DataPierce Consulting

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company, MARCo Technologies LLC. develops therapeutic social robots for young individuals struggling with depression, anxiety, and self-harm. I serve as the CEO, founder, and lead engineer, and for over a year served as the sole proprietor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DataPierce Consulting?

Originally, I connected with the owner of DataPierce Consulting, Mr. Paras, because I was in search of a business partner who could join our executive team. I was looking for someone with marketing experience to round out my technical expertise and help us grow. Mr. Paras promised he and his team could help us grow our business, gain customers, redefine our brand, and connect with investors he personally knew.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DataPierce was handed responsibility for our complete digital marketing strategy, in charge of our website, social media, blogs, SEO, and online branding. They also were responsible for graphic design of brand assets, and mockups of digital applications. Finally, they were in charge of press releases for the company. This was meant to be an ongoing relationship rather than just a project-based relationship.

Mr. Paras took the title of Chief Marketing Officer at MARCo Technologies and was responsible for networking with investors and potential customers and advising me on marketing decisions.

What is the team dynamic?

Initially, I would have rated them fairly highly in team dynamic. I could have regular calls with the founder, Mr. Paras, and they included me on a team Trello board for projectmanagement. That all went spiraling downhill after one month. I have requested documentation hundreds of times from them on various projects, spending reports, and more and have received only empty promises that I would receive it.

It took 2 months to receive a scanned copy of a customer contract that turned out to be completely
fraudulent. They had me pay up front for marketing costs with a loose breakdown of where the money was going (organic SEO vs paid advertising), but the money certainly did not go where it was intended. Only two ads were ever run for far less than the ~$400 I sent them to run ad campaigns for a few weeks.

They did not share any info about what they were working on while they were working on it, but instead sent reports months after the work was done that claimed to show growth and successes, but the results I saw did not match what they sent me on their reports. I asked numerous times for rightful access to Google Analytics for my own company’s website because they disconnected the Analytics project that I had been using in favor of their own, and I still have not been able to see this.

Communication with them became near impossible after the first month, as they constantly switched communication platforms from FaceBook messenger to Trello to Google Hangouts to WhatsApp to Slack, but every time I would message them on one, they would shift to another and then abandon it shortly thereafter. Emails would go unresponded to regularly. Google Drives that were shared with them were never even open. They would go silent for weeks if not months at a time.

Working with DataPierce was highly toxic both to my company and to my health. Mr. Paras harassed me on WhatsApp at all hours of the day and night, forced me onto calls at unholy hours of the morning, badgered me on holidays when I told him I would be away to fix issues that he himself caused, and would not leave me alone if he needed me to send him money. However, if I needed anything, especially the thousands of dollars he owes me, he cannot be found nor will he respond.

He continually pressed me to have things done immediately, whether or not they were important, and then would sit on them and do nothing with them. I sent him webpages, content, funds, corrected articles, pitch materials, code, hundreds of things that he supposedly needed ASAP and nothing was done with them. The method Mr. Paras uses to hook his customers into working with DataPierce is that he tries to belittle them straight off the bat.

This is not just from my own experience; I watched him do the same to other prospective customers. He will tell you everything wrong about you, everything wrong about your company, everything you are doing wrong and promise that he can fix it. But when you agree to let him “fix it,” suddenly all of his suggestions are out the window and DataPierce will do all the things they said you did wrong (see above about responsiveness of our web app).

How did you come to work with DataPierce Consulting?

I connected with the founder and owner of DataPierce, Mr. Paras, by chance on Facebook in a group of startup founders, since I was looking for one to join my company. He had expressed interest and so we had a few conversations, and he shared his previous recommendations from previous customers, so it seemed legitimate. I agreed to contract DataPierce with a pilot project to determine if we would be a good fit working together.

I have “worked” with this company for almost a year, although I leave “worked” in quotation marks because the majority of that time has been spent trying to get what I have been owed or promised.

How much have you invested with them?

$9,728. $6,358 was supposed to be reimbursed to our company for numerous reasons (refundable application fees to investment committees, DataPierce didn’t have enough cash on hand to make payments to press release companies because of COVID and needed a refundable advance TWICE because their cards were supposedly being declined, refundable travel expenses for a supposed meeting in another city) and has not been for over 6 months.

The owner of DataPierce has continually made up excuses as to why he cannot transfer the funds, including patently false claims that he cannot wire money out of the country using the same wire transfer service that we used to pay DataPierce. Of the remaining $3,370, $1650 were for services that have not been rendered at all, nor has any significant progress been made on them.

One such project, which cost $900, was paid for in October with a hard deadline of November and to this date, June 2021, not a single statement has been made since on the progress of this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The only reason we are still in contact with DataPierce is because they owe us the aforementioned $6,358 in reimbursement, documentation on supposed investor portals that we paid almost $4000 for, access to business accounts in our name that they created, and documentation on the press releases we paid $1650 for and have not received any progress on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

The relationship with DataPierce and its founder Mr. Paras plummeted after one month of working together. At first, Mr. Paras, our sole point of contact with this company, disappeared after claiming to have contracted COVID. I still believe he did contract it, but ever since then, our working relationship has been disastrous.

It became abundantly clear the more we worked together that either this company was a scam or completely incompetent, although given some recent findings by myself and my legal team, we are under the impression that this company is a true fraud: I can all but confirm one case of fraud where the company posed as a potential customer to try and make their marketing services appear more effective, and I am highly suspicious of many more cases of fraud where they posed as either potential customers or investors.

About a month after they migrated my company’s website to its new hosting platform and started making sweeping changes, they added a brand new “Contact Us” form. Briefly after this went live, Mr. Paras emailed me with a form submission about an inquiry about purchasing our product from a “Dr. Hyungesok Lee” from Barcelona Spain. He claimed to work for a hospital and was interested in using our product for his patients, what the price was, whether we could ship overseas, etc.

I responded with our info and asked for some info about his organization, if we could schedule a meeting to discuss, the usual. He responded asking for higher quantities of our product, if he could get custom pricing for higher volumes, and how fast we could ship, but he would not give us any info about his hospital or respond to my requests for a phone call. This went on for over a month, and I could not find any details on a Dr. Lee in Barcelona, Spain.

Ultimately, he stopped emailing us after claiming he caught COVID and would be out of work. He never responded again. This went on a few months ago, and I assumed it was just spam and forgot about it, until I did some digging into DataPierce’s company reviews after getting suspicious. Sure enough, there were reviews on TrustPilot from a Dr. Lee from the same city in India where DataPierce is based who complimented them on their digital marketing services.

So I did some digging into the emails this Dr. Lee sent me and sure enough, the sender’s IP was not traced back to Spain, but instead a spam server in South Korea that was reported for blackmail requesting bitcoin and unsolicited promotions for website design and digital marketing services, which suspiciously enough is exactly what DataPierce does.

Additionally, DataPierce supposedly secured a deal with two Indian universities that wanted to use our product and would put a contract into writing. It took months to get a copy of ONE letter of acceptance from ONE customer, but that turned out to be fake as well. Mr. Pandya claimed to have spoken directly with the Dean of this college and got the Dean to sign it, but the letter that was supposed to confirm the sale came from an assistant librarian.

I have received no letter of sale from the other supposed customer either, and needless to say no progress has been made with either of these universities since. I am also convinced the company has had individuals pose as supposed investors. Mr. Pandya claimed to have two interested VC firms that wanted to invest millions of dollars into our company and took $1000 from me that was supposedly reimbursable to go on a trip to meet with these investors in another city.

However, he provided no details of the trip, no expense reports, refused to turn his camera on when we had video calls during his supposed trip, and never mentioned the $1000 that was supposed to be reimbursed again. Next, he said these investor firms required almost $4000 combined to perform due diligence, but that this would be reimbursable. Then for months afterwards he kept promising to set up a meeting between myself and these investors, which ultimately never happened.

I got one phone call from a man named Mr. Sundar, who claimed to be on the board of a VC firm, but there was no man with that name on the board of the firm, no contact number or email address since of course all communications had to be done through DataPierece only, and no follow-ups even 3 month after the fact. The supposed reimbursement of the near $5000 I am owed has been delayed continually as well, and I have not received any of the promised paperwork, communications, contacts, or funds.

In terms of marketing, I paid somewhere in the tune of $3150 for press releases to reputable sources because Mr. Paras claimed he had insiders who could get us published quickly for a good price, but I had to put up money fast. He claimed that these publications’ internal teams would write up a complete press release for their respective publications, which included Forbes, BI, the Economist, CNN, and Fox. I even paid an extra $900 because he wanted to geta story expedited to be published in November when we paid in October.

It is now June and not a single story has been published. I only received two drafts of press releases for review to two supposed publications. One of them clearly was written by a member of DataPierce’s team due to its butchered English, which was unacceptable because I was promised that these would be written by the publication’s team. The other was a bit better, but after corrections, neither were ever published. I never heard again about the $900 I paid for the Economist article that was supposed to be published 7 months ago.

I repeatedly asked for proof of submission to these publications and to this date I have received none.

How did DataPierce Consulting address the challenges that arose?

DataPierce accused us of putting out fake lies when we brought up these issues and ignored every complaint or request we had. They were not willing to fix any of their mistakes or admit they had done anything wrong, but instead accused our company of incompetence and tried to convince us that they had not made any such promises or retracted their statements. Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

Working with DataPierce permanently damaged our company and we have had to spend several months doing damage control for the work they did. They got us permanently banned from social sites and networking sites that were pivotal for us to connect to potential customers. If Mr. Paras does not refund us the money we are owed, we will have lost the last of our pre-seed and early revenue cash and several thousand dollars of my own money. They have set us back by over a year of progress.

How was project management handled?

Initially, project management was handled well. They defined the scope of the projects that I paid for. They shared a Trello board and updated it regularly. This ended after one month. Since then, we would get billed for “marketing” without being told what was under the scope of that aside from a rough estimate of “oh well this much will be for paid marketing and this much will be for organic.”

We only learned of the work they did in the reports they sent us months after they were due. Key projects, such as press releases, communications with potential investors and clients, had timelines that were constantly being pushed back or modified, and no documentation was ever provided on them. It has been months since we paid for them and months since they were supposed to be delivered and no progress nor any mention of them has been made.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

Their graphic designer was occasionally good; he put together a fairly well designed pitch deck for us and some of his initial social media designs looked fairly good. For the most part, as our time working together progressed, even his work was unusable or unprofessional, so it was incredibly hit or miss.

In what specific areas can they improve?

This company’s whole business model is almost unsalvageable. Given the blatant fraud they performed, I am not sure I can give any constructive advice on how they can improve because myself and my legal counsel are convinced that they are a true scam.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Unless this company genuinely changes its business model and corrects the number of wrongs they have done against my company, it should be known that DataPierce is a complete scam, has committed phishing, fraud, has stolen thousands of dollars from my company, and has irreparably damaged my company’s reputation, in addition to my own personal mental health. Do not work with this company under any circumstance.

If you are looking to outsource digital marketing work and belong to a young startup with little cash on hand, do not work with this company. Do not put an Indian company in charge of your digital marketing strategy unless your target market is in India. If you want to outsource some tedious tasks such as data entry, SEO reports, keyword research, etc. then you can find low cost companies and freelancers, but be prepared to hold them by the hand through each step and do NOT trust an agency unless, again, your market is in India.

Also, be wary of agencies that can say they can “do it all.” If a marketing agency claims to also help with app development, run. From my experience with DataPierce, they prioritize quantity of billable work over quality in anything and use grossly outdated practices and technology stacks.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on August 12, 2020.

Jacob Boyle

CEO, MARCo Technologies LLC.

Healthcare

1-10 Employees

Newark, New Jersey

Less than $10,000

Jul 2020 - Ongoing

Project summary

A behavioral robotics company partnered with DataPierce Consulting to design the company website and app, as well as consult on the marketing strategy.

Feedback summary

Testers have provided positive feedback on the first round of designs, saying they were more recognizable. Despite its size, the team is able to perform the tasks of a much larger company without sacrificing effectiveness or efficiency.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO/CTO of a behavioral health robotics company. We develop therapeutic robots, physical and virtual, to assist individuals with their mental health while providing data feedback to caregivers and institutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DataPierce Consulting, and what were your goals?

I hired DataPierce for web app design, website design, and marketing consulting. The goal is to have a complete redesign of our newest product, as well as an aggressive go-to-market launch that yields 100 customers within the first month, with 1000 by month four.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I connected with the founder of DataPierce online through a Facebook group. He was interested in working with my company on a personal level, and when we talked more about how he could help, we worked out what services DataPierce could perform.

The founder's ability to prioritize my project and work out my needs, as well as provide a very competitive price, were the deciding factors.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We first started with a meeting defining the company's long term goals in launching our newest product. We identified three key areas that needed to be accomplished by the launch - app UI/UX improvement, website UI/UX improvement for customer retention and SEO, and brand awareness through storytelling and PR.

Our first step was for them to complete the UI designs of the application so that my team could complete the backend development with upgraded designs. We received our first layout designs within a week of payment, which were done in Photoshop, and planned to move into HTML after the approval.

Next, we received the layout of the website, which was also done at first in Photoshop. This was then being converted into HTML to be hosted on a GoDaddy server with a WordPress plugin for blog management.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked directly with the CEO on this project. Three other members of the company, at the moment, have also worked on this project, but I have not been in contact with them directly beyond communicating via Trello. Their roles include designer and social media manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

At present, they have delivered the first round of designs as requested. After sharing the designs with potential customers who were familiar with the old design, they were happier with the newer designs, saying it was recognizable when compared to other apps they use in their daily life.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

45-60 minute meetings occur on a regular basis to ensure the whole team is together. We use Google Meet and Google Drive to keep in contact and share files, while using Trello for project management. Deliveries are within the expected timeframes, and they work overtime to ensure project deadlines are met.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They offer such a wide range of capabilities and services, they would seem like they are a much larger company. Yet, the small size of their team allows them to reduce the price for their services compared to much bigger corporations.

Their turnaround time is consistent and accurate to their estimates, which is rare, from my experience, across any industries. What stands out to me the most is how personally they take on your project, as though they make themselves "your" team.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We are still waiting on the final results of all projects, so I cannot fully comment until then. So far, my only concern is whether the full scope of our requirements fully makes its way to the designers, as all communications goes through our point of contact, the CEO, but the results of this will show upon receipt of the final deliverables so for now it is just a hypothetical.

RATINGS

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Edward Consultancies is an online firm which provides services related to business consultancies. We help people in identifying problems and loop holes in their businesses and provide our solutions to them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DataPierce Consulting?

DataPierce Consulting helped us in establishing our online firm as brand and generate some leads in the initial months of the companies.

What were your goals for this project?

To create awareness among other businesses who seek for such services. People whose business is struggling or they want to upscale the scope of business, they seek for expert advice and we become those experts for them

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Social media Group. I put my requirement over there, they commented, we connected.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We connected keeping in mind 6 months as project duration where they were going to establish our business presence online and create our own business a brand people could follow. Later on we needed to shift on our marketing strategies over social media platforms and we also generated leads through Paid marketing in the initial months of our business

What was the team composition?

2 people from each side to share information and discuss the action points and further strategies.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We made $1k Business in the 4th month which increased by 30% in the 6th month.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was smooth, interesting and wonderful experience with DataPierce. It is always a learning experience when you work creatively with professionals. They provide you many more aspects to look with upon same situation. Like minded people always find solutions to problems and thats what was needed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are professional and cost-effective. Their processes are very smooth and fast.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Increase the outreach area in the market and grow with rapid speed. The chances of converting clients will get high.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a sales manager in fashion & apparel industry. My company is based out of Rajasthan and is a growing brand in the current time.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DataPierce Consulting?

DataPierce Consulting was taking care of our Social Media Marketing activities. It included social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram

What were your goals for this project?

To create Brand awareness, get good outreach and use engagement. Also we tried to generate some organic reach through online posting and few leads through our paid promotion campaigns

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I was part of few social marketing groups in Gujarat, and Rajasthan. I posted there and got in touch with them.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

As social media marketer, They were handling my social media accounts on FB & Instagram. They also managed regular posting of textual as well as good image content and carried out paid promotion activities as and when required. They provided local listing service and SEO friendly content for our website. They had to develop our business as online brand in fashion and apparel industry.

What was the team composition?

2 people from their team and 1 from ours was there to carry out process smoothly. 1 of them was responsible for communication and other one was responsible for technical aspects. any requirement or query could be met down with him.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Yes. Outcome of this project was as follow:

1. 10x Outreach area for individual posts
2. 2x User engagement
3. 5x traffic on website
4. 15-20 leads from 1st month which went up to 60-100 leads by 8th month.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was great. Initially everyone takes time to get in to sync but after a while, it was smooth as butter. I loved working with DataPierce as counter representative of my company. Highly Recommendable.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their turn around time is real quick and i literally mean it. Like you can get response within 1-2 hours at max.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I did not find anything of such sort. It was a perfect experience for me.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company is a service oriented company, We provide services related to digital marketing and manpower.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DataPierce Consulting?

Web Design. I hired this company for web designing of my website. I provided them with basic inputs and they provided me with results. It was really GREAT working with them

What were your goals for this project?

To get my website look more attractive and engaging from user point of view. I provided them the goal and DataPierce Consulting provided me the result. I am very much satisfied with them

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I heard it from my friend. He had seen it's post somewhere on social media platform and I got to talk with them. I felt comfortable so I did this project with them.

Describe the project in detail.

Web Design Project was for 2 months. For initial month they redesigned all my pages in respect to UI/UX, Individual images and Content appearance. Their minute management of team and tasks is the most appreciable thing. They plan for everything in detail and provide you with the perfect result. In the later month I asked them to provide me SEO friendly content because I was already engaged somewhere else.

What was the team composition?

Their team was working on remote control basis. They had my Website back end access and they did all the changes that were supposed to be done.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

http://solutionsasky.com/ You can go and check on this website.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I personally monitored everything and I was the only responsible person from my team, where as Mr. & Mrs. Paras Pandya both were handling things internally with their team and were communicating the progress to me periodically. It made the workflow very smooth.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their micro-management for every aspect of the project stood out and their responsiveness to resolve issues and problems were impressive. These are the two main qualities or we can say most impressive things about them and their company

Are there any areas for improvement?

Every business needs improvement. Nobody is perfect. For DataPierce I will suggest only one thing & i.e. Try to finish off the projects faster.