Verizon Web Hosting, Verizon SuperPages Web Hosting, Verizon Online,

Before we get into the detail of actual events, let us present a hypothetical example for you to consider. 

Let us say, every morning you go to work.  You go to work in the same city, arrive at the same building and into your office.  You have done that every day including weekends seven days a week for 8 years.  You also pay $295 in rent every month to have that office be there for you each day.  You have paid this $295 per month, uninterrupted, month after month, for the eight years to a company who manages your office and owns the building it is in.   

Then one morning, when you arrive at your work location, it is not just that your office is missing, but the whole building is absolutely gone.  Nowhere to be found!   

Worse yet, not one person knows seems to know where your building is (and there are 70 plus people you speak with)!  In fact, no one you speak with, has any recollection of your building ever being there at all.   To make matters even worse, when you speak to that company, who you have been paying $295 month after month for eight years, not only do they not know where your office is, but they also have zero recollection as to who you are (despite receiving your $295.00 every month for eight years)?    

"We never stop working for you!"   &   "we know around here"

OR

• From 1999 to August of 2006, RDcom paid $295 every month uninterrupted to Verizon Web Hosting
• (Added 04/24/07) to add insult to injury, the company STILL is taking the $295 per month as recently as 04/22/07.  Despite numerous phone calls every month, we cannot get Verizon Online to stop taking the $295 from our account.  The site has been inactive on ANY Verizon server since 08/23/06, yet they STILL keep taking the money, despite professing initially they did not know who we are?????
• From late 1999 to the morning of 08/23/06 the RDcom web site ran perfectly on the Verio Corporation Florida servers.
• Over the years, RDcom management went to bed each night with a feeling of safety, security because of the advertised daily back up procedures published by both Verio Corporation and Verizon Web Hosting.  Every night the RDcom web site was backed up on tape.  That way if anything ever happened to the web site, RDcom would always have a complete copy of the web site from the day before (plus a month back of all backup tapes)

• Was comprised of 1,627 HTML pages
• Was receiving an ever increasing average of 1,100 plus daily unique hit visitors
• Was comprised of 1,627 HTML pages
• Was populated with 4,590 individual .GIF formatted images (created by taking digital images of finished jewelry as it shipped to customers or images created in Adobe Photoshop for consumer education purposes
• Had Goggle reporting 12,600 other web pages linked to the site from other sites

• #1 platinum diamond engagement rings
• #2 platinum engagement rings
• #9 gold engagement rings
• #5 diamond engagement rings
• #10 engagement rings (first page holy grain for the category).
• #1 understanding diamonds
• And many more

• Unknown to RDcom, Verizon web hosting purchased a company called SuperPages.  SuperPages already was a web site hosting company.  So it made good business sense that Verizon Web Hosting have all their customer’s web sites running on web site hosting servers physically located at a SuperPages facility.  Why pay outside companies like Verio Corporation, for something, your newly acquired company SuperPages, can do.
• In 20-20 hindsight we learned, Verizon web hosting began a program to alert their web site hosted customers of the change to SuperPages.  Customers were allegedly alerted, there would be a planned systematic “migration” of their web sites from the Verio Corporation servers over to the new SuperPages servers.  That migration took place over several months prior to 8/23/06.  The migration consisted of physically moving their customer’s web sites from the Verio computers to Verizon/SuperPages computers
  • Allegedly e-mails were sent out to the Verizon web hosting customers, so they could make the appropriate Internet changes required from the customer’s end.
  • Unfortunately, not ONE communication (no e-mail/phone call/letter) was sent to RDcom regarding the “migration” of the RDcom web site.
  • So no administrative, Internet or back up changes were made, or anticipate.  Everything was working well on the RDcom web site, we thought!

Six hours later, the RDcom web site was not functioning, in fact, the RD com web site was absolutely gone from access via the Internet The RDcom web site just was not there!  The RDcom web site was not just “off-line”, it had actually 100% disappeared.  At that moment here are some of the things occurring:

•  All potential customers would get a white screen on their monitor, if they clicked on RDcom using a search engine like Google.

• All actual customers e-mails addressed to ANY e-mail address that ended in “@ringdesigner.com” would bounce back as non-deliverable.

• Any e-mails from suppliers of diamonds, metals, mountings, utilities, banks, insurance companies, leasing companies etc would bounce back as non-deliverable.

• We could not send out ANY e-mail communication to anyone, even if we wanted to.  So we did not know who was e-mailing us nor could we e-mail to anyone as well.

• Bottom-line, RDcom, as an e-commerce business, was 100% dead in the water.

• We contacted as many customers as possible using our personal AOL e-mail addresses.

• We began a systemic, number by number calling of every contact number we had previously used over the eight years.
• We started with our Verizon Web Hosting contact numbers.  They had an automatic message as no longer in service.
• Since over the eight years, we had been working with Verio corporation employees (doing work for Verizon) we began speaking with them there.  For about four and a half hours, we were bounced around between 31 different Verio, SuperPages and Verizon employees.
• Speaking with Verio Florida, every conversation on August 23^rd,  was extremely unpleasant and adversarial.  In hindsight, we came to realize that the Verizon web hosting work migrating out of house, did not make the Florida Verio folks happy campers.  They had flawlessly maintained those web sites for almost ten years.  So each time we mentioned the words Verizon or SuperPages, you could feel the hair standing up on the back of their Verio necks.
• Calling immediately, and then ongoing for several weeks, RDcom was routed in a chain of communication events that no reasonable management person would ever find acceptable. 
• Bottom-line, Verizon had no record of us as a customer, despite being there since 1998.  SuperPages wanted to help, but they could not.  And Verio Corporation from Florida was totally negative.

• We have not mentioned that the e-commerce business of RingDesigner.com is the livelihood for the owners family.  So having the prospect of losing 100% of the family’s livelihood, is a serious mater.  This was not a hobby web site.  The prospect of financial collapse after almost eight years of 16/7/365 sweet and toil was almost mentally overwhelming.  
• Initially, we sent out e-mails to every Verio, Verizon and SuperPages e-mail address we could find on the Internet.  We sent to every CEOs, COOs, Legal contacts, public relations contacts etc etc that we could find.   Since we could not get help from the almost 100 first and second level contacts/techs, we figured if we could many find just one soul at a senior level, we might be able to find someone to help us.
• We got absolutely zero help from Verizon/SuperPages (even to date).
• Our first ray of hope came from a source that had little incentive to assist us.  The COO of Verio, unbeknownst to us, had his Florida faculty begin a systematic search of all the old tapes scheduled to be erased for our site.  Per him, they spent over 40 hours going over old tapes scheduled to be erased.  They found a high percentage of our site, but not 100% complete.  Remember, Verizon had pulled all this work from his company.  It should have been Verizon and SuperPages looking for our data.  Verio to their credit seemed to care for a customer, while to Verizon, you are just a number paying $295 per month uninterrupted for eight years.
• It took until 10/07/06 to be 100% functional again.  There have been hundreds of hours rebuilding links, restoring functional e-mail, re-installing secure encryption VeriSign SSL technology for privacy data, totally rebuilding and reinstalling inventory and shopping cart functionality and much much more.    
• Of course, we rebuilt the site on a Verio server, not a Verizon server.  Verio in our opinion still has some culpability, but at least they cared to help.

• Up until 08/23/06 we pride ourselves on quality of product and customer service. 
• In the time period between 08/23/06 and 09/28/06, we cannot have any pride what-so-ever in our customer service
• Even though we could say most everything was out of our control, we were overwhelmed trying to explain to our customers what the heck was going on.   They had trusted us, and we were letting them down.  We spent many nights staring at the ceiling wondering could we survive this. 
• Early on we retained a law firm to help us recover damages.  And the damages are substantial.  That is ongoing now.  Let us hope Verizon decides to do the ethical and right thing.
• We have been attempting to contact every one of our customers by phone or e-mail.  It is a monumental task.  We are working with each customer as to what we can do.  This process is still on-going.
• Many are angry and we do not blame them.  Even with the story told above, we are taking responsibility for the orders.

• From founding of the company in 1998 up to the day of 08/23/06, RingDesigner.com did not have ONE BBB complaint.  Because of Verizon, we now have many.  Consequently, because of loosing our physical web site, Verizon directly caused us to loose our long standing good reputation BBB certification in March of 2007
• Because of Verizon, we lost our long standing merchant account with our Main bank.  This caused a complete collapse of being able to process orders (which is ongoing today).

If you'd like to discuss this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me at the number below.

Thanks.
Tom

Thomas M. Dailey
General Counsel
Verizon Online,
1880 Campus Commons Drive
Reston, VA 20191
Ph: 703.295.4285
Fax: 703.295.4238
email: thomas.m.dailey@verizon.com
 

Still not finished

The following document is not meant to be an official 100% recap of the Verizon situation.  Originally this document was created 12/05/06 to explain the situation of what happened, to the Oregon Attorney General’s office.

Since that time, I have added items, updated items etc to the document.  To tell the story succinctly, the attached should be rewritten (for example there are redundant passages and facts that need to be solidified).  But for now, the attached tells this story well enough to have the reader understand what happened on August 23, 2006 and after, that has financially devastated a family business and our family.  

Our family’s daily struggle was already very difficult, even without what Verizon did to us.   My wife Patti has had a 2.5 year fight with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (starting in March 2005 and continues to date). That story can be viewed via these Internet links:

http://www.ringdesigner.com/Pages/Founders.htm#PinkRibbon100953  

http://www.ringdesigner.com/Patti/patti-updates.htm  

Thank you for taking time to review the attached, 

Greg Gates 

Summary

Verizon Online, Verizon Web Hosting and Verizon SuperPages use the following phrases repeatedly in their advertising:

·         We never stop working for you!" and

·         "We Know You Around Here" 

We had complete confidence in Verizon Web Hosting.  We would have gladly agreed would have agreed with those advertising phrases.  Since we depended upon the e-commerce web site for our family’s livelihood, w could sleep well each night, Knowing our web site was being watched over and backed up by a world class organization .   But that confidence dissolved 100% abruptly on the morning of August 23^rd, 2006.   On that day, Verizon not only LOST (that is correct “lost”), but  NEVER FOUND, our large e-commerce web site www.ringdesigner.com.   [we will use RDcom for short in the rest of this document] Lost after physically hosting our e-commerce web site on their Verizon web hosting servers for almost 7 years. 

Damages

·         The financial damages are continuing to mount.  If Verizon or Verizon/SuperPages would have done as we requested both verbally and in writing on 08/23/06, we would not be submitting this document and the damages would have been minimal.  The financial losses and the repercussions suffered by Verizon and Verizon/SuperPages’ actions (or lack of) has our e-commerce business on the brink and our family livelihood at risk.  Worse than the damages to our current customers, is the professional black eye suffered and continuing to be suffered, because of Verizon and Verizon/SuperPages.  Unfortunately our words fell and continue to fall on deft ears.  It is truly a situation of a David (us) verses a Goliath (Verizon and Verizon/SuperPages).  They have chosen to sit back and let us financially drown in the repercussions of a situation they could have easily avoided!

o    At this writing, we have about $250,000 in actual financial damages, not counting lost potential revenue to date, lost income to date, lost future revenue and lost income to the family business

o    At this writing, it is hard to measure the actual harm/tarnishing done to the business name and my personal name, with our customers, with our potential customers, with the BBB, and with the Oregon Attorney General’s Office (there are 5 customers we have not been able to refund.  In Oregon if not refunded in 30 days, that is understandably, against the Oregonian law).

·         It took until 10/07/06 to be 100% functional again.  There have been hundreds of hours rebuilding links, restoring functional e-mail, re-installing secure encryption VeriSign SSL technology for privacy data, totally rebuilding and reinstalling the inventory and shopping cart functionality and much much more.    And during all those hours, there was zero opportunity to savage/communicate to current orders or potential orders. 

Background from the launch of our web site to 082306

In 1999/2000, answering an add from Verizon Web Hosting, RingDesigner.com, Inc. created and lunched their e-commerce web site (www.ringdesigner.com).  At first, RDcom did not realize that Verizon Web Hosting, sub contracted to an outside third party company, to handle daily customer service, as well as to physically maintain and operate Verizon’s actual “computer server” hardware.  It was at this third party, located in Florida, where our e-commerce web site had been physically running and operating from inception up to 08/23/06 (a web site hosting computer server is a fancy name for a PC with a lot of hard disk space, hooked up to the Internet with a very fast downloading connection).   Our web hosting server (located in Florida) was operated and maintained by a computer service company, Verio Corporation.    In Web Hosting business circles, Verio Corporation is a highly respected international company, known for its world class expertise in hosting web sites with total security and back up of mission critical customer data.

·         RDcom paid every month since 2001 $295.00 for uninterrupted web hosting service to Verizon (Verio doing the work). 

·         From the launch of the web site for our e-commerce business until the exact morning of 08/23/06, the RDcom web site ran perfectly on the Verizon web hosting servers (at Verio in Florida).

·         Over the years, we went to bed each night with a feeling of safety, security because of the advertised daily back up procedures published by both Verio Corporation and Verizon.  Every day, the RDcom web site (and all the others hosted by Verizon) were “backed up” to a separate computer hard drive as well as backed up to a computer tape.  That way if anything ever happened to any web site, there would always be a complete copy of the web site from the day before on hard disk (plus a month back or more of the stored backup tapes)

·         RingDesigner.com web site and our e-commerce business was even featured in a VerizonOnline monthly customer publication.

What was happening at Verio and Verizon unknown to RDcom in 2006??

·         Unknown to RDcom, Verizon web hosting purchased a company called “SuperPages” (now called Verizon SuperPages).  SuperPages already was a web site hosting company.   So it made good business sense that Verizon Web Hosting consolidate  all their customer’s web sites physically with ones maintained by a SuperPages facility.  Why pay outside companies like Verio Corporation, for something, your newly acquired company SuperPages, can do.  

·         In 20-20 hindsight we learned, Verizon web hosting began a program to alert their web site hosted customers of the change moving their web sites physically to SuperPages.  Allegedly, Verizon Web Hosting customers, were alerted of a  planned systematic “physical migration” of customer’s data would occur from the Verizon web hosting servers (at Verio Corporation) over to new SuperPages web hosting servers (actually located physically in another location).  That allegedly took place over several months prior to 8/23/06.   This Verizon managed migration, consisted of physically moving the Verizon web Hosting customer web sites from the Verizon/Verio computers to Verizon/SuperPages computers.  

·          Allegedly e-mails were sent out to the Verizon web hosting customers, so they could make the appropriate Internet changes required from the customer’s end. 

·         Unfortunately, NOT ONE communication (no phone call/e-mail/or letter) was sent to or received by RDcom regarding the “migration” of the RDcom web site.

·         Therefore,  no RDcom administrative, Internet or back up changes were made, or ever anticipate.  Everything was working well as usual, on the Verizon Web Hosting server, running the RDcom web site, just like it always had!!  Or at least we thought up until the morning of August 23^rd, 2006.   Unfortunately, we were terribly wrong putting our faith in Verizon. 

August 23rd, 2006 a day we would like to forget

On Wednesday early morning 08/23/06 at 2:00 AM, the RDcom web site was running perfectly.  Since this has been a lifelong dream (running our own business), in our year, 16/7/365 is not uncommon.  Additionally, we deal with Tel Aviv for diamond purchases.  Tel Aviv is 10 hours ahead of our Pacific time.  It is not uncommon for me to be up at that late hour Pacific time.  So I am personally aware the site was up and functioning perfectly.

Six hours later, the RDcom web site was not functioning, in fact, the RD com web site was absolutely gone from being accessed via the Internet The RDcom web site just was not there!  The RDcom web site was not just “off-line”, it had actually 100% disappeared.  At that moment here are some of the physical situations  occurring:

·         Any potential customer trying to access the RDcom web site entering www.ringdesigner.com, would view a white screen on their monitor

·         Any potential customer utilizing a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN if they clicked on RDcom link, would view a white screen on their monitor

·         Since the RDcom customer service e-mail is physically maintained on the same Verizon web hosting server, all RDcom current customers e-mails, addressed to ANY e-mail address that ended in “@ringdesigner.com” would bounce back as “non-deliverable” and does not exist.

·         Any e-mails from suppliers of diamonds, suppliers of precious metals, rings/mountings, advertisers, utilities, banks, insurance companies, leasing companies etc would ALL bounce back as non-deliverable.

·         From RDcom we could not send out ANY e-mail communication to anyone, even if we wanted to. 

·         So we did not know who was e-mailing to us nor could we e-mail to anyone as well.

·         Bottom-line, RDcom, as an e-commerce business, appeared on PC monitors, via the Internet, as 100% dead in the water and completely gone.

What we did immediately

Contact via  phone:

·         We began a systematic, number by number calling, of every Verizon Web Hosting phone contact number we had ever previously used over the years.

·         We started with our Verizon Web Hosting contact numbers.  They had an automatic message stating the number was no longer in service.  It had worked the exact day before for a separate call by us to them.

·         Since over the years, we had been made aware that Verizon Web Hosting was actually subcontracted to Verio corporation, we began calling Verio as well at the Florida Verio facility where the web hosting severs were physically located.   

·         For about four and a half hours, we were bounced around between 31 different Verio, SuperPages and Verizon employees.

·         Speaking with Verio Florida, every conversation on August 23rd, was extremely unpleasant and adversarial.  In hindsight, we later came to realize that the Verizon web hosting work migrating out of house, did not make the Florida Verio folks happy campers.  From a customer’s viewpoint, Verio had flawlessly maintained the Verizon web hosting web sites for years and years.   On that day 08/23/07, during every phone conversation with Verio, each time we mentioned either the words “Verizon” or “SuperPages”, you could almost feel the hair standing up on the back of their not happy about it Verio necks. 

·         Calling immediately on the 23^rd and then ongoing EVERY DAY for several weeks, we were routed in a chain of phone communication events that no reasonable management person would ever find acceptable.

·         Bottom-line, on 08/23/06, Verizon/Verizon SuperPages had no record of us as a customer, despite our e-commerce web site being housed on their web physical hosting servers since our launch in 1999/2000, plus doing business every day since our launch .  

·         And by the end of a second day of 6 hour on the line calling, Verizon web hosting and SuperPages said there was NOTHING they could do for us. 

·         By the way, in our phone conversations the first day, on the 23^rd , with Verizon web hosting and SuperPages contacts, each person stated there was “nothing they could do for us”.  Worst yet, they 100% refused or said they could not raise our problem up to their management.  In fact after refusing to do so, when I then asked a “Carol” of SuperPages for her last name, she hung up on me.  I hope Verizon can find recorded conversations.  From minute one, due to my experience in managing call centers, I took for granted that 100% of all my conversations were recorded.  Therefore, I was conscious of my tone and language even as frustrated and angry as I was getting,   I may have been forceful, but never crossed the line.

·         Initially, we thought  (and told Verizon and Verizon SuperPages repeatedly), our web site data might still be on the actual PC web hosting server where it had up to 082306.  

·         We asked repeatedly, if our web site data was still physically housed on that actual PC server, why couldn’t someone go check?    We were told the servers were packed securely in boxes, as per Verizon’s contractual instructions to do so once taken off line, and the boxed up web site hosting servers, were physically being transported by truck to the new Verizon SuperPages location. 

·         We asked, “couldn’t someone check when the boxes arrive at the new Verizon SuperPages location?”  No one ever answered.

• By retrieving 100% of our web site data, from Verizon and Verizon SuperPages, in those first few days, we could have re-launched our web site immediately (and suffered minimal loss).

Contact in writing:

·         Starting 082306, and continuing for a period of about a month,  we sent out “shotgun” mass group e-mails to every and any Verizon, SuperPages and Verio perceived significant management e-mail address we could find on the Internet. Verizon has 100% of all those e-mails.    We sent our mass e-mails “pleading” for help to any and every CEO, COO, Legal contact, media contact, public relations contact (and more) that we could find.    Since we could not get help from the almost 100 first and second level contacts/techs, we figured if we could many find just one soul at a senior level, we might be able to find someone willing to help us.

·         We got absolutely zero help from all levels of Verizon/SuperPages (even to date).

·         After hiring a council in November 2006, he even tried to contact the General Council of Verizon Online with no success.  Our lawyer found out, like us, he is a small fish in the Verizon perceived ocean of concern.  The General Counsel mentioned above was:

o    Thomas M. Dailey, General Counsel
Verizon Online
1880 Campus Commons Drive
Reston, VA 20191
Ph: 703.295.4285
Fax: 703.295.4238
email: thomas.m.dailey@verizon.com

·         From the mass e-mails over the next four weeks, came our first ray of hope.  Surprisingly we received help from a source, that had absolutely no incentive to assist us. 

·         The COO of Verio who had been added to the mass e-mail list, unbeknownst to us, had his Florida faculty personnel begin a systematic search of old backup tapes scheduled to be erased/destroyed.  They searched for any reminisce of our web site data, before permanently erasing all those backup tapes.    

·         Remember, Verizon had pulled all this work from his company (Verio).  It should have been Verizon and Verizon SuperPages searching for our web site data.  Verio, to their credit, seemed to care for a customer in trouble, even if it was no longer their customer.   While to Verizon, you are just a number paying for service every month for years.

• Per Verio, they spent a hundred hours going over old tapes scheduled to be erased.  By this process, they found “pieces” of our data for our web site, but it was incomplete and heavily damaged (so we could not just put the site back up as it was on 082206). 

Recap

The result of Verizon’s lack of effort has cost us greatly negatively both financially and negatively to our reputation.  In e-commerce you cannot have a negative reputation dealing on the Internet. 

·         Bottom-line, on 08/23/06, Verizon/Verizon SuperPages had no record of us as a customer, despite our e-commerce web site being housed on their web physical hosting servers since our launch in 1999/2000, plus doing business every day since our launch . 

o    (added/revised 06/17/07) Verizon had been taking $295.00 EVERY month out of our bank accounts, like clockwork, since the launching of our e-commerce web site 1999/2000.  The $295 was deducted month after month after month, right up until (get ready for this) April 2007, when we finally financially had to say stop! 

o    We actually wanted to not say stop, just to see how long VerizonOnline would keep taking our monthly $295 (while saying we were never a customer).   Our personal guess, monthly, VerizonOnline would have taken our $295 out of our bank account forever.  

o    Due to our growing family financial distress resulting from VerizonOnline, the automatically being deducted amount of $295.00 per month, is critically required for the support of our family!

o    In April 2007, we contacted Wells Fargo Bank.  We communicated to Wells Fargo, the $295 monthly charge was not valid.  We would like the VerizonOnline changes reversed from 08/23/06 to present.

o    Wells Fargo Bank transacted a credit card “charge back” of $1,180.00 against VerizonOnline.  The amount of monthly $295 deductions, from 08/23/06 to April 2007, totals more than $1,180.00.  Federal regulations allow disputed credit card transactions recoverable for ONLY 90 or 120 days back.  So $1,180.00 was the most we could hope to recover as of April 2007.

•    Please remember:

  •   the $1,180.00 dollar figure for a future reference later in this document. Very important!

  •   from 08/23/06, up to and including April 2007, our e-commerce web site WAS NOT physically resident on ANY Verizon web hosting server anywhere on this planet.  Yet after 08/23/06, we were being charged $295/month. 

  •   if we would not have said “stop”, we strongly feel the monthly $295 would have been deducted forever from our accounts.

  •   on 08/23/06, we were repeatedly empathically told by Verizon/Verizon SuperPages, they had no record of us as a customer, despite our doing business every day since 1999/2000, on our e-commerce web site, being hosted on their Verizon physical web hosting servers.

RDcom numbers and facts (Added 05/17/07) 

As of 08/22/06 the RDcom web site and business:

• Historically 70% of all jewelry annual sales occur between September 1^st and December 31^st.
• The web site itself
  • Was comprised of 1,627 HTML pages
  • Was receiving an ever increasing average of 1,100 plus daily unique hit visitors
  • Populated with 4,590 individual .GIF formatted images (created by taking digital images of finished jewelry as it shipped to customers or images created in Adobe Photoshop for consumer education purposes.
  • Goggle reported 12,600 other web pages linked to the site from other sites
  • SEO work performed in mid late 2005, resulted in key phrase Google rankings of:
    • #1 platinum diamond engagement rings
    • #2 platinum engagement rings
    • #9 gold engagement rings
    • #5 diamond engagement rings
    • #10 engagement rings (first page holy grain for the category).
    • #1 understanding diamonds
    • And many more
• As of 082206 we did not have ONE valid BBB complaint or regulatory complaint.
• As of 082206 we had had ONLY 5 valid credit card charge backs from 1999 from  our merchant bank (Key Bank) out of probably, 5,000 credit card transactions!
• RDcom sales historically and conservatively estimated
  • 2000     $210,902
  • 2001     $694,746
  • 2002     $822,320
  • 2003     $634,915
  • 2004     $669,367
  • 2005     $845,936
  • 2006     $950,000 est (70% would have come AFTER 08/23/06)
  • 2007     $1,300,000 est (this dream went down in flames on 08/23/06)

From 08/23/06 to 06/12/07 the RDcom web site and business:

• We cannot afford to pay Verio (at this minute) to keep the web site operational
  • (060507 added) Some temporary good news.  We e-mailed Verio’s COO last week (who was the only good guy in the first two months).  We asked him for assistance in keeping our web site up and running (had been shut off for nonpayment) .  He graciously has put it back up for a bit.
  • We are not taking orders, but the web site could be up to be viewed.  Anyone viewing the web site can see the complexity and mega size of our e-commerce effort built from 1999 to 082306.  We invite all to take 10 minutes on www.ringdesigner.com and view/navigate the web site.  It was 100% hand built by me (Greg Gates) using Microsoft FrontPage, with zero outside assistance.   The Consumer Education pages on Understanding Diamonds were written by me and the graphics designed by me.  The goal was to be just that, understandable (and not to be written like descriptions of brain surgery or nuclear fission!  And we think we did it!
  • http://www.ringdesigner.com/Pages/Understanding_Diamonds.htm
• We have multiple BBB complaints
• We have lost our hard to earn BBB approved business status
• We have lost our ability to process credit cards as we lost our merchant bank and can’t get another without significant offsetting collateral on file
• We have lots of valid charge backs.
• We JUST fought off foreclosure of our home scheduled for May 17^th, 2007
• We are in the fight again to fight off foreclosure for June, 2007.
• We have 5 customers who have filed valid complaints, (for non-refund of their orders in the 30 day timeframe by law) with the Oregon Attorney General’s Office.  The total committed is about $18,000
  • Patti and I could face personal prosecution for these.
  • We are in the midst of attempting to refinance our home to use equity to pay EACH of these cases their refund plus by June 30^th, 2007.  While in a pending foreclosure status, no lender would speak with us.  Now they are starting to now.
  • We have committed to the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, if we have to sell our family home to pay these people back, than we will.
  • If they do prosecute, it may ultimately end up a good thing, as we might be able, (via the major broadcast, Internet and print media), to bring to the public’s attention to all of Verizon’s wrong doing that the Oregon Attorney General’s Office cannot/will not assist us with.
  • But with Patti’s potentially worsening cancer, the extreme stress of prosecution is something that surely would not help her condition or mental state.
  • Let’s hope the Oregon Attorney General’s Office is more human than that.
• Our family business may be unrecoverable from financial ruin.  And it was just taking off in 2006!
• We have about $250,000 to $300,000 (to date) in actual hard damages.
• The financial lost potential is in the millions
• Our family may end up in financial ruin.
• And to add insult to injury, systematically, up until April 2007, Verizon took $295 each month for web site hosting services, out of our account, for a web site that is nonexistent on ANY of their physical web hosting servers (since 08/23/06).
• Our initial lawyers are not willing to stand up to Verizon without significant dollars, which we do not have.  I also don’t think any of them has the (you know what’s) to stand up to a giant like Verizon.  We had in 1999 and 2001, a terrific kick ass/take no prisoners lawyer from Ater Wynne in Portland, but he had to remove himself from consideration, right from the get go in 2006, as his firm handles Verizon as a client.  He would have made Verizon sweat!  In hindsight, the lawyers we used would not consider contingency, did not know any Internet/e-commerce law, and did not have the means or fortitude to stand up to Verizon.
• We are seeking a lawyer who is willing to stand up to Verizon for potentially ruining our family business,  ruining our family as well as our lives.
• (060507) If anyone knows of a kick ass law firm, let us know.  We last week actually e-mailed Erin Brockovich at www.bockovich.com.  Who knows maybe she still helps little desperate Davids’ (like us) in the Goliath fights against Fortune 100 companies?   As of 062707 no response.

Communication from VerizonOnline Termination of Internet Services for Nonpayment (061007)

• This would almost be funny, if it was not for VerizonOnline financially ruining our family business and our family.
• Previously in this document, we documented, that we had asked Wells Fargo to credit our account via their credit card charge back recovery system?  The amount to be reversed and credited to our account was exactly $1,180.00.
• On June 9^th, we received a first class USPS letter from VerizonOnline.   An Adobe Acrobat PDF copy of that letter is attached for review.
  • Verizon’s letter threatens termination of our VerizonOnline service, unless (get ready for this) a payment of $1,180.00 is received within 10 days from generation of their letter (generated on 06/04/07).  
  • On June 12^th I personally called the number specified on the letter (888-649-9500).  Verizon cannot tell us what the $1,180.00 payment is for?
• So to review/clarify the situation in a few bullet points:
  • Since 1999/2000, we had been conducting daily e-commerce business on a Verizon web hosting server located in Florida.
  • Since 1999/2000, we were charged a monthly fee by Verizon for web hosting services.
  • On 08/23/06 our successful e-commerce web site disappeared from the Internet.
  • On 08/23/06 Verizon, VerizonOnline and Verizon SuperPages ALL emphatically told us, they had no record of us as a customer.
  • From 08/23/06 to April 2007, Verizon continued to deduct monthly $295 for services from our Wells Fargo bank account.
  • In April 2007 we asked Wells Fargo to charge back as much as possible.
  • Wells Fargo transacted a deduction of $1,180.00 against Verizon giving us credit of that amount.
  • On June 9^th, 2007 we receive an official letter from Verizon.  The letter states UNLESS we send them $1,180.00 by June 14^th, they will terminate our services.
  • On June 12^th, Verizon cannot tell us what the $1,180.00 payment is for.
  • As we said above, if this was not so painful, it would almost be funny