My name is Patrick Murphy-Racey. I am a commercial photographer in Knoxville, Tennessee and I have had a long history of problems with Blu Domain, operating out of the Denver, Colorado area. They admittedly have many satisfied customers and some cool designs but a large group of people making a living as shooters have been taken advantage by them, their lack of timely contact, never resolving problems, and in my case, accepting $300 for a website that I never got. My story is one of many so it is my hope that you will share your story with me and others so that we can explore together a class action law suit. Initally, all we need is to know who we are so we can band together, see a larger picture of their abuse, and then sue Blu for our money back and for punitive damages. I know I'm not the only one that has lost business because of their lack of competence. I'm done sending e-mails to Blu, writing letters to Blu, responding to numerous e-mails from others in my same situation, trying to call a human being at Blu, and simply being ignored. So, if you've been ripped off too, tell the rest of us your story and let's see where it all goes. I've got a great lawyer in Denver waiting for your comments so don't be afraid, take a few minutes and tell us what happened, and if you ever got it resolved. Sincerely, Patrick :)
PS. All you do is click on "Comments" immediately following this note, and let her rip!
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Hi Patrick,
ReplyDeleteI paid $200 to BluDomain and waited 10 days before telling them that they were fired and I wanted a refund. Almost like magic, four hours later they sent a link to me. I told them too bad, I hired someone else, give me my money back. They refuse. Aundrea has becoming increasingly unprofessional to the point of calling me childish, vengeful and crazy. Here is the factual timeline of events that happened:
On 12/10/08 I ordered a “Betsy HTML-only website” for $200 because it was advertised as being ready within 24 hours. I sent several emails over the next few days that went unanswered.
Friday 12/12 @ 4pm - they send a list of questions for my website host provider.
Monday 12/15 at 9:30am the questionnaire was sent back with the info they needed (delayed due to the weekend because they sent it at 4pm on Friday).
Tuesday 12/17 - Still no website and no contact from BluDomain. I email them at 9:37am and told them I was worried and that the site needed to be up ASAP because this was a new company being launched before Christmas and we needed a few days to make tweaks and upload content.
No response until 12/18 at 9:48am when they said they couldn't log in to my GoDaddy account. “Daniel Muniz” claimed the password was wrong. Literally 5 minutes after his email I said to try again because the password WAS correct. At this time I also realized the password for my ftp had a typo and I told him this.
No response so at 2:53pm I asked them to follow up and please call if there were any technical problems.
No response and by this time I'm panicking. I email again at 4:58pm asking if I should just get a refund.
12/18 @ 11pm - I get a short email from Daniel saying he could get into the GoDaddy account but now he can't get into the ftp. At this point I realized I was getting the run around and I would most likely not see a website any time soon because all I was getting was poor communication and excuses.
Friday 12/19 I send four emails (yes, I was panicked!) asking for a response, phone call, anything! I kept getting autoresponse emails. I checked my junk email folder and spam folder in Comcast. I was definitely getting their emails. Still no response.
Over the weekend I decided that I was fed up and that I would ask for a refund and hire someone else on Monday morning since they don’t work on the weekends.
Monday 12/22 @ 11:41am - I emailed and essentially fired them and I asked for a refund. No response.
Monday 12/22 @ 3:36pm - suddenly get an email from Daniel saying here's your link and that it was uploaded to my server. I email back immediately at 3:42 and say "Too bad...you're too late. I hired someone else I want a refund". He writes me back right away (the only time that ever happened) and says "too bad, company policy if we already sent a link". I write back and say I asked for my refund over four hours before you sent the link. He writes back again and say "OK, then you should be ok. The owner will just have to approve the refund." I ask Daniel to forward my message to the owner. No response. My hosting provider looked on my ftp site and said there was NOTHING uploaded to my server like they said there was. I never clicked on the link.
Friday 12/26 - I email again asking where is my refund. I get an autoresponder and no other response. So I email Daniel and ask him again to forward my email to Wayne who I found out is the owner. No response.
Tuesday 12/30 - I found out that BluDomain has an "F" rating on the Denver BBB website. I email BluDomain again asking for a refund at 3:50pm. I also file a complaint with PayPal.
Tuesday 12/30 @ 11:33pm - “Aundrea” responded and saying "Sorry, no refunds. You agreed to that when you purchased the site". I printed out the agreement and NO WHERE in there does it say no refunds. When I pointed that out to her she didn't respond.
Thursday 1/1/09 - I email, pointing out (once again) that I had asked for the refund over 4 hours before the link was sent. No response. I escalate my complaint with PayPal.
Friday 1/9/09 - PayPal says they do not protect buyers from 'intangible items' like a website. I email BluDomain and let them know this. Aundrea emails me back within 20 minutes with lies and inaccurate timelines tries to blame my host providers fault and calls me childish. She still refuses to refund my money or apologize for poor customer service.
She is now threatening to sue me for 'bashing' BluDomain...by what....warning other people they might get ripped off like you and me? She obviously thinks I'm either stupid or easily intimidated. I'm neither. And I hope other people will stand up too. These people have GOT to get the message that they cannot do this anymore.
I am in the same boat. How do we get organized to do this. This has to end.
ReplyDeletePatrick...I don't think that my comment got posted so I will try again...My name is Melissa and I got ripped off by bludomain as well. I filed a complaint with the BBB and it did not good. It was the first time I found out what their rating was. Wish I knew this 4 yrs ago.
ReplyDeleteI heard about your possible class action lawsuit and I want to get involved. I purchased a website with the domain name of 'bludomaincomplaints.com'. That should get some attention. With that domain, when anyone searces for bludomain complaints in the search engine, then it should come up. I have a forum on there as well. Can you supply me more info with the class action lawsuit so I can put in on the website. If not, I will find a Colorado lawyer to file one on my behalf and those out there in cyberspace that want satisfaction as well. I have had it with bludomain and their threats. They don't scare me. In fact, they should be scared of us.
I'm in. Seriously, it's the worst case of a fraudelent business that I've been involved in. I've got pages and pages of emails where most of their responses are not helpful and are rude. They owe me $160 unless I also attempt to get my money back for 2 of my 5 sites since they STILL have not gotten them live.
ReplyDeleteI too have BluDomain issues. Beware, they do change text in e-mails as well as on their order forms to attempt to make things look like it is your fault.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone organizing a suit? As to mnewco's complaint site, I went there and it says "website coming soon".
I love bludomain
ReplyDeletehave used their sites a few different times, got phone calls when requested and the help i needed
don't be a sore loser and stop crying like a baby
stop whining patrick racey
ReplyDeleteget a life...are you perfect... do you ever make mistakes?
grow up
I am trying to help a client who bought a site from them. She asked us to help her get her site up. We most likely will just have to build her one but it is sad that she now has lost $300 that she could have just applied to our bill. You know what the worst part of this is? They actually have a decent product and could have made a nice honest long term living out of this. How hard is it to send people their website once they are paid? I mean what kind of morons are they? Has anyone gone to the location where they claim to have a business? Has anyone tracked them down to see if they are really who they say they are? They wont last long, I have seen too many of these companies go down. Don't forget to file with the District Attornies office because if they are really out of country, and not really in colorado, they will know. Then you can file with the FCC and FTC and have their site shut down.
ReplyDeleteI'm working on that too. I refuse to lay down and not get what I paid for. I want all of the template files or I want a lot of money. I'm not giving up. I plan on flying to Denver to check these bloodsuckers out and file a civil suit.
DeleteDid you know that the owner is a Denver Bronco? (Harald Hasselbach and his wife is Aundrea who does the marketing) I don't get why they are ripping people off, are things that bad?
ReplyDeleteWell isn't that interesting. I don't give a crap if he's the President. But wouldn't it be interesting if someone wrote a letter the local news stations. I can see the headline news. Denver ex pro football player's online business rips people off. Steals their money and runs.
DeleteWhat TERRIBLE KARMA for the Bludomain folks. Count me in.
ReplyDeleteI purchased a website template from Bludomain.com via Paypal, and then a Domain name. I never received a website or a link or a domain name. When I requested a refund, I never heard back. Their phone number (provided by Paypal) has a detouring greeting “Your skypenumber is blocked” even though I was calling from a landline. Paypal will not cover this type of product. I filed a fraud complaint with my credit card company and was refunded $200 of the $210 I paid. Paypal has now frozen my account stating that my bank account has declined the funds transfer. I would like Bludomain to refund Paypal and unfreeze my account. I would also like to hold Bludomain accountable for Fraud and stop them from stealing money from other people. I have the option of either l. Paying Paypal 200 to be in good standing but being out 200 or 2. Being in bad standing, not being able to use Paypal which is how many of my clients pay me. or 3. Sue Bludomain and resolve the paypal dilemma. I'm ALL FOR a Class Action Lawsuit.
How is it that PHOTOBIZ.com offers the same thing, has excellent immediate customer support and is probably making tons of money and Bludomain can't seem to get it together? (I looked up PHOTOBIZ.com and they have an A+ BBB report. I had a link to my web template the SECOND I paid Photobiz.com online). For all the frustration and effort, you would think Bludomain would be interested in continuing to make money off of repeat customers and long term hosting. They have such an opportunity and have just trashed it, hurt many people and now they have to be ashamed and in hiding. Such a waste of a good potential thing. Those juvenile posts on this blog about 'don't cry like a baby' were most likely posted by none other than Bludoman using immature humiliation tactics to shut us up. Very silly.
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ReplyDeleteget used to it. blu are rip off artists. google it next time.
ReplyDeleteI purchased a website, domain name and hosting with this company and I am already regretting it. It's been 3 WEEKS since the purchase and I have yet to get access to FTP, I was given the wrong template (Maxie instead of Mika) and there has been NO response to my ticket or e-mails sent. I'm very frustrated, because I, like so many others, am depending on this website to launch a business and $115 is A LOT of money for a student.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOK, looks like I jumped the gun yesterday. After posting the comment above, I received the blessed e-mail from Blu with the Go Live information and my site is now up and running.
ReplyDeleteStill not thrilled with the (lack of) customer service and the fact that they ignored my e-mails and tickets for 3 days, but at least I have a working site.
I also have to question any organization that cannot be reached by phone. The phone number listed on the whois lookup for Blu does not work, so this is definitely a red flag...
Hi Patrick,
ReplyDelete(Oops -- I posted this as a comment on another entry before seeing your instructions to post here, so I'm re-posting.)
Bludomain ripped me off for $200 earlier this year. I've already filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau to no avail, and more recently filed a complaint with the Illinois States Attorney (who will address the complaint for an IL resident even if the business is elsewhere).
I would LOVE to participate in a class action lawsuit. Please contact me and keep me informed. My email address is below.
My story is longer and more complicated than most, and I have all the details and dates saved as word docs which I could send and/or abbreviate as necessary.
The short version is that a bludomain employee emailed me and said that my pre-paid year of web hosting would NOT start until I activated my site. I have the original email.
Bludomain later told me that the year of pre-paid hosting started the minute I ordered it, and in the meantime I had continued paying my previous host for the service which I never would have done if I hadn't been misinformed about when the clock started ticking on my year of bludomain service.
Aundrea acknowledged that her employee had misinformed me, but basically said it didn't matter, and she refused to honor what the employee had told me. Aundrea also contradicted herself from paragraph to paragraph, and in our BBB interactions she outright lied while contradicting her own previous claims.
Hope that made sense. As an aside, my friend who is a lawyer said I'm totally in the right, so I do believe I have a legal claim here, especially since I kept all the original emails.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to pursue this.
Thank you,
Sarah Gross
sarahroseanne@yahoo.com
Almost all you sorry folks are likely a victim of lost emails, email server issues (spam filters, downtime, etc.), all of which would be magnified due to bludomain's astonishing success catering to professional photographers. And when I say professional photographers, I'm mean TRUE professionals. Owning fancy cameras and printing some business cards up doesn't not make one a professional.
ReplyDeleteBeyond my site template I have ZERO investment in bludomain. I'm not friends with any of them and I've never even met any of them. I'd be the first to nail them if I thought they were dishonest. I'm Sicilian, and that's how we Sicilians tend to be when someone wrongs us. That being said, I can remark with 100% honesty that my tiny business dealings with them (and let's face it, a few hundred dollars is truly insignificant) have all been top-notch. I receive SO MUCH value for the money it's insane. Over the years I've had a couple of technical issues, for example when the datacenter in Texas (EV1) blew up a couple years ago it took out the webhost who blu outsources their hosting to. Apparently it took down 13% of the entire Internet! This was NOT bludomain's fault, but it appeared from the outside that it was indeed. I was soooo angry that my site was offline for days on end. I was spending over $100/day on online advertising at the time (roughly $3k/month!), and with a down site it was a completely wasted investment. And I have an *extensive* computer background, with some 20 years of hard-core professional experience under my belt. In fact (get this) I used to own and operate a web hosting company in the 90's lol. So if anyone should be understanding of the situation, I should, yet I was still super mad. You see, we're all a little selfish and unreasonable with things don't go our way and we're not making money. I can only imagine how the truly ignorant were reacting to the situation - only imagine the verbal abuse the folks at blu had to endure. But a true gentleman named 'Harold' at bludomain talked me back down to Earth patiently via email, and I ended up sticking around even after I was sure I was going to leave. I'll never forget his level of professionalism during that unfortunate time. Since then I've had a few questions and a couple minor issues, and all were addressed within a few hours - at most a day. And with a friendly attitude, I might add.
You see, even though I was mad I wasn't a complete idiot about it, as I suspect many of you are. The saying 'we catch more flies with honey than vinegar' rings so true. The folks at blu are only human, and the verbal abuse they must take over a lousy $400 sale must really wear on them over time. There are soooo many unprofessional hacks in this business of photography. Any tom dick or harry can print up cards and call themselves a professional. But there's very few who truly are.
Bottom line: several years experience with BluDomain and I not only like them, I have absolutely nothing negative to say about them. I think you are a bunch of small-potato weenies with unforgiving attitudes to match, and THAT'S why they've told you to go screw your hats, or simply ignored you. I would too. I so would.
Very truly yours,
Darren Scala
You will if you haven't already because they stab everyone in the back sooner or later.
DeleteGlad to know! For the past year, I was contemplating whether or not I should use them! Can any of you suggest another co. that I may use?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Kelly
Hi, I too have been ripped off I think. Still hoping for the best, but super bummed that I bought my website over a month ago now. it took 2 weeks just to get the template & now it has been 2 weeks that I have been ready to go live & no emails are returned. I wish I would have gone with http://www.photobiz.com/?gclid=CLKlg4CR_qMCFQo5gwodwhG0Hw
ReplyDeleteI'm another photographer that has been ripped off. Just filed a complaint with the BBB. It took days to get my site up and going on their end. I spent $150, not counting all the time and energy put into creating the site on my end. Please give me recommendations on affordable and professional web designers so I can get my site up and going again. And advice on how to give Blu Domain what they deserve.
ReplyDeleteI have been with Blu for almost 3 years now and have not once had a problem... until the last month. I decided to spend a little more money and upgrade to a nicer template. Since then I have had nothing but problems.
ReplyDeleteHalf of my customers have been unable to view my site. But, because the site is working "perfectly" for their support team they are refusing to help me. When I insisted that this was a problem and that I had 12 clients in one day tell me my site was not functioning, WADE insisted that I send him screenshots of the clients computers. Which I did and have yet to hear from him.
I am now attempting to move to another site, but trying to figure out how to keep my domain name. I am so frustrated and ready to report them to the BBB!
My site was recently parked because Blu had the wrong email address! After I sent an email to the address that they said they had, it bounced back as undeliverable. Blu and Aundrea claims that they sent 3 email for the current invoice that would have kept me current. If they wanted to offer just the simplest customer service, they could have contacted via my website, which the way I make money and run my business.
ReplyDeleteShe said, pay $15.00 and your site will be back up. Ok, So I send $15.00. Get an email, your site and domain are 19 days out, you need to send another $85.00 and it will be 3 days. I then responded and said, $85.00 for 1 day?
She then replied with another email saying that the recovery would be another $100.00.
I was floored.
I settled down and sent one more email after I found out that my domain had been sold on Feb 13, 2013 to a company in Japan. I kindly ask, if I pay $85.00 I will have my domain and site back up and running.? Aundrea's answer:Yes
Yesterday, I received this email:
Duane -- I am told this morning your domain is past 76 day due and the domain went back into the public pool and someone else had it on back-order.
Are you sure that is not you. If not then your domain has been secured by someone else.
Sincerely,
Aundrea
I will refund your $85.00
I now do not have my website and the way that I connect to my customers.
Where is the sign up sheet for the lawsuit?
Duane I have had the exact same problem with Aundrea since Jan 2013 and I decided to email her again today and she repleied again with her famous reply that there is nothing she can do. Have you had any luck with any other measure? I am so frustrated and my business is suffering. Ugh the more and more I read on line we are not the only ones with the same problem. I never recieved any invoices from them!!!!
ReplyDeleteDuane, this is about what happened to me except I received no invoice. Now I need to repurchase MY domain name from godaddy.com for $700. They are more than happy to sell me another domain name...what? All of my marketing material has this one on it. Did you resolve?
ReplyDeleteThis blog is really informative; I have gone through all the posts. Keep it up.
ReplyDeleteBlu Phones Pictures
paid both my 100.00 yrly fee & my domain fee of 15.00. EARLY. yet my domain managed to expire !>?!? i have left numerous vm's on andreas phone...left a note on their FB page....my FB page....& now will file a complaint with the BBB in phx & co. as well as contact a lawyer to sue them.
ReplyDeleteI just started working with a company to do SEO on my site. They informed me that my Bludomain site is USELESS because only the splash page is visible to search engines. WHAT??? I switched to the Mason HTML site SPECIFICALLY for better SEO!! The SEO company says I need to get a new site to do a rebuild. SERIOUSLY?? Waiting to hear back from Bludomain. There service up to now has been subpar AT BEST!
ReplyDeleteCount me in on this lawsuit....I've been duped out of $200!!! I filed a clain with PayPal...lets see what happens...
ReplyDeleteI filed 2 complaints with the bb. Ill just copy and paste my review I left on yelp:
ReplyDeleteDo not do business with them.. they are a scam. They have an F rating with the better business bureau and there is an article from the better business bureau warning people not to do business with them. They need to be shut down!
Unprofessional business, terrible customer service, money hungry people that cannot keep track of their invoices, customers info, or who they have business with. I have asked for refunds over and over again and this business refuses. I asked what I paid into build my website to be refunded to me, because they deleted my work and all traces of it, so the product i paid for didnt exist... they refused and said there was nothing they could do and would not refund me and actually asked me to spend more money to get my site back up. They are money hungry and will delete your website if your a little late on yearly dues/fees owed or if you have issues that they don't feel like dealing with. If there is any issues with invoices not be sent they will deny it and blame the customer. I had yearly dues not paid and had no idea because they forgot to send the invoice. Then I got penalized for their mistake, told it was my fault and they shut down my website. When I gladly paid it as soon as I found out about dues owed I had to wait days for my website to be back up. They would not offer the fees to be waived even though it was a mistake on their end. They would randomly change my login to get into my admin page to update my site.. so sometimes I had no idea how to even get into my site or update it. They make you go to a whole different web address and log in to update your site, upload pictures etc. Its insanely glitchy and slow and not user friendly. They also would change the url randomly so i would always get some error code that the site does not exist and i couldn't log in... to a website I was paying to use.. which i could not use. There websites are not mobile friendly and they make you pay more if you want that... yes pay more.. in a era where everyone uses their smartphone to view sites they want the standard to be desktop first. In the end I ended up having my site back online working really hard to update it, only to lost it all in 2018. There servers crashed and they lost all their customers websites. They had no back ups of the sites or customers sites or customers drafts or anything that could have been saved. I lost everything. I had no site, no drafts, no back ups or even customer service to help get me answers. They once again asked me for money and told me I can buy another template and start over again.. from scratch. They were very unprofessional about handling this and got very hostile about the fact that they made a mistake and took it out the customer asking me to pay for more services due to there mistake. I eventually moved all my website business elsewhere and even moved my hosting elsewhere so I had no more business or monetary ties with them. And today I received an invoice for hosting fees. I terminated my hosting with them a year ago and they are still trying to get money out of me. I tried to call the number listed on the invoice for customer service and the voicemail was full.. I couldn't even leave a message. This business is a joke and there level of unprofessionalism is insane. Do not do business with them... they will not take care of you as a customer and just care about money. When I messaged the company about the new charges for something I don't owe I told them I have not hosted with them for over a year and my domain is being hosted elsewhere. They replied that they will just delete my domain and put it back in public pool...And the kicker is the person who replied, Aundrea, would rather delete someones site and domain first before looking into anything. I host with a totally different service now and have no idea how she thinks i am still her customer. I hope this place goes out of business soon and people stop giving money to this incompetent business