Hey Guys,
I?m not sure whether this guy is a scammer or just extremely incompetent, either way I wanted to post of my experiences with him.
Surprisingly, marlboroack AKA Brandon Ackerman is a poster at GFY with >6600 posts to his name
I was looking to get some banners, landing pages and email templates done and found marlboroack/Brandon thru? this forum and hit him up on Skype.
We agree a price of $350 for 5 banners, 2 x ?responsive? landing pages and an email template
Rather than pay the whole project up front he agreed to do small project of just the banners for $50 so I could see the service he provided.
Here is a day-by-day list of my interactions over the last 6 weeks or so.....
Quote:
13th Aug - Sent $50 to marlboroack [he persuaded me to send funds as personal payment on PayPal to avoid fees]
18th-19th Aug ? Spec and related images sent to marlboroack
22nd Aug ? 2 banners created and sent to me
23rd Aug ? Sent $300 and full spec for remaining banners, Landing Pages and Email template to marlboroack
26th Aug ? ask for update, was told that the designer was working on my order but then asked me to send spec again 
28th Aug ? ask for update and told wouldn?t be ready till 5th Sept due to the landing pages being responsive ? expressed I wasn?t happy with delay and he said it would probably be earlier but 5th Sept at latest
28th Aug ? I asked question on Skypere the designs ? no response
3rd Sept ? 3 remaining banners received
5th Sept ? Delivery due date for landing pages - nothing received
8th Sept ? Ask for update - no response
9th Sept - Ask for update - no response
10th Sept ? Finally a response saying I will have one design by end day and other ones by coming weekend
11th Sept ? Ask for update - no response
12th Sept ? Sent him email explaining that I needed content for my project launch on Friday 19th September ? no response
13th Sept ? Third deadline missed with no contact
16th Sept ? Fed-up with no response - so I call him ? when he hears who I am he puts phone down
16th Sept ? Phone call spurs him into action and later that day he sends me a zip file containing some design files - HOWEVER there was only one landing page ? which not only was not responsive it has three important sections missing
16th Sept ? Sent him email explaining what was missing and that I no longer felt I could work with him and asked for a refund of $225 (which seemed fair) ? no response
18th Sept ? Sent him an email asking for update ? no response
19th Sept ? Messaged him on Skype ? asking if he got my emails ? he claimed he hadn?t seen them as he had been without internet connection for 3 days
19th Sept ? He added me to joint conversation with his designer with the instruction to get things sorted - but by this time I had had enough, lost all faith in him and really didn?t want anything else to do with him
20th Sept ? Long Skype message sent to him explaining that as he had screwed up over and over again I wanted to cancel project and get a part refund (per my email of 16th ? no response
23rd Sept ? Skype message sent - no response
25th Sept - Skype message sent - no response
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All in all a very frustrating experience from someone who boasted ?I also own more porn than anyone in USA? and ?I'm running 2 studios with 20+ designers each? which if true is somewhat surprising that he would go three days without reading his emails.
I certainly blame myself for paying the full amount up front, not having a proper contract with built-in penalties for late delivery and paying via a method that was recoverable.
I would also add that up to maybe the last email and Skype messages I was nothing but polite and business-like in all my communications with him.
In return all I seem to get back was a lack of respect, a terrible service and virtually no response to my emails, Skype messages and phone calls. It seems that providing a good service wasn't at all important and the fact I missed my important deadlines made no difference to him as he had my money and knew that there was no way I could get it back.
So all in all a sorry tale and it looks like I have spent $350 and all I got in return was 5 banners and 1 completely useless landing page design not to mention 5-6 weeks of stress and the fact he made me missed my launch date.
I was amused to see a post on this forum [1144074] from him back in June in which he was complaining about being scammed out of $300 ? quite ironic seeing as a few months later he would quite willing to do the same thing to me. Whilst I cannot "file a police report to take this mother fucker down" the least I can do is to post on the forum where he touts for business and let people know the way he treats his "customers"