Watermelon Web Works, LLC

In February 2014 my redesigned website,
, went «live.» The site was an utter failure. If it had been a city, it would have been declared a disaster area. And, frankly, dealing with FEMA would have been a lot less exasperating than dealing with my web designers, Watermelon Web Works.
I surf the web using a computer. My fifteen-​year-​old niece surfs it via her smart phone. My cell phone is a dumb phone and all I use it for is making phone calls when I’m out and about. My niece needs an app to remind her that she can use her phone to make phone calls. When she calls me at home I answer on a phone that has a cord and a rotary dial – or, as she calls it, a leashed phone.
More and more people surf the web using mobile devices, and since I’m not terribly attuned to a user’s experience on them, I hired Watermelon to make my site more compatible for viewing on these devices. I also wanted them to make it possible for customers to instantly download cartoons after they pay for them instead of waiting for me to email a jpg.
On February 16, the day before the new design was launched, my site had 939 visitors.
The site Watermelon designed was nice to look at, but it only averaged three visitors a day. Not three thousand. Not three hundred. But three.
For much of the last year I suffered a double whammy: having no income coming in because no one was visiting the redesigned site, and paying Watermelon’s fees. I nearly went bankrupt.
In June I asked Paul Clerc, Watermelon’s top web guru, if there was any chance I could get a partial refund. My old site netted about $ 1,900 per month. The new site netted less than $ 11 a month. Paul said «No.»
Soon thereafter I balked at paying Watermelon for a fourth time to fix a programming error that was causing my customers to be overcharged. I concluded my email by saying:
«If I was only out $ 8,000 (almost double your bid) it would be one thing, I could walk away from it, but I’ve lost my livelihood, I’ve lost the way I made a living, I’ve lost a business it took me 35 years to build.
«When I was looking for a design firm everyone said, ‘They do good cheap work in India.’ I was an idealist, and was willing to pay more to hire not just a U.S. firm, but an Oregon firm. So much for idealism.»
Paul emailed, «I do not appreciate the attitude. … These are services that you should be paying several tens of thousands of dollars for. … I understand why you are upset, and I have a good deal of sympathy for your situation, but it is in NO WAY our fault.» The caps are his, not mine.
He said he was willing to restore my old site for free.
At one point Paul said the way to save my website was to blog. Another of Watermelon’s web gurus once wrote me, «Blogs are considered highly sharable, so write great blog posts for people to share!»
I’d had no need to blog before, but I took their advice and wrote a 20 part series on my blog titled, «Watermelon Web Works Review.» It recounts my whole ordeal in detail.

I can’t say enough how happy I have been with Watermelon from the start of designing and launching my website to the ongoing care it (and I) receive. Paul, Chance and Jalene all did amazing jobs, are good communicators and quick to respond. My website is beautiful, functional and very well optimized. I receive compliments on it constantly. I have to admit that I am somewhat lazy in my own care of the website with adding blogs, etc, but Watermelon did and continues to do such a great job with it that the vast majority of my business comes in through my website. They have really played such a key role in the success of my business. Worth every penny and more. I have referred many friends and colleagues to Watermelon and will continue to do so.