Do Not Use Mark, Do yourself a favor and find another Web Designer. I contacted Mark to do what was a Complex Site, for a Nation Wide Provider of Moving Labor Services, similar to 2 Websites that I had discussed with Mark in detail. The agreement was for him to do a Prototype of my proposed site, which he did in fact do for the agreed contract price of $1,500. There was some research on his part to find out if he could do a site within my budget using WordPress. Mark lost the Check I gave him the same day, I had no problem with that. He became somewhat non-responsive, he did get back to me, but frequently "Apologized For The Silence, in that he had other projects he was working on". I had no problem with that, and he also explained that the research required some time, to explain the delay. Again, I did not complain to him about this. Although I live only about 6 miles or so from West Hills, where Mark's Home Office is, and I was more than willing to meet in person, my preference, he only wanted to meet via a Tele-Conference on the phone & computer. I can understand if the client is out of state, or a distance away, Tele Conferencing is a great thing, but not when the client lives with a 15 minute car ride away, and was more than willing to meet him in person. Finally, Mark said he was ready to move forward with my Web Site, gave me a proposed contract fee. I had been away on vacation out of the country, and he told me to call him when I returned. In the interim, I had contacted 2 other Web Designers, for their opinion on the Site he was proposing, and Mark had given me the Login Information so they would have access to the back end, the real details of the site. Both designers said the site that the PLUGIN he used for the WordPress Site had EXTREMELY LIMITED CAPABILITIES, and that the only way to do my site was to hand code it from scratch, instead of finding existing software out there already, buy it, and customize it to my site, as Mark said he could do. Mark never contacted me again in three weeks that I had returned from my vacation abroad. I sent Mark a detailed email telling him I was using another Web Designer, as the site he was going to do for me was not going to be functional.
Mark only replied to me with my Go Daddy Login Information, which I already had when I obtain the domain for my site. He never attempted to defend anything I had delineated in the email, IE that he was very unresponsive, very reluctant to me in person, and some other reasons Also, my website was going to require payments to me. Mark suggested we use a company called Mango Pay. When the new web designer tried contacting them, they never responded to more than one of her emails, she posted on their Face Book Page, and within something like 5 minutes they replied that they were a new company and that they do not maintain a staff to maintain/reply to the emails they receive. Furthermore, they went on to say in their Face Book Post that THEY ONLY WORK IN EUROPE, AND NOT IN THE USA. In my email telling Mark I was no longer going to use him for the complete site, he never replied or tried to defend himself. Bottom Line is the other Web Designer I found through the same Networking Organization is charging me about $5,000 dollars more, $15,500 vs Mark's quote of $10,500, to hand code the site I need, without some of the Bells & Whistles. Maybe Mark can do less complex sites, but not anything complex, and seriously, if you want a web designer that is very responsive, and will meet you when you need to in person, find yourself another web designer. read more
