I got a call about 2 weeks ago from this woman from Cortix - a leading web development company which was expanding into 'my area'. After a long sales pitch, she said they were going to have a representative in my area on 3rd April and, pretty much, what time would suit me to meet her... A hard sales pitch to say the least... She specifically stated that although they were 'leaders' in their field, they needed my business as a foothold to establish themselves further in my region. As a confirmation of this fact, they would fulfill my web requirements for free...
There's a saying.. if it sounds to good to be true, it normally is!
And this is the case with Cortix. I got suspicious with these guys for 3 reasons..
He eventually said, if I didn't want to receive calls from them anymore then I should just give him my details and he'd remove me from their call list. At this stage, I was furious, so I hung up.
I decided to Google them... This is why I'm blogging about them. They have almost no entries in English about the company, service or anything.... But in French, there is a wealth of entries about them.
Here area a few to start - cortix complaint 1 - cortix complaint 2 - cortix complaint 3
These guys have a very dubious reputation - be very careful and in my opinion, don't give them a cent. They will sell you a 'free service' but you'll pay dearly later - a website or design or similar. They get you in the contract's small print and in the poor post-sales service. They'll charge you for every change after the intial template is done, but more to the point, they will charge you for hosting, for traffic and every other thing you can think of.
This stuff is normally free, cheap or at least very reasonable elsewhere.. These guys seem to prey on the less e-commerce savvy and extract their money that way. And, let's be honest, they're doing really well... 28 million Euro turnover in 2008 and listed on the Stock Exchange...
My advice - you work hard enough for your money - don't hand it over to these cowboys.
I'll post again about these guys soon when I've read more material. (It's in French - give me a break... it takes time..)
There's a saying.. if it sounds to good to be true, it normally is!
And this is the case with Cortix. I got suspicious with these guys for 3 reasons..
- 1. the first call was such a hard sales pitch, it made me cautious
- 2. the second call was equally hard pitched, but when I said that I wouldn't agree to a meeting until I had reviewed their site, the rep actually hung up on me!
- 3. I called the number listed on the Irish site for Cortix Ireland and spoke to a guy with a foreign accent.. not sure what nationality. I ask if I could speak with a manager or supervisor. He asked me whyI wanted to speak to a senior person and I told him because I wanted to complain about a call I had just had from one of their reps. He then told me that they had no managers in the Dublin office!! Now that's a new one to me - no managers operating in their offices in Dublin! Must be a great place to work - a bunch of staff with no boss. So I asked for the contact details of a manager in whatever relevant office I could direct my complaint to. His reply was, and I quote verbatim " do you expect me to really give you the name of a manager so that you can complain?" - I replied yes, admitedly a bit shell-shocked by the attitude of the guy I was speaking with.
He eventually said, if I didn't want to receive calls from them anymore then I should just give him my details and he'd remove me from their call list. At this stage, I was furious, so I hung up.
I decided to Google them... This is why I'm blogging about them. They have almost no entries in English about the company, service or anything.... But in French, there is a wealth of entries about them.
Here area a few to start - cortix complaint 1 - cortix complaint 2 - cortix complaint 3
These guys have a very dubious reputation - be very careful and in my opinion, don't give them a cent. They will sell you a 'free service' but you'll pay dearly later - a website or design or similar. They get you in the contract's small print and in the poor post-sales service. They'll charge you for every change after the intial template is done, but more to the point, they will charge you for hosting, for traffic and every other thing you can think of.
This stuff is normally free, cheap or at least very reasonable elsewhere.. These guys seem to prey on the less e-commerce savvy and extract their money that way. And, let's be honest, they're doing really well... 28 million Euro turnover in 2008 and listed on the Stock Exchange...
My advice - you work hard enough for your money - don't hand it over to these cowboys.
I'll post again about these guys soon when I've read more material. (It's in French - give me a break... it takes time..)
29 comments:
Hello there,
Got the same telephone call myself yesterday around 3pm at office. Email arrived (as promised) at 9:40pm that night (eager beavers!)and the appointment is apparently set up for a weeks time.
Very efficient- right - wrong !!, when you look further down the email you'll see the "DECISION MAKER" must be present and guess what. . . . they only want your headed stationary, business cards, oh and photographs (to make it look legitimate I suppose)
OK. So what have we got here? . . IMHO, an opportunity to hoodwink the unsuspecting small business types into parting with their hard earned cash and if not that, then at the very least, an attempt to get your headed paper and business cards to do God only knows what to God only knows who .. I'm smelling something around me, and it sure aint roses . . . your choice,!
I am English living in France. I will willingly tell you all about Cortix having been caught out by them but I have to be careful as they watch all blogs and forums and I am in litigation with them. To the best of my knowledge there are between 600 and 1000 complaints as well as a multitude of court actions against them in France. If you are interested in contacting me please leave a note to this effect on this blog.
Thanks for this post. I have the same calls for the last few months. When I push them to identify the maintenance costs they get very aggiatated and will not discuss. I would be very suspicious of their selling model.
Tks
There were good cowboys and bad cowboys, and in latter days the cowboys had lawyers ... as did sometimes the good cowboys, so we can't draw any parallels from that, now can we?
1) Always read the fine print
2) Always read the fine print
3) When talking to someone about a website, the following costs should be clearly identifiable;
a) Design (once off cost)
b) Domain (recurring cost)
c) Hosting (recurring cost), this should include a generous amount of traffic, so you can't be hit for over quota
d) traffic blazers and the like, YMMV, but I've had no mileage out of it, and finally
4) Always read the smallprint
... did I mention the smallprint ...
This is the « Cortix » selling method. It’s called a “one shot” sale. It might be slightly different in the UK or Ireland as your laws are not the same. They contact you and offer a free website. They only want you to fulfil certain conditions and give them a list of 10 others likely customers in your area. The salesman will arrive, coming from some distance (even if that is not true). He will stay with you for at least three hours and explain that the cost of a website is normally 4000€ but that will be free. He will show you several templates from which to choose. There will be a small administration or setup fee of about 300€ and then a small monthly payment to cover the hosting, maintenance and referencing of the site. He will of course promise you first place with Goole and show you a site they have done that will come up 1st with Google. (Type BMW and a town where they are and up they come first – a good trick. It will of course be a site they have done) He will then sort-out a domain name with you, check with the office and order it. He will then probably make a phone call to his “next appointment” to say he will be delayed. He might do that twice and probably have to leave a message. The call is probably a dummy. Then he will start to say he has got to get “home” or “to the next appointment” and get out 3 forms. The order form, the contract and the delivery form. He will insert a monthly amount and probably 48 months for the term. The admin fee will also be entered. You will sign all three forms and give him your business details and bank details. You will not read all the small print on four pages.
In France there is no cooling off period for professionals but Cortix have since February allowed a seven day cooling off period. They will be reluctant to allow it and will if pressed only keep the 300€.
If, as me, you have been unlucky enough to have a firm contract, you will see the bank payment very quickly. You signed the delivery form (for the domain name and hosting). You will then realise that 48 x 160€ =7680€ (no comments please!!) The website is usually up very quickly but with no text and odd pictures. If you do not send them the text and pics it will stay like that – for ever! Of course they will never bother to reference the site. After all how can you prove that they haven’t done that?
The (French contract) is virtually unbreakable. They “sell on” your contract to a finance company that you cannot hold responsible (it’s in the contract) and if you stop payments the Finance company will demand the total due plus a fine.
The website is mediocre but they have delivered one. The website is done in Tunisia with Tunisians who speak bad French and probably little English.
Here is an Irish website by Cortix. Note that a lot of text on the other pages is “under construction” http://www.eurospray-ireland.com
You will notice that they have a “Cortix” gif on every page but it has no link facility. Why? Because it would then be easy to find sites made by them and to contact the victims.
They target small companies such as the one above or say hairdressers or florists or restaurants (one unit only!) or any one who would not have the time to do their own website.
I have thought about suing them for breach of contract but I think I would loose. As an alternative I am going to f*** them as they f***ed me. I will be sending this article to every trade magazine I can think of and some Internet magazines as well. Libel is only libel when you tell a lie. The truth is not libellous.
Please tell any of your friends to avoid this trap. I thought I was reasonably astute but their salesmen are good.
thank you for that info,yes i also got a visit from these swine ,a smooth talker called raul ,and are now operating around ireland and getting buss numbers from the golden pages ,and they only ring the small box prints ,and the first call commes from france,and at the time i was looking around for the making of a website,so i was unsure about the call,but i thought ok i will get a price first as i had prices from other web designs companys ,just to compare and it sounded good saying i would be promoting their buss with my web design,so the first thing the phone person in france said ,i dont have a price as it differs,i said ok ,he said a director would call me in ireland and send me all the info by email ,which he did and it was good ,an address in blanchstown dublin,so he rang 4 times ,i couldent meet him ,and then i got a gutt bad feeling that i was going to be suckered ,so i simply said ,i am gone off the idea so i am not interested,and he said good bye ,just like that as i had wasted his time ,so 2 days after that i put in cortix complaints in the google box and i found you guys ,fair play to all who posted in your complaints and it goes to show ,YOUR GUTT FEELING IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO IN THIS WORLD AND GOOGLE IS THE OTHER ,THANK GOD I WASENT SCREWED BY THESE WHITECOLLAR SCUM, so thanks again to all of you for writing in..eddie
Hello,
I am French, living in France, and owning a small company designing medical accessories.
I got the same phone call today, and immediately felt it was a scam. I however could find no argument to refuse a meeting with a so called "marketing manager".
I'll cancel the meeting tomorrow. I am afraid that an experienced guy could fool me, I acknowledge it. And I prefer to focus on my business rather than being stressed by this kind of methods.
Thanks for the warnings anyway.
We are a small medical company. Got the same phone call on Wed from a French Lady called Pamela... was very very pushy and I agreed to an appointment as they offered me a 'free' website... got an email late that night confirming appointment for next week... Thanks to this blog I have just cancelled... Deep down I knew it was a scam... thats how I found this blog.. Stay away folks.... wouldn't mind but told them we already have a website!
wow... very helpful comments. i got the call today and felt the whole thing was a little dodgy but accepted appointment. i will cancel appointment tomorrow.
I am delighted that Cortix have lost several sales through this blog. I have posted around a lot and will continue. Please do the same and help put out more of these warnings on the Internet.
They cost me 6500€
They are still at it, Feb3,2010 - I just had the call, very French accent, very hard sell, and again trying to get my details, I was suspicious from the start.
If you have contacted eircom and had your number classified under that Data protection act that it is not available for cold calling,then please report Cortix to the data commissioner.
They say they are going to ring me back but I terminated the conversation before the bloke finished talking.
Delighted I found this Blog, well done for starting it!
Beware, be very aware!
I wish I had seen this sooner.
I had the same call from a hard sell french person but then received a follow up call from an Irish girl professing to be the new marketing manager with a budget to do some free portfolio sites - worth 4k to me.
Ran thru all sorts of details in the meeting and to be honest, as she appeared so honest and straightforward and the story sounded plausible, I met with her again and signed some forms for them to go ahead.
Fortunately I forgot my bank details and have not yet sent them to her. Its over 3 weeks ago since I last heard from her and despite many emails, calls to her mobile, landline (which doesnt connect), Cortix irish office number (on hold for ages then it just hangs up on you) - still no word.
Thats when i started to get a bad vibe from it and found this blog thru google. Christ, what have i signed up for!
I'm assuming as they are missing my bank details they cant proceed with whatever scam they are trying to perpetrate?
I'm going to post this to as many sites as I can to warn people.
Interestingly my experience has been completely different. I had the call and sat the appointment, listened and gave it a go. I provided all the details and they even gave me a questionnaire to complete to have text in my site...do not have any pictures but they said that was not a problem. First draft of site it not bad actually. Changes sent were a little slow in being done but after a call to someone on a desk they were done. Waiting to see how it is ranked in the search engines. I was shown sites that they had done previously. No one asked me for business cards or anything like that...maybe they have changed their approach. I will let you know how it goes.
Thanks for the heads up!
I also received the cold call from a foreign sales agent that arranged a meeting this week with an Irish sales rep.
Not sure where they got my details from, as we are only setting-up office and eircom just installed the phone line that morning.
I am Italian.
This Web Agency arrived in Italy. I fell into the trap. I have been contacted, I signed the contract. Èorrendo site that they have built. I have not paid any installment. I sent the letter of withdrawal. I'll complaint and send a notice on TV, and consumer association.
19/02/10 They are still at it I recived this call from the guy with the heavy accent. I had been made aware recently about some scams so wanted to get as much info as poss out of him. Very little came forward. Funnily though their number came up on my phone as Int vmail call. Odd.
Thank you so much for this blogg as I have been getting all my info together for my website and could very easily have been scammed by this crowd.
I am going to text all my friends that have small businesses and let them know.
rceieved sales call from cortix and they arranged a meeting with a marketing manager.He explained they would design my website at no cost but I would need to pay the running cost...€30 per week.I told their rep I would need to think about it and would call him in a week or so.I made some enquiries and when i compaired like for like it seems like a reasonable deal,i have a small business selling on line and it has worked well so far.I have sent changes to the customer service team and although they were a little slow it was done and i'm happy with the service they provide me.Nobody ever said it would be free.
I'm delighted to read this blog. I actually worked for Cortix. I'm ashamed to say i did. I had been let go from a media sales position when the recession hit so i was delighted to get an oppurtunity. everything up front seems so professional and you'd easily believe some of the hype. They really train the managers into believing it all. they also throw money at the managers and bring them to France etc. The set up is the calls come from Tunisia, the design is in France, but is/has moved to Tunisia as well i think.
Anyway, bottom line they are a disgrace. I signed up a number of clients, but never stuck to this on the day routine.
People are right, they go after the less web savy. I became embarrassed about what was going on and became worried about my reputation as they were simply not delivering the product they promised. They also owned me money in the end which i never got, and didn't really bother chasing as it would have taken forever and i decided to start my own business in a somewhat similar field.
I can tell you one thing though, i learned alot about how you should treat people who are not web savy and in a weird way because of Cortix i am providing my clients now with a better service than maybe i would have had i never worked for them.
I can tell you they look at these blogs as well, anjd will threaten legal action. But they can threaten away, cos i have several clients quite willing to gang up with me and take them on should they try it.
They are scum, cowboys doesn't even come close.
Hi
Cortix are still conning people.I was contacted by an Irish man who was very smooth talking.I unfortunatly signed with them. the page they set up for me was in English and oviously written by a foreign individual as the english was so poor.they also put an incorrect contact phone number and despite emails and phone calls it is still not changed.needless to say i will not be renewing with them when contract is up.
Cortix Ireland Ltd has been listed
on the 27th July 10 insolvent
Hello There,
I am reading this with disbelief. I signed up with this crowd Cortix Ireland and now realised I have just been screwed. I could have written part of all the blogs because that is me. I consider myself careful but there sales people are smooth and pushy. Same lies, free website, need to expand into your area, have thousands of templates and all are good. They posted a draft page for approval and then we heard nothing. We then had another company try to take money from our account whom we did not know. We told the bank to refuse the request as we did not know who the heck this company is. It turns out the Cortix Ireland company sold the account to this "finance" company and they are looking for the money. We have been in touch with the Garda Fraud Squad and they are looking into it at the minute. I feel such an idiot for not spotting this scam. I would consider myself to be awake to this type of scam. The page they published for us is out of date information showing product names we no longer offer. The "site intro page" does nothing, goes nowhere and is useless. They insist it is a site in the legal sense but we now have to go legal to try and get rid of these people. The business in Ireland is gone into liquidation and just had a threatening phone call from France today. They are going to set their solicitors on us to extract their money for the one page dormant draft page which is not a website and is useless. For goodness sake if you get a call from these people hang up or do something more rude that that but dont take them on or give them any information of any kind. Will post more as this developes.
We have not had any assistance from Cortix,so I stopped payments. I have tryed to complain so many times, but Cortix are not interested all they want is there monthly money. As I have stopped payments they now have called in the Bailiffs to get ALL the money we appartently owe, even though we have a contract to pay until 2012.
Need help quickly please, any ideas
It is some time since I first posted here (as aitch from France) and I am delighted that some of you saw the light BEFORE signing up. Unfortunately I’m still paying and I know I cannot get out of the contract – God knows I’ve tried! I am happy that I have a least helped Cortix loose several thousands of Euros.
To those who cannot get out of their contract I do have a word of warning. The contract provides for its CONTINUATION unless you give 3 months notice. If you do not then they will get another year’s payments. Check your contract.
I do not know the dates of these posts but as one of the later ones stated that Cortix Ireland has gone into liquidation we are still posting after July 2010 it’s now 29 Sept 2010!
I urge you to spread the word as I have done and hurt them in their pocket.
BTW those posts that say they are satisfied with Cortix probably come from Cortix themselves. They are very web savvy and counter bad publicity with good publicity.
Having seen a lawyer, done a lot of investigation on the ‘net and read and re-read my contract I realize that it is about as watertight as can be written. They have covered all angles and except for those who give immediate notice of cancellation (which does not always work) few have got out of it.
There are some points that I’d like to make clear as I have seen some people not interpreting their contracts correctly.
The website and the work to write the pages are free. But (and it’s a big but) you pay a rent for the hosting of your domain name. This “leasing” part of your contract is immediately “sold” to a finance house.
The “delivery” is not of the website but of the domain name – this they do instantly. You will have signed for that before the salesman leaves!
There is no time limit for the building of the page and they do say that if you do not provide text and photos, they will.
They will reference your site! All they have to do there is submit your site to a directory or just submit it on google.com/addurl/ then they have referenced your site. If you think that is enough you are sadly mistaken but the contract has been fulfilled.
To any who still think that maybe….
You are wrong! Cortix never intended to do more than produce a mediocre website, do the minimum referencing, charge you a fortune and never let you off. They have contracted mostly will small businesses that fall easily for their blah blah and do not have the resources to fight.
For an anecdote, a few months ago I had another company call me as Cortix did -“Free website” and all that crap. I knew immediately what they wanted so I accepted an interview and set up my hidden camera to record it all. They cancelled once but called again however the sales woman seemed to smell a rat and never came. If I get another chance from any other rip-off company, I will film the sequence and post it on YouTube!
To the last post where you have stopped payments and the bailiffs are coming. You may well be too late as your contract states clearly that if you stop payments then the entire sum is due immediately. The only way out is not to have anything of value in the company that signed the contract! Can you PM me or leave an email address on your comment (leave a space for the @ sign!
I have been looking everywhere for complaints / info / ect and cant really find any on the internet. Its as if all info have been stopped or removed!
Is there a cg or group of poeple that are complaining that i can get hold of, as i thinking if i get a group of people (large group) about taking it futher!
To my knowledge there are no such groups outside of France. The two in France are no good really. What is your story? Can you PM me? Google my name and see me on Flikr!
Henry Barnett
Nice blog
I typically don’t leave observations on blogs but you have some good info material.
Website Design India
Cortix got bancrupt in Switzerland. They contacted me two years ago on the same way. Because we are also a Web Agency, i quikly feel on the first call that this was not a serious Company. The don't even listen to the needs of their future Customers and spoke so bad German. In that time i gave them max. 2 Years to survive if they continue to commercialise on that way in Switzerland. So wonder what happened?
I got a customer who signed two years ago with Cortix. Three Days ago, they had their Domain and Website disapeared. As i found on Google they are soon closing France too. My final conclusion: Only serious and good Work will have longtime success...
Hi,
I too was scammed by Cortix Ireland and was wondering if now that the company is in liquidation am i still under obligation to pay Parfip (the finance company) as the contract I signed was with Cortix Ireland, not Cortix france? Is there some sort of a loophole? Their service in france is totally diabolical and even when in Ireland was no better than that... I am totally unable to contact anyone who speaks english and have received e-mails from different french companies that say they are taking over cortix ireland's work... Am I under obligation to continue working with different cowboys for the duration of the website?
I'd appreciate any information you may have on the subject.
Thanks
Post a Comment