Please do not let this happen to you! If you care about your bank account, your business plans, or your sanity, do not use Media Mechanic!
Here’s my (abbreviated) story about my experience with these “developers” based in the Portland, Oregon area:
I first signed on with Media Mechanic LLC in late 2015 with an estimated timeframe to design and develop a site and custom web application of somewhere between six months (June 2016) to 10 months (October 2016) maximum.
The site was to be released in phases, but that never happened – deliverable due dates were missed or postponed with lots of great excuses. I was constantly lied to and BS’d along the way about when I could actually expect anything; they kept saying that everything was on track according to the original schedule. Meanwhile, after months dragged on, I discovered that I couldn’t even release a basic website because they hadn’t architected the site to accept payments for some areas while development / testing continued for other areas.
As for planning to actually launch the site, I was told dismissively for months by the owner (Paul Ward) that this was a “business decision,” as if it was not an important goal or the ultimate objective in having a site and application designed in the first place! My business plan, objectives, goals, needs, concerns and budget were continually ignored or never taken seriously.
Meanwhile, I continued to shell out five figures every month for over 10 months. I was never given access to project hours or actual costs / budget data along the way – but after 10 months, I was informed that they had gone way over budget with development costs and needed more money in order to pay their developers...It felt as if they were holding my site / application hostage at that point, since I still hadn’t received anything that worked right for which I’d already paid plenty.
The website that was delivered in early November (that they charged me extra to migrate from staging to production) never worked correctly and contained a lot of basic functionality and other errors that should easily have been fixed, but were never addressed adequately even after I paid them extra to do so. I was also informed that addressing no-brainer development mistakes or oversights (like having print screens open in separate browser windows or including alternate text with icons) would cost me extra.
In late November of 2016 the custom web application was delivered for my testing / review – and that’s when I discovered that it had not been properly tested or debugged – nor was the development of major components of it completed; it was not operational or functional. Nevertheless, I was told I had just 30 days to identify any issues / defects in order for them to honor their “30-day bug free guarantee” – any other issues detected outside of that timeframe would cost extra to fix. I spent the entire months of December of 2016 through March of 2017 chasing my tail in circles trying to identify, report, track, test and retest over 200 defects and issues, going back and forth with their receptionist (who was the only one communicating with me throughout that time). Very little if anything worked correctly – and whenever something did work correctly one day, it was soon broken and no longer working correctly the next.
Finally, in mid-April of 2017, I was informed that all defects had been addressed and that everything was working as it should, and the site / application were ready to launch. I already knew this was NOT the case due to ongoing testing efforts and numerous errors received while trying to use or demo the application / site.
I then spent $15,000 to have another developer examine the code for the site and application. I was informed that not only was the codeset very poorly architected / developed, but that this “spaghetti code” was in no way manageable, would not support multiple users, would not facilitate mobile applications / APIs (which was communicated as a requirement from the beginning), and that it would cost me more to have someone try to make changes / maintain the existing code than it would to pay someone else to start all over from scratch.
Over $165,000 and 18 months later, I still do not have anything close to a functional site or working custom application. So now I am faced with the prospect of paying someone else tens of thousands of additional dollars and waiting several more months to have a site and custom web application built correctly that I can actually launch (and that can support user activity). I’m still unsure whether I’ll be able to salvage any of my content / data or at least some of the overall design.
So the moral of the story: BUYER BEWARE. This “company” should not be in business period. And I also now know that I’m not the only one who has been ripped off by Media Mechanic…
Media Mechanic Reviews
Please do not let this happen to you! If you care about your bank account, your business plans, or your sanity, do not use Media Mechanic!
Here’s my (abbreviated) story about my experience with these “developers” based in the Portland, Oregon area:
I first signed on with Media Mechanic LLC in late 2015 with an estimated timeframe to design and develop a site and custom web application of somewhere between six months (June 2016) to 10 months (October 2016) maximum.
The site was to be released in phases, but that never happened – deliverable due dates were missed or postponed with lots of great excuses. I was constantly lied to and BS’d along the way about when I could actually expect anything; they kept saying that everything was on track according to the original schedule. Meanwhile, after months dragged on, I discovered that I couldn’t even release a basic website because they hadn’t architected the site to accept payments for some areas while development / testing continued for other areas.
As for planning to actually launch the site, I was told dismissively for months by the owner (Paul Ward) that this was a “business decision,” as if it was not an important goal or the ultimate objective in having a site and application designed in the first place! My business plan, objectives, goals, needs, concerns and budget were continually ignored or never taken seriously.
Meanwhile, I continued to shell out five figures every month for over 10 months. I was never given access to project hours or actual costs / budget data along the way – but after 10 months, I was informed that they had gone way over budget with development costs and needed more money in order to pay their developers...It felt as if they were holding my site / application hostage at that point, since I still hadn’t received anything that worked right for which I’d already paid plenty.
The website that was delivered in early November (that they charged me extra to migrate from staging to production) never worked correctly and contained a lot of basic functionality and other errors that should easily have been fixed, but were never addressed adequately even after I paid them extra to do so. I was also informed that addressing no-brainer development mistakes or oversights (like having print screens open in separate browser windows or including alternate text with icons) would cost me extra.
In late November of 2016 the custom web application was delivered for my testing / review – and that’s when I discovered that it had not been properly tested or debugged – nor was the development of major components of it completed; it was not operational or functional. Nevertheless, I was told I had just 30 days to identify any issues / defects in order for them to honor their “30-day bug free guarantee” – any other issues detected outside of that timeframe would cost extra to fix. I spent the entire months of December of 2016 through March of 2017 chasing my tail in circles trying to identify, report, track, test and retest over 200 defects and issues, going back and forth with their receptionist (who was the only one communicating with me throughout that time). Very little if anything worked correctly – and whenever something did work correctly one day, it was soon broken and no longer working correctly the next.
Finally, in mid-April of 2017, I was informed that all defects had been addressed and that everything was working as it should, and the site / application were ready to launch. I already knew this was NOT the case due to ongoing testing efforts and numerous errors received while trying to use or demo the application / site.
I then spent $15,000 to have another developer examine the code for the site and application. I was informed that not only was the codeset very poorly architected / developed, but that this “spaghetti code” was in no way manageable, would not support multiple users, would not facilitate mobile applications / APIs (which was communicated as a requirement from the beginning), and that it would cost me more to have someone try to make changes / maintain the existing code than it would to pay someone else to start all over from scratch.
Over $165,000 and 18 months later, I still do not have anything close to a functional site or working custom application. So now I am faced with the prospect of paying someone else tens of thousands of additional dollars and waiting several more months to have a site and custom web application built correctly that I can actually launch (and that can support user activity). I’m still unsure whether I’ll be able to salvage any of my content / data or at least some of the overall design.
So the moral of the story: BUYER BEWARE. This “company” should not be in business period. And I also now know that I’m not the only one who has been ripped off by Media Mechanic…