in that post is false isn't something we can verify.

    I wasn't aware that email services were provided under a completely separate contract then your ASP hosting.

    I understand your allegations as stated thusfar.
    I understand their allegations as stated thusfar.

    But, because you seem to point to irrelevant reasons citing them as being a dishonest host... It makes your overall claims less believable.

    I can fully understand and expect someone to be frustrated if they paid for a service and that service was terminated unexpectedly for no valid reason.

    But, I personally also tend to choose to believe the host slightly more then a pissed off ex-customer.

    You would have simply done better in your intentions of warning people away from this host: stating the domains you had hosted there, saying that you paid them for services and they cancelled your service without notice, and you haven't been able to contact them.

    I do hope that any refund due is paid promptly...
    I do feel bad that you feel you've been wronged by this company...

    In the long run... if they continue to treat other customers the way your stating... the situation will sort itself out, with them likely going out of business.

    I think the community does appreciate your sentiment of, "We feel that the public at large needs to be warned about what we feel is a very shady company. That is what we have done." You just have to realize that in a "he said, she said" argument... people might not care or believe you without any reason to.
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  25. #25
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    432
    I tend not to believe anything a lawyer says after the experience I have had with them. People have lawyers speak for them so they are not held accountable for lies. I have dealt with lawyers and they just state the lies their clients pass on to them. Although I could care less about all of the drama in this thread, I certainly do not believe anything a lawyer says over an anonymous poster with no evidence.

    It is a draw in my opinion.
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