Johnux.com

I would normally not do such a thing, but this company that has been harassing me is just outrageous and it blows my mind to see that they are still in business. Below I’m going to list my story and complaint, as well as those of others that I’m seeing online about how negative peoples experiences are with this company.

Another thing is, the only positive reviews for this business that I have seen look very suspicious and me as well as other people read them with a grain of salt because they all look like they were probably written by Bench Craft Co. and others have written so on these reviews. One reviewer looked up a business that was listed on the review and learned that it was a fake business planted there by “someone”.

My comment: Bench Craft Co. cold calls businesses and says that they are affiliated with your local golf courses, regardless of whether or not it is true.

The first time they called me they said they were calling on behalf of River Oaks golf course, they fed me statistics about how many visitors the course has, and what kind of advertising they could provide me through their score cards. Before I made any decisions or gave these people any type of payment or data I went in to ask the owner of the golf course how legitimate this is. He told me that they are a BS company and that doing business with them is a waste of time and money because they collect funds from advertising companies and then send the cards to the businesses without any incentive for them.

In short, they charge for advertising that never gets put into use!

I called bench craft, who after I expressed the SLIGHTEST interest in, called me CONSTANTLY trying to collect a payment from me when I wasn’t entitled to give them anything. I explained what I learned from the owner of the Course and I was told by Bench Craft Co. that the owner of the course was required to use the cards they provided and that I was required to send them a payment because they have a legally authorized contract with me, which they DID NOT. They threatened taking legal action against me for not paying them for a service that they are incapable of providing, and they lied and tried to coerce me into their hasty collection process. This company tries to collect money from businesses through lies and intimidation and it did not fly with me. I told him to go ahead and do whatever he could to try to take legal action against me, but they really have nothing going, they lie.

After becoming infuriated by their rep, I didn’t hear from them for over a month. Then I receive another cold call from one of their sales rep calling to say he was reaching me on behalf of a different local golf course. I asked him where they were located and, well, he was from Bench Craft Co. I told him nicely that I’ve had very negative experiences with others in his company and that I would like it for Bench Craft Co. to keep a note that they need to NEVER call me again. This salesman was nice.

About another month goes by and this morning I miss a call from a 1-800 number. They leave me a message saying that they are calling from another local golf course but stating that they need a call back from me to discuss things like they need my help with something. I run a web design business, how was I to know it wasn’t the actual Creekside golf course. I called the 1-800 number back, and received Bench Craft Co.’s receptionist. I told her that she needs to make a note that I hate Bench Craft Co. and that I have requested before that they never call me. She asked me for my customer number with Bench Craft, which hopefully I don’t have. She took down my information while laughing at me the whole time we were on the phone.

This is just an extremely rude company who has no control over the businesses they advertise for, are rude, overly persistant, and they lie. If they call you, ignore them and tell them to never call you again.

From Google & Yellowbot:

Thieves, racists and sexists and…..

http://www.clark.wa.gov/sheriff/commu…

Their VP! He hires more guys with the same criminal record if he can find them also. They hate black people, they won’t promote women above menial labor, the have over 300 recent complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau

RICKARDS, GEORGE GUY

Age: 64
Eyes: BRO
Hair: BRO
Height: 602
Weight: 225
Sex: M
Race: W
-

Registration Level: II
Contact Frequency: SEMI-ANN
Next Contact Date: 4/4/2008

Convictions:

RAPE I / 02-21-86 / HILLSBORO, OR WASHINGTON, COUNTY
Address: 705 NW 72ND ST VANCOUVER WA 98665

Posted by Nancy Vaughn on July 02, 2008

From Yahoo:

User Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

by Craig M – Vacation Rentals By Owner

10/17/2009

Run away as fast as you can if you are called by these poeple. Your order may never be delivered and they will keep your money. User Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

by Great-Installations

03/12/2009

this site needs no stars rating!, bench crap company should be there name, a 100% rip-off company, i have been promised a bench for one year now, i call just to hear how stupid the next excuse is. Buying stock in todays market is safer than talking to this company, buyer beware!

User Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

by Laura

09/12/2008

WATCH OUT… nothing good can be said about this company. Look them up on the BBB 180 plus complaints

User Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

sex offenders and criminals, don,t do bussiness with these awful people.

User Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

by MTInsurance

07/10/2008

Thanks to everyone who left a message about this company. I was contacted just the same way many of you were to purchase a bench ad. Due to the pushy tactics and urgency to commit I decided to do some research. Neadless to say I will NOT be doing business with Bench Craft. Thanks again for your comments!

User Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

by Cameron N

07/01/2008

I’m more than just a little upset that I even had to give this company a star to enter this review.

This company is horrible. They lied to me multiple times. They fraudulently charged my credit card. They rebutted my BBB claim by saying the ad was already displayed at the golf course (another LIE).
The contract they mail you is completely different from what they promise on the phone. DON’T DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY! EVER!!!

ron_null – 12/15/09
It is a shame that Bench Craft Company feels as though they have to lie to you on the phone and get you to agree to somthing and then you find out that you are paying for somthing you had no intention of doing. They started out doing what they said they would do and then, when they had my confidence, they lied to me and have me advertising on a golf course that I would never have wanted to advertise on. It is a shame that they can stay in business while fraudulently promising you one thing and doing somthing entirely different. I agree with a previous reviewer that YOU SHOULD NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY EVER!!!!!

As many of you know, Viruses on Windows based computers can be a real pain. Let’s be entirely honest here and clear up a few generalizations and rumors about viruses…

Myth 1: Macs don’t have viruses.

While it’s far less frequent, Macs have plenty of Malware and Viruses out there that can drastically decrease the security of your data. But FARRRR less exist when compared to Windows. They make antivirus applications for Macintosh and there are definition files of Mac exclusive and shared viruses that effect it. Linux/Unix are no exception to this rule either. Let me explain to you why there is a difference though.

If you look at the statistics on how many people use which operating system type, it become very obvious that the WORLD is full of Windows users. Advertising can tell you that there are a lot of Mac users, but when compared it is nowhere close. The average person uses Windows and people who design Viruses and Malware target as many people as possible, in doing so, design their software to effect Windows users. It’s unfortunate, but that is the truth. Apple loves to tell people that they are somehow immune to any types of attacks and tout their own horns quite often, publicly, stating just that. They pretend that their software has something to do with it which is bogus and they are not nearly as perfect as they would like to say they are. If everyone used Macs, they would get more Viruses.

Myth 2: Macs are more secure.

What they also don’t tell you is this: Networking is Networking.

There is nothing about a Macintosh computer that makes their Networking components more secure than a Windows PC. They go online, people can connect to them on many of the same ports through the same networks through the same means as any other machine. The software on them is only a small part of that. In order to access web pages and emails you must connect to the web and email servers on a certain port. Connecting opens you up to possibilities for attack or at the very least, theft of your data. When your computer, regardless of which type it is, transmits data, people connected to your network can capture it and steal that information. Network security comes first, PC/Mac security comes second.

Myth 3: Paying for Anti-virus software keeps your data safe.

While that CAN be true to some extent, the most common way that your computer becomes infected, data becomes stolen, or something gets installed on your computer without your consent is through your Web Browser. It may be shocking to some of you, but still, and by a large margin, Internet Explorer is the most used Web Browser. Since it comes with nearly every PC sold, people just use it by default, not because it is in any way a superior product. It does a TERRIBLE job of displaying websites compared to any modern Web Browser. In my opinion, it’s by far the worst.

Internet Explorer, regardless of which version, is attached to your computer and putting your computer at risk! Whenever something effects it, it effects Windows Explorer and often causes any program your PC uses to shut down. A web browser like Mozilla Firefox has it’s own security built right into it, including: virus scan of any downloaded file, popup blockers, website certificate verification, plugin control security, and even an updated list of websites that are potentially harmful to your computer. And if all of that fails and Firefox somehow gets damaged or corrupted, it’s not going to effect the rest of your computer because it is it’s own, separate application.

If you’re still not convinced, it’s FASTER, uses less system resources, more functional, easier to use, imports all of your old Internet Explorer settings for you, has more support for multimedia and advanced websites, and 99.9% of the time, will display a web page correctly where Internet Explorer fails to do so.

Myth 4: Well known antivirus software such as Symantec, McAffee, and Norton are the best.

For one, I’ve never believed that to be true. NEVER. I remember back when I first got started using computers online. It seemed that every school computer I got on with Norton installed was painfully slow and if anyone ever had it installed and wanted to remove it, they had better have lot’s of spare time because it was undoubtedly broken immediately after the install. That’s true with all of the top 3 Anti-Virus companies. Their software consumes more resources than any others, breaks too easily, takes forever to update, and what people aren’t aware of, FAIL at keeping your computer secure. Nowadays computers are much faster, but instead of getting better, this type of software keeps getting worse as they add in more “protection” from malware and ways to predict future threats.

The fact of the matter is this: I’ve used every major antivirus application I could think of and downloaded viruses onto my laptop(Yes, they are easy to find). Out of the 25 different infected files, McAfee, Symantec(yes an up to date SEP client), and Norton did extremely bad. The only antivirus program to prove completely ineffective was ClamWin, but nobody really takes that seriously anyways, and for a reason obviously, it found NOTHING. But each of those top 3 programs found less than 10 of the threats. ALL of them did however prove to be the biggest pain to work with, the most expensive, and the biggest cause of painfully slow computing out there.

Kaspersky found the most viruses actively, all 25, without doing a scan. Avira Antivir took a bit longer to do so, but found 23 of them without a scan, and all 25 when I did a scan. The version of Avira Antivir however was COMPLETELY FREE OF COST. Antivir is incredible and I suggest everyone download and use it immediately.

http://www.free-av.de/en/trialpay_download/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html

Recently I have been working on my businesses website to better allow project management and user profile control. Check it out here: www.initial-design.net to see the nearly completed update, v3.0 of Initial Design Consulting