Blu Domain: Poor Service Defined

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It’s been a while since I’ve railed against bad customer service….namely because I’ve not been too upset with the various services that I’ve received.

But…that streak has been broken.

A new definition for poor customer service has been set by a company called “Blu Domain“, specifically by “Aundrea”. My wife and I purchased a website from them on April 25, 2008. They told us that the site would be ‘delivered’ within 24 to 48 hours. It is now May 14th and we have yet to see a working website.

Blu Domain purportedly provides turn-key websites and back-end management solutions for photographers. The web designs and functionality seem to be top-notch…but their client service is horrible (try googling ‘Blu Domain Service‘ or “BluDomain Service“).

It started out nicely with an email from “Aundrea” stating that she’d have the website delivered within 24 to 48 hours and that she never misses a deadline. She asked for information about our hosting platform and we responded within 30 minutes with all the required information. Funny note: in her email to us, it states “if you don’t hear from me within 3 days, contact me because i probably didn’t receive your email”. Now…why would anyone say that? Why is it on the shoulders of the customer to contact the service provider to check to see if they received our email??

3 days went by with no response so we contacted them again and Aundrea told us that she didn’t receive an email from us…we resent it. Another 3 days passed with nothing.

We emailed them again (3 times actually) prior to getting a response. The response asked for more information. We provided that information….and waited another 3 days with no response.

Finally, we threatened to call our credit card company for a refund if they didn’t respond. Funny how threatening them actually worked….but their response was to blame us for not giving them information…even though the information that they requested was contained the email that she replied to.

We’ve given them until the end of today to get the website up and running or the credit card company will take over this negotiation and we’ll go somewhere else.

I should have known better to use a company that doesn’t provide any means of communicating directly with them. They have no phone number, no email address nor any other contact method on their website (other than the ‘Contact us’ form). Another learning opportunity I guess.

Seems as if we aren’t the only ones having this problem. Check out the following:

Melissa Moore

I am looking for a website company and have been quite impressed with BLUDOMAIN however after this post I have grown concerned about their customer service issues I have been reading online.

I emailed them to ask them how they intend to overcome their growing pains.

I am in shock at the email I received with the verbatium of your working relationship.

You clearly left out the few necessary lines stating that the information they required for your servers did not work and that the programmers went back and forth with you several times.

I am ashamed at your tactic write a post that is void of the actual truth.

Seriously!

Roy

Bludomain has an F rating with the Better Business Bureau, and their phone has been disconnected.

jon

I paid for my site over a year ago and it is still not up. No response to any of my 100 plus emails. They took my money and gave me nothing in return. BluDomain are LIARS AND CROOKS!

ericbrown

Hi Jon - sorry to hear that....it seems a lot of people are having trouble with BD. How they can remain in business is beyond me. That said, a recent poster (Justin) said he paid for and received his site within an hour of paying...I wonder why there are differences in how people are treated? Could it be the person(s) they are dealing with? I know that was a huge problem for us....the person we dealt with treated us like trash.

blusucks

let's seriously file a class act lawsuit! you are not alone. i am a victim of their scam too.

ericbrown

Hi 'Melissa',

If you are truly a potential client of BluDomain, you might be surprised to learn that they have misled you in their response to you. I find it hard to believe that they actually shared what transpired between us....and if they did, that just shows how unprofessional they really are.

BluDomain was given all the necessary information that they needed. IP addresses, passwords, etc. The problem was that they didn't actually DO anything with that information.

PS - I've looked through my server logs...and saw them try to log in a total of 3 times. Once to FTP the 'website' to my server a week after they said they would deliver the website. The other two times was after I told them I wanted a refund.

Do your homework on BluDoman before buying from them. Check the Better Business Bureau (BBB rates them Unsatisfactory) and all the other posts on the web about their poor service.

PPS - It's funny that your grammar is very similar to the grammar used in emails received from BluDomain.

Allison

More of a ? than a comment, really. i am new to the website world. i love the templates at bludomain, but i know nothing about web design. do you have any recommendations for other companies that offer the great styling and design that bludomain has, but are easier to customize and easier to work with? i have requested phone calls twice now, and I have yet to get a response.I also like the prices that bludomain offers. so, basically- i want something the same as bludomain. thanks!

ericbrown

Hi Allison,

I'd take a look at Photobiz.com. Photobiz offers some excellent templates and great service plus they host everything for you fee (I think they start at $15 a month). Photobiz does charge for setup and to 'buy' the Flash templates but they are still cheaper than others (like BluDomain).

My wife's current site (http://amomenttokeep.com) currently runs on Photobiz. We are very happy with them...but I'd like a bit more control over the hosting service and the site than I get with Photobiz (which is wy I'm looking for something else).

Other options are are available but they are a bit more expensive. They are:
Photoidenties
FolioLink
BigFolio

Shell Smith

This sounds all to familiar with about every customer phone line I have contacted recently. What a scary trend we are seeing - the customer service downslide! I ran across an interview with Fox Business and the president of a customer service company called Mindshare. He made some good points that might help us see why these trends are happening.

Tammie

Hello Eric,
I am so glad that you wrote this on your blog, I thought of doing this on mine, but I thought I gave them a benefit of doubt when Andrea 's email said that if I withdraw my paypal charge back they will refund my money because same thing happened to me when I try to buy the site from Bludomain.
But I just heard from paypal today that they are still going to charge me!!! Now I don't even know what to do... I am on long hold with paypal now. Bludomain have wasted so much time.

ericbrown

Hi Tammie,

They tried the same thing with us. They told us to withdraw the paypal dispute and they'd refund us...but we Paypal told us not to do that. If we would have withdrawn the dispute, we couldn't have got the money back.

Bludomain is bordering on fraud...I wish more people would know how bad their service really is and how poorly they treat their clients.

Tammie

Thank you for your reply Eric... now I am really stuck.
I withdrew the dispute and credit card company told me that I only get one chance so I am really stuck here. I am so upset and don't know what to do anymore

ericbrown

Tammie - I really hate that you are in this situation. I would contact the Credit Card company again and work your way up the ladder until a manager agrees to reverse the charge. I guess I now know why bludomain was trying so hard to get us to reverse the complain too.

Tammie

Thank you for your kind words Eric, I spent whole day on the phone trying to resolve this. So far Aundrea actually got back to me saying that there is no way that anyone in Bludomain charged anything today because there is no one working today and she is telling me to send the paper work to her ASAP. She told me to go check with my credit card company. No, apology for this inconvenience. I will keep you and your readers updated on my blog. Thank you so so so much to even care of staranger like me. If only everyone in the world was like you, the world will be more beautiful.

Jody

I'm bummed to hear about BluDomain. They are the only service I could find that will also incorporate flash video. I checked out your suggestions above and it looks like BigFolio has video as well but it's a bit pricier. PhotoBiz looks solid, but no video. Do you happen to know of any other services out there that include a video option? I'm surprised there are not more quality companies that provide this type of service. Thanks!

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Blu Domain: Poor Service Defined

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Written By Eric D. Brown