Kiwi warns against US Internet scheme
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Steve Riordan paid $5000 for five website packages offered by United States-based company StoresOnline in 2005 after attending one of its seminars.
He says the products he received did not work and wants to warn others against buying them.
I feel quite embarrassed to have been taken in by them but if I can stop anyone else losing money it will be worth the humiliation.
The Consumers Institute has warned people to be wary of the American company which has been operating in New Zealand in various guises since about 2001.
Earlier this year Fairfax newspapers reported that Wellington stay- at-home mother Karen Clunie lost more than $23,000 she paid to StoresOnline for a starter pack to create six websites, financing, coaching and support packs and to register as a limited liability company in the United States. She received only two $40 sales through her corporate gifts website.
A StoresOnline spokesman told The Press that while its products and services were not for everyone, they were of world-class quality.
Riordan, a Canterbury tourism operator who relies heavily on his internet presence to generate business, said the StoresOnline seminars were slick and believable, but their product was flawed.
They have brilliant speakers who tell you you can make lots of money from the internet and they show you examples of people who have done it.
But Riordan said he could not get the website design tools sold to him by StoresOnline to work and neither could his friend, a professional website designer.
Consumers Institute chief executive Sue Chetwin said it had previously warned people to be wary of the company.
Chetwin said people should investigate companies thoroughly before handing over large sums of money.
In 2004, the Consumers Institute issued a formal warning about StoresOnline labelling its websites overpriced and under-supported.
It said the product offered was complex and there was poor sales support for single website packages costing up to $6000.
Have nothing to do with StoresOnline, the institute said at the time.
StoresOnline senior vice-president Jeffrey Kornsaid he was aware of negative comments by New Zealands Consumers Institute, which he believed merely cautioned customers to be careful about their general technology purchases.
Korn said he backed the companys products and services 100 per cent.
Its not the major bullet or a business in a box.
Its a software product that allows people to develop a web-based business, we make that very clear, he said.
StoresOnline held workshops for tens of thousands of people worldwide and the number of complaints was minuscule compared with numbers of satisfied customers, Korn said.
