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As an ex-employee I can say that HIT Web Design, formerly known as Heritage Web Solutions, was once a great company to work for. Unfortunately this is no longer the case.
I had worked there for 2 and a half years and in the past year, HIT (who changed their name to run away from their bad reputation) has seriously gone down hill. It supposedly all started when customers began charging back on their credit cards due to a flurry of bad complaints in a scared economy (which actually never happened, they are just very greedy).
Needless to say the company is ran very unprofessionally. They were once the leaders in custom website design but have now abandoned their business model...
When you treat your employees so poorly they will not give the customers the kind of help they need. That is why there are so many customer and employee complaints.
This all has now come to a head as Utah's ABC4 News will soon be airing an investigative report on how HIT Web Design has lied and cheated their customers. The ABC4 News crew showed up Friday October 16th to interview employees on what has been going on.
The air date has yet to be released so please contact Annie Cutler of ABC4 News to express your disgust with HIT Web Design/ Heritage Web Solutions at [protected]@abc4.com
Let's make sure HIT Web Design will not continue doing this to customers!
i am also an ex-employee this as all true! i believe that the ABC 4 news story will air later this week.
HIT Web Design will do whatever they need to in order to safe face and the company as a whole. No matter what, we all know their business is going down the toilet when all they do is ask for more and more from their customers and employees and give nothing in return.
Dave Aitken, CEO at HIT, is ignorant to think that just because employees make good money (or atleast used to), that it is considered treating them fairly. Is that fair? NO!
Well said. HIT's customers have no idea how bad it really is there and its disgusting how HIT management are such cowards as to deny the truth that has mounted up before them.
They should just "man up", "dial the phone" and admit they are the ### we all know they are!
WOW! Things are worse than I thought...
Someone who knows, it seems you have some great perspective on this. I do not apologize for anything that I've said but I should not have called Dave and Jeremy "uneducated idiots". It is not easy to create a business as successful as HIT once was.
It is disappointing that they have abused their power and have got so greedy over time.
Someone who knows, thank you for your words, integrity and honesty.
What a good way to discredit everything, "grow up please". But it all ties into speech patterns, which, by nature, cannot be manipulated. all the postings have very distinct, and different, speech patterns. you know that "grow up please" is Dave Aitken..
Now Dave, you know you can not speak out of both sides of your mouth, even though we know you try! You would send emails stating that our compensation was so good we couldn't find work anywhere else to make the money we needed to support our families. That was EXTREMLEY intimidating and the money was the only thing that kept us there. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE WERE NOT WALKING OUT!
You would also tell us that there was no where to go and it was a dead job market but we are welcome to leave if we were unhappy. WHAT A MIND GAME! HOW DECEPTIVE!
I was told by a manager that they "only need one more paycheck and im out of here!"
Now Dave, dont do what everyone thinks you are going to do and flip out. I would sit down with your managers, suck up to them and let them know how much you appreciate them.
Or, maybe you could send one of your oh-so-powerful threatening emails. This is your choice...
Just to reitterate, "donebeingbullied" is referring to Dave Aitken's, aka "GrowUpPlease", threat to Bryce Turpin.
Dave was assumptive, as usual, in stating that Bryce is posting while he is at work.
I am paraphrasing as this thread is becoming VERY long...
Ryan, you are a smart guy and have been nothing but helpful to employees who asked you for help at anytime. I am sorry that they stuck you in the middle of this.
By your understanding you know HIT management to be reasonable and sensitive. You have never (for atleast the 2 and a half years i worked there) had close association with the sales team and how it was ran.
Please don't put yourself out there saying that HIT management is reasonable and sensitive. You dont have the capabilities to make a blanket statement like that. You have no idea what hell everyone on the sales team went through to bring in the money to support their families! There was even a sales manager who was constantly humiliated just to "motivate" the sales team. How sad is that?! This same sales manager was very sick one day and was forced to come in. He puked in front of everyone! How embarrassing!
THAT IS NOT SENSITIVE OR FAIR AND THIS ALL HAPPENED ALL THE TIME!
I know you have a nice family to support and need to protect the place you work at but please dont make blanket statements when crap like that is happening.
Also, why would HIT need to be told to be more sensitive or aware of family emergencies? That is basic business ethics.
The mere psychology of your post lets us all know that you are somewhat siding with us subconsciously, most likely due to the lack of training management/supervisors are given.
Every single person at HIT is encouraged to sell.
Just in the past week there has been a major change. There is no sales team!
The sales team has been absolved and lumped in to the account managers department.
Does this sound like a company that may have a problem here or there and may "stub their toe" once in a while? NO!
This all just makes the comments by HIT management all that more laughable.
It just goes to show that HIT is in a state of disrepair.
This is all very sad and I don't think that anything is going to change until we take this a step further...
You can contact Annie at ABC 4 at the email address annie@abc4.com...
The rest of the contact info is on my original complaint.
This is just like Dave... he loves to butter people up and make them feel good so he can use that as leverage at their most crucial moments.
Trust me, Dave is not this altruistic.
Not sure if Greg is unemployed by HIT - or if he's just working from home to save face for the company... Why would a company with this much greed ever actually get rid of someone who can manipulate an old lady with a severance check to use her social security check to line their pockets? ... hmmm... perhaps someone should try calling their sales line and ask for him, you might be surprised at the results.. unless you are familiar with the company. Then you wouldn't be surprised at all when they get him on the phone.
Yes and its a bunch of crap... just disregard it with a laugh and ignore it. There is nothing they can do to you. There is so much evidence that they are horrible, unethical business owners that would be foolish to even think about pursuing "legal action" against you.
Before I left on my own free will, months actually, HIT was hitting $30-40, 000 in revenue daily! This was expected and it was quite dreadful to management when we fell below this norm.
Now the latest from the HIT sales team... 3 days in a row at $12000 in revenue or less!
Having worked there 2 and a half years, 3 horrible days is deffinitley hurting their business. I've even got word from some employees that customers are sending links to reps from specific complaints done right here on complaintsboard.com.
These customers are demanding their accounts be cancelled! Let's hope this trend continues...
Actually they are failing miserably.
Plus, why would anyone take a stand for a company they have no relation to?
Thanks for trying though.
idiotswillalwayscomplain,
im sorry you are stuck at HIT. Obviously you have no where else to go. I'm sorry if we are harming the place you work at and we all would be mad if we were still there too because it would be hurting our paycheck.
The truth is, I have great friends that work there and they are amazing salespeople. Heck, I might even know you! We are not here to destroy your paycheck, in fact HIT is already doing that to you. We do not want you to fail but we do want HIT to change their ways. At HIT we had no voice! This is the only voice we have for the time being. Hopefully all of our collective complaints have been heard through out the state and government agencies we have made them to. There is only one way to fix HIT and hopefully bring it back to the positioning it was once in...
The Aitkens must go. I don't even think that is possible since they own a majority of the company from my understanding, but it is the only way. They once had HIT in a great position and it was the best place to work, now they have ran it in to the ground.
I really wish you the best of luck. There are many options for employment, employment that will pay you and treat well for the effort you put in.
wow "culture of fear" describes HIT perfectly.
By the way, Mark Strong and other HIT management have told their sales reps to say the same things to clients as Mark presented in the interview.
Its all fluff to make people feel good. The customer does not buy it in the end.
It may have worked for Mark because he is a nice, stately man who was speaking face to face with the news anchor. This is also why it hasn't aired.
I QUIT after the let one of the top consistant performers on the sales team go. This guy was awesome. He was always in the top 3 sales people pay period after pay period. Great guy with a nice wife and a few kids.
He was let go as an example that we were all expendable!
How sick is that! I was near tears to see him walk out, knowing he was going to have to go home, tell his wife he was fired and then hunt for a new job when he had kids to feed. I could not work for people that are vendictive as they are.
If you go to HIT management and try to talk about making $600 on a paycheck when you have earned them $20, 000 in a pay period is unfair they will say "So what?! We have kids to feed too!" (direct words from Jeremy Aitken). Keep in mind a pay period that productive would yeild a sales person atleast a check between $[protected] before management got greedy.
HIT sure is GREAT!
Now that is just greed... why would they fire someone and then say "oh you can work from home for us!"
Once again, they have no business sense at all.
awesome-company,
we all know you are not this altruistic.
In this case I think HIT was duped and was embarrassed to tell their employees that it really wasnt "national news".
It was deceitful as all employees thought that it was going to be a big break for HIT.
My_Compaint,
The reason they haven't been able to push our comments away is because they no next to nothing in regards to search engine optimization.
They follow antiquated SEO principles. They still think that meta keywords are KING! HIT tells their sales people to tell the customer that only custom sites can be optimized but templates easily can.
That will soon change as they are switching to template sites starting January 1, 2010.
TO MEDICINE AND ALL OTHERS WHO ARE TRYING TO DEFEND HIT...
It doesn't matter what you say or do at this point. You came in to this thread to late in the ball game!
This thread has been optimized for many phrases that are being searched when family, friends, ex-employees, customer, ex-customers and current employees search for "hit web design abc4". Just Google it.
Now if we do a quick search for "bad business abc4" (as we all know ABC4 is known for their investigative reports and consumer call to action stories) we pull HIT Web Design up in the number 2 spot. Ouch.
And YIKES! When we search for our favorite web design company under their new name "HIT Web Design" we find complaints immediatley under their own site. Bummer.
Sorry guys, try as you might but you are screwed.
Your business is failing and you are watching the ruins crumble.
Try doing something legitimate about it. You guys must be in real bad shape if you need to get on this board and monitor every little thing people are saying about you.
I wonder if the CEO of Wal-Mart does this?
Geez, you are right! What was I thinking?!
They know how huge they are, they don't need to stroke their own egos to prove it.
You know what I think is neat? If someone were to do a google image search for "Design by HWS" a TON of Heritage/HIT's websites come up. There usually is some contact info on the sites.
What could be done with that info?
Ryan, what about the grievances? I know for a fact Turpin's grievance is 100% legit as I was there.
Please address this. Thank you.
Ethicalhit,
If that is the correct link, it looks like he took it down.
What's there to be ashamed of Ryan?
This must be quite a bit for Ryan to take in. Notice he isnt saying anything...
By the way, accoridng to a source who is still at HIT Web Design, at te begginning of the year they had 400 employees and now they have about a tenth of that left!
January first there were 25 sales representative on the "sales team" now there are 7.
What a wonderful company! I'm glad to see they are doing so well.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
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LOLreally?
If that was the case, would that not be the moderators job on this site to stop such an act...Let's see the email or produce some kind of proof that shows all of us that you really did have a conversation with the moderator.
Considering I'm the one posting info about families and I only know Bryce since he's identified himself, LOLReally sounds like he's running scared. Maybe that's why you had to let more people go today Dave? Let me ask you this Dave - er, I mean LOLreally. Now that you've done the layoff - something you've claimed to want to avoid by doing the paycuts, are you now going to reinstate the pay so the few employees you have left can actually support their families? Or are you going to continue stuffing your pockets as much as possible before we all drive by there one day to see the parking lot empty, minus a few dodge trucks with a boot on?
Oh and one more thing - I'm surprised LOLreally could even spell moderator. I bet he had help!
LOLReally?,
I continue to find dark humor in your post. This morning as I was in my town car going to work drinking my coffee and reading a paper, I started thinking about your comment, and how funny it would be if it wasn't so pathetic.
I do agree with all4money, that if this board is really so insignificant, and you are doing so well, then why get on here at all and read, but it seems to me that instead of fixing your company you are looking for scapegoat, someone to blame all your ills on.
Also Hit Web Design, I have placed my e-mail address on here before stating that you could contact me personally. Convince me otherwise! I dare you! Hit Web Design and Employees of Hit Web Design, and former employees of Hit Web Design you can always e-mail me directly here on complaints boards or to my direct e-mail at ethicalhit@yahoo.com
lolreally;
think these threads make no difference? search hit web design right now and no less than 3 of them pull on the 1st page, two from complaints board and one from [redacted]. do you think theres any chance that doesnt damage hit when possible sales look into the company before signing up?
I too am a former employee of Heritage Web Solutions, at least that is what the company was called when I worked there. While I have many examples that I can give of how things were run that were questionable to me I would rather just give some advice to management, as we all know that you are avidly reading these posts.
My advice is this: get more directly involved with YOUR company like you were when I first started working there in 2004. When I first started working for you guys I LOVED my job. It was challenging, a learning experience and I left at the end of the day feeling as though I accomplished something and somehow helped our customers achieve their dreams. I took on each store that I helped put together as a personal project and yet I still had time to get several done a day. I found that if I did things right, even if the customer hadn't sent them in 100% correct, that they were 100% happier than if I just slapped together what they sent me and said sorry what you send is what you get.
As time went on there was less attention given to making things right, it turned to being all about hitting those numbers. At the time that I left the only numbers that were important where the sales numbers.
Here is a thought for you management, money earned is not the only thing that makes you successful...
btw, want to know who the multiple users on the same ip are? not just the current employees. it's dave continually posting as different people, from HitManagement to GrowUpPlease to LOLplease.
I would like to hear what the people that were laid off yesterday. What is your take on all of this?, and did you see it coming or were you caught off gaurd that it happened?
30 FIRED TODAY ANYONE KNOW THE DETAILS...what i heard from an employee who is still working there told me bucause he was comming into my office today to apply..:}..said 30 banana boxes were there for people to collect there stuff..? what a shame...
Was that the worst post ever placed on here or what? Maybe I need a refresher course in the English Language.
Can some one clarify that these 30 people laid off, do they include or are they additional to the 20 or so people laid off yesterday?
We need to let Anne Cutler at abc4 news as well, maybe this time she will realize she should have ran the story the first time!
How will they get around unemployment? If they laid them off. They must have fired them to avoid that mess
My heart goes out to all of you that were laid-off (fired). Just think you will not have to lie, cheat or steal to support your families. You will not throw-up each morning before you head off to work. You will be able to breath again. Best of Luck.
I stand w/ donebeingbullied -
although it is never easy to be out of a job with so much unknown and out of control, life will still be better. Happiness sets in as you realize the sicknesses caused by having to wake each morning to go to HIT for 8+ hours a day helps deal with the uncontrollable and brings with it a peace of mind.
Best of luck to those who joined our ranks this day.
I also stand with those who wish to reach out and comfort those poor people who have lost their employment. As others have said it is never a joyful experience to go and search for work when you were not planning on it, but hopefully new doors will open to you.
Let's hope that soon everyone who was once employed at Hit Web Design will be employed at other places that are ethical, and treat their employees with dignity!
Also have we gotten any more clarification on the numbers. I am being told that the 30 employees counts the 20 that were let go yesterday. Can anyone else verify this information?
i dont think they let anyone else go today, at least no one else from my departmant. from the rumors going around here the total was 26 people yesterday.
At least now they will be able to look at the family members eye to eye! no more unethical selling or cheating customers.
But this thread had nothing to do with at all...right LOLREALLY
Knowing what I know now, I would live to sit down right now with Jeremy and Dave and discuss what has taken place, and what will come in the near future. It looks like it's time to wake up boys, the train is leaving the station.
@LOLReally
I am sure all the 800 complaints at BBB over last 7 years, 500+ complaints on this forum, 500+ at /link removed/ 1000+ elsewhere on the internet about heritage aka hit web design aka ### web design aka ripoff web design company, are all from the same IP as well.
only a ripoff company like hit web design can fire employees and hire temps to do more scams and avoid pay roll taxes. And yes the customers who do not do background check on HIT and just buy on the spot are themselves to be blamed.
management told us today that things are going great. we were told that we are safe at least until march.
so what was the reason of removing 26 employees?
temporary measures to ensure we have a strong future. management still insists that this company is stil going to be the world leeder in web markting and web design.
They can barely spell web marketing and web design - let alone offer a fulfillment regarding it.
charge customers $100 per page
charge outrageous extra fees on other freely available stuff.
pay 5% ( or less or never sometimes ) of charged amount to out-sourced designers all over the world
charge 10-12 times more for web hosting alone unsuspecting customers
book customers domain name on HITS names and then ransom customers, so they don't move
pay $8.5/hr to employees and steal their commission at every available opportunity
sell, sell, sell crap to customers even if they don't need it - just to stay green
I think the time is coming for ex-employees to unite and PROTEST!
stopthegreed;
not even a smart place to go. you left hit and im trying to leave hit to get away from unethical behavioor
I have a list of all ( well almost all ) of HITS clients, they have been ripping off for years...
I think we should contact all the employees we are in touch with and get all the employees who were laid off recently by these jerks and ask them to share their horror stories.
I think I am going to let all the people on my list that they don't own the domain and its owned and held ransom by HIT.
stupid stupid stupid
PLEASE LET'S ALL REMAIN ON THE UP AND UP!
If you have a list that was generated from Hit Web Design's system it is ILLEGAL to use it! You can only contact a former client if you can find them using NORMAL BUSINESS CHANNELS! AND YOU HAVE TO PROVE IT!
So if you are going to contact current hit clients do a search in google links:www.hitwebdesign.com or links:www.hitwebdesign.com
ONLY USE NORMAL BUSINESS CHANNELS! DO NOT USE ANY PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. DO NOT GIVE HIT WEB DESIGN a LEGITIMATE REASON TO SUE YOU!
To all who have Quit..fired..or layed off?...here are some TIPS for trying to collect unemployment benefits ..I Quit and when i called for unemployment, I was ready to tell all the bad stuff and crap management, unethical and working conditions ect...THEY DO NOT CARE! thay are not wanting to hear about the CRAP WORKING CONDITIONS ECT.. ..any problems like that you have to take up with the Labor Board and file a complaint with them...
..what there wanting to hear is about the pay cuts the 15% taken, given back, then taken again...screwing with our abilty to support our families cutting bonus to 5% across the board and ...Erica in HR as sweet as can be but is NO help what so ever ..she knew nothing about the pay cuts when i was edoing my exit interview..on your exit interview she will ask you to write the main reason you Quit ..you will screw yourself if you do not say ..PAY CUTS, THREATING US TO HIT UNREALISTIC GOALS. ECT ..I have 11 thousand in there and i will FIGHT till i get some of it ..so i hope this helps some of you ..and good luck to all that have left and are moving on to biger and better things ..LOL remember this saying
ONWARD AND UPWARD..
What a joke the only thing that was onward and upward with that company is the pile of ### growing...
well said idontcryanymore
I totally agree with idontcrynomore... Keep fighting for your unemployment benefits! It took me 6 weeks but I ended up getting it! Good luck to you and everyone else!
ethicalhit said
"If you have a list that was generated from Hit Web Design's system it is ILLEGAL to use it! You can only contact a former client if you can find them using NORMAL BUSINESS CHANNELS! AND YOU HAVE TO PROVE IT!
So if you are going to contact current hit clients do a search in google links:www.hitwebdesign.com or links:www.hitwebdesign.com"
Not only can you not use a proprietary client list that you took from HIT's system without permission (which is patently unethical in the first place), you had also better have a very good reason to be contacting HIT's customers anyway (such as offering a legit business deal that is completely unrelated to HIT's business). If you contact them to talk smack about HIT, to diminish HIT's reputation, or to interfere with HIT's business relationships in any way, you will likely find yourself party to a lawsuit...and for darn good reason too.
stopthegreed (and whoever said they had a HIT customer list)...I agree with ethicalhit and stupidco...Not a smart suggestion at all...or ethical for that matter...pretty stupid actually...
exemployeehit:
You said "I have a list of all ( well almost all ) of HITS clients, they have been ripping off for years..."
You're not the brightest person posting to this list, are you?
Not only is stealing a proprietary client list from your employer unethical, it definitely is a breach of the employment agreements that you signed and it probably amounts to a theft of some nature.
So, congratulations, you just implicated yourself in a crime.
You also supported my theory that at least some of the posters to this list are disgruntled ex-employees that were terminated for good reason (or should have been in your case, if you weren't actually terminated for something else).
Some free advice: stop while you are ahead; destroy the supposed list and disappear.
By the way, we aren't stupid here. We know who some of you are. We keep records. We have access to the computers you used and to system logs. Don't think you're smarter than you really are (or more ethical than you really are for that matter). It will catch up with you sooner or later.
Signed,
An Uneducated Idiot
Turpin,
How much legal work have you actually been involved with? Before you spout off too much about HIT's "great systems" in place or lack thereof (to which I can attest you haven't got a clue), you might want to ask a few attorneys out there if they always jump right on a case or whether it's better to have all their ducks in a row first. I suspect most will tell you they like to have things in order before they go to court and pull the trigger.
Your personal suspicion of what HIT has or does not have in place doesn't mean anything.
-RN
am i the only one who notised that hit made a huuuge jump this morning on this sites ranckings? hit just doubled its lead for the number 1 spot of worst busineses!
Mr. RNelson,
Please remember that Employer Harassment of former employees is also an illegal activity, and you personally are leaving quite the paper trail!
Hit Web Design as an employer is also bound to a number of laws set by the FCC, FTC, Labor Commissions etc. By openly threatening to pursue legal action, even in the broadest sense one could interpret these communications as harassment. Remember with harassment intent is NOT taken into account.
Personally I think that your behavior is harassing and if I was Turpin I would take you to court.