The Cast of This Annoying Drama

So here are the people I've dealt with at Paymaster.  There are only three.

1) Robert Koper.  This is the President of Paymaster... and it's kind of a stretch to say I've dealt with him.  I've emailed and phoned him, but he's never gotten back to me.  I've left messages for him with others.  I've been told point blank that he'd be calling me.  It's a good thing I didn't hold my breath, because that was six months ago.

Anyways, apparently this is the only person who can make the official decision to return our money.  Why has he not made that decision?  Lord knows.  Why hasn't he responded to my communications, or called when I was told to expect his call?  Lord knows.  The most generous interpretation I can put on it is, he's completely out of money... and doesn't have the courtesy to tell me that, so instead they've just chosen to leave us hanging for months on end.

2) Patricia Olson.  She's the one we dealt with when ordering the machines, and she remained our contact for several months after that.  After originally telling us in writing we'd have the machines in 4 to 6 weeks, she spent a long time saying they were having trouble getting some parts for the machines, and didn't know when they'd be able to ship our machines to us.  At some point she stopped communicating with us entirely.

I spoke with her again once in the fall.  She just said I'd need to talk to Mr. Koper and refused to say anything more to me about it.

3) Kathy Vlasak.  Kathy is the person who normally answers the phone when I call their offices.  She's nice.  She's apologized and said she doesn't feel good about the situation, that she's worked there a long time and this isn't normal.

If I just wanted to talk to someone nice, she'd be great.  But I want more than that.  I want the money back.  I'm not aware that talking to her has gotten a single thing accomplished, except for early on when she wrote that they'd have to return our money.  I am grateful to have that in writing.  If and when this goes to court, that email will be an important part of the record.

But otherwise, I feel badly about the time I've spent phoning or emailing with her.  She's not always responded to calls or emails.  She's sometimes promised to get back to me and then hasn't done it.  (What it is with this company and leaving people hanging?)  She's said they were "making arrangements" to return our money.  She's said again and again that she'd  have to ask Mr. Koper, or I'd  have to talk to Mr. Koper, or  Mr. Koper is the only one who can make this kind of decision.  I don't expect she intended to string me along for so many months as she did.  But even if her intentions were pure, at the end of the day it amounted to the same thing.

Paymaster Tech Stole Our Money - part 1

It takes a lot to make me mad.

So when I start a blog to spread the word about just how bad some company has treated me - you know it's bad.

Before I get into the details, a warning: If you're thinking of doing business with this company,

RUN THE OTHER WAY!  

(Unless you like the way my experience sounds, in which they took our money, failed to deliver the products, and now won't give the money back or let me talk to anyone who has any authority to do something about it.  The only people who have talked to me are the ones who say, "You'll need to talk to Bob, let me put you through to his voicemail," or "I'll have to talk to my boss about it..."  If that sounds good, then congratulations!  This is the company for you.)

In February 2011, they billed us in advance for $8,000 worth of machinery.  We paid it by wire transfer.  They told us the products would be delivered in 4 to 6 weeks.

Two months later - no machines and no ETA.
Three months later - no machines, and still no ETA.
Four months later - no machines, and they'd stopped talking to us.  To complete our project on time, we had to buy the same machines from a different company.

5 1/2 months later - they started talking to us again.  Woo hoo!  They said they'd either send the machines or refund our money.  Obviously, we chose the refund.  And you can imagine our relief at the idea our money wasn't gone forever.  We're a small mom & pop operation.  $8000 is serious money for us.

That was four months ago.

It's almost Christmas... and this doesn't make ours particularly merry.

In the last four months, they've been bad about taking our calls, calling back, and responding to email.  They've said they'd call, but then they don't follow through.  They spent weeks "making arrangements" to refund our money, whatever the hell that means...  All I know is, it didn't result in us actually getting our money back.

I'll be sharing more details later.  You can see the written communications for yourself.  I'll also be posting about each of the individuals we've interacted with at this company.  I doubt they're all evil - but they've all been a part of something evil.  We'll share the details, and you can be your own judge.

We've been more than patient.  There's no reason a refund should take more than a few days.  There's no excuse for not calling someone back.  It's illegal and wrong to take someone's money, fail to deliver and then keep the money anyways.  Who does that?

Paymaster Technologies, Inc.  That's who.  

Visit them at www.paymastertech.com - or just run $8000 through your shredder.  It'd be faster.



PS - Who is Paymaster Technologies?  They sell "check writers, check imprinters and check protectors."  That's right, they run a business about preventing FRAUD!  Their machines keep people from TAKING MONEY THAT DOESN'T BELONG TO THEM!  Oh, the humanity.