Hi, I am Dan. I am a Graphic designer and blogger working for an online company. I am helping with the development of this website. The website was hosted by spinsunlimited.com, own by David and Jency Sydner. They were also the developer of a site and were doing the Maintenance. For the few months when they built, hosted, and maintained the site, it ran ok, but had many issues. As time went on my boss noticed that every time service was needed it was always an extra charge, very large extra charges, that must be paid before service is done.
So my boss decided to stop the maintenance, and find someone else to maintain it and do the SEO which was a service David would only do for even more money. But I think David didn’t want to give the position to others, he kept insisting that he could do it. So after paying the advance maintenance fee for the month, my boss gave David the required 30 day notice to terminate the maintenance plan. David said it wasn’t enough because he had work planned for 2 months and therefore was insisting on being paid for another month more. When my boss did not pay, David shut and locked the site down and nobody can access the admin panel, he said site stay down until more money was paid, even though he had already been paid for the month.
Then the problem got even bigger. When domain registration and cpanel access was requested David said that it would not be granted because he needs even more money. We found out that when the domain was transferred to David’s server he took the opportunity to also transfer the domain to his name. He never told my boss he changed domain registration, we found out from the Whois that domain is no longer in my boss’s name like before it was migrated to David’s server. My boss has had to hire a lawyer to review the contract. The contract and terms & conditions are all very confusing and misleading, I looked at them on his website. There is nothing in the contract that says as David insists that if he is hosting the domain it must be in his name, nor does it say that David owns the content on the site. David refuses to give back all the files of the site, he took it all. He also shut the site down and is threatening to purge all the files unless he is paid more money.
So if you are looking for a web designer or need hosting DO NOT use spinsunlimited.com they are not good in our experience. They just want money, they l hold your site hostages and you will pay what they want. They have our domain and our files.
So now, we need to start a new one to make business run again, all the money paid to David is gone. All of the files and domain owned by my boss are with David who says he is never giving it up unless it is paid for again.
So please be advised of what we have experienced with David and Jency Snyder, if you plan to make your own site don’t use them, they charge too much and to me are very greedy. Doubt everything they say, I don’t think they are very truthful. Whenever they need more money they find something on the site that they say needs to be fixed and want to charge more even though money has already been paid them. They do not even know what they are doing, they tell you they are SEO experts, they are not, the site they built us was NOT SEO ready and was not ready for mobile devices as they claimed it was. Also they charge for “software”, lot’s of money for software, but then they use open source FREE software. They tell you Joomla is the best that’s why it is so expensive, but it is FREE! Then they will charge thousands of dollars to “buy” an SEO module and say it will take them days to install – the SEO module from Joomla is FREE and takes 5 mins. to put in. They will charge for templates, again lots of money for templates, the templates they used are FREE. The site they built us is confusing and hard to use, they DO NOT know what they are doing.
Save yourself grief, save your website, and save your money GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! My boss has learned a very expensive lesson and is very upset.
Checkout this review from another unhappy customer, you will see it is not just me who have bad experience with this company.
Scammers 
Unfortunately this blog refers to me and our new company. We have been trying to launch a new site for well over a year. It seems we take one step forward and 2 steps back, admittedly it is due to lack of knowledge when it comes to web design and development. Something which due to this very expensive lessons we are correcting.
Our saga I should say began a year ago when we hired my cousin’s friend who creates websites and apps on the side, his real job is working for Old Navy developing their websites. It took months and the site launched with many flaws, it seemed that the developer had bitten off more than he could chew so he agreed to cooperate with anyone else we wanted to bring in. He may have not have been able to do the job, but I can at least say he was HONEST. During the entire process he ALWAYS stressed that we owned the domain – he had us register the site under our name and the server/host was also under our name – it was clear in the whois.
So we searched for someone who could help us fix our site – at the time there was some disagreement with the first web dev as to his final payment, it has since been worked out and he agreed that since he did not fulfill his end of the contract the payments he had received were sufficient – something which David and crew were not privy to.
In the end David had us sold on his ability – he claimed that the original platform, Magento, we were using was the wrong platform – he would use this great platform, Joomla to get the work done – he would “custom” codes to integrate it with other plug-ins, modules, and extensions – Jmarket, K2, and others to make it a true social marketplace community. It sounded like he knew what he was doing so we contracted with him to the tune of $6000+ to fix the site – this price included: 75 hrs of work to recreate and develop the site, server set-up/data & database fee, monthly hosting, and file transfer. We paid 60% up front and made monthly on the balance.
Shortly after the contract was signed I was told we needed to pay for software, which I did, $849. Then another issue which wasn’t covered in the contract came up so we paid another $1800 for shopping cart/shipping then another$1715 for shipping API. These payments were made on top of the monthly payments for the remaining balance on the original contract and monthly server fee. And we also paid $200+ for the SSL certificate.
We took “delivery” meaning we got admin access in mid-March, we had started this on November 18, 2013.
The site was not perfect, bugs started to show up. David had me convinced that these things happen and the site was not yet on it’s permanent server because he was still working on it and didn’t want to interrupt service while he did this.
At this time specifically March 12, 2014 David said we needed to move the domain onto his server as is required on the contract. I agreed thinking that the domain would move sort of like moving house, on to his server – that was ALL I agreed to. At the time I emailed David asking if I had to fill out anything regarding the domain, like my contact information. The reply was it was all taken care of it was part of the service I paid him for. Naively I thought he had my best interest at heart.
Also once he gave us admin access he started in about site maintenance. He said that once he handed over the “keys” meaning I now had control of the site and he was FULLY paid, I needed to think about monthly maintenance. We agreed to a month-to-month plan and he charged me $1656 to set up the plan – this was on March 17, 2014. I paid him for the set up fee, monthly maintenance and server fee for March 17-April 14, 2014. His maintenance fees are billed in advance, that’s how his server fees were always billed as well – I have receipts to prove everything.
He was still fixing issues – but now I had to submit a ticket on the system he supposedly created and installed – that’s what the set up fee was for – funny thing is this system never worked for me- I could see the ticket submitted, but was never able to see the responses. I made him aware of this multiple times and he always had an excuse.
I suppose he got greedy, and long decided he was dealing with a complete idiot when it came to websites, so he pushed the envelope again around the beginning of May. He wanted to do SEO for the site – because his tracking program I paid to install was showing very low traffic. He claimed he could increase it if only I paid him to set up the SEO and then choose a monthly SEO plan – this on top of the maintenance plan I was already paying for – he said they were 2 different things.
OK, well I was done paying so decided to look elsewhere for SEO.
I started talking to my cousins, one of whom is a graphic artist and develops websites, and my nephew who just graduated with an IT degree this May. Both looked at the site and found it lacking in so many ways. Both offered to help.
The first thing they checked was the whois – they discovered that on March 12, 2014 the site was migrated to supposedly David’s server and the registered owner was changed to David’s name. They then asked me why I allowed this. I did not. In a nutshell David was now the owner of the site.
I asked David about this and the reply was it was how he did business. He claimed that I was the owner he just had to do it this way because he hosted 10,000 accounts – it was all under spinsunlimited, but in their file it says I am the owner –
We requested cpanel access and was told we do not own the code. We went around a few times, my husband even got involved. I asked what exactly did I own – I was told NOTHING!
He said he could not understand what the issue was, he GAVE me the tools to do business and make money and told me to just GET OVER the domain and cpanel thing.
He told me that unless I paid him back the discount he gave me when we contracted to develop the site (my contract has an hourly rate, but does not say it was discounted) I would NEVER get the domain and codes. But as long as I paid him to host and maintain it I would be fine.
I sent him an email stating that we were now his hostages – his reply is YES!
Anyway, he said he would cooperate with my nephew Mario with the SEO, he would continue to maintain and Mario would do the SEO part. To do his job Mario needed a module installed – David said go do it yourself – we couldn’t because he would not allow cpanel access – David’s response was see I told you he didn’t know what he was doing – then David decided ok, I’ll do it for you but only after you show me your SEO plan.
At this stage David got very insulting – insisting that Mario didn’t know what he was doing and by default he David could do better. Always getting back to I offered to do this but she didn’t want to pay me. His SEO pricing kept changing over the first week of May – it kept getting cheaper.
On May 15, 2014 at 6am David and/or his wife charged my credit card for the monthly maintenance and server fee – It was to be for May15- June 14, 2014.
That evening I emailed David to give him the required 30 days notice to terminate the maintenance plan – his contract says ” If client decides to discontinue monthly/annual SEO, virtual tour and web hosting or change their information client is responsible to email at Office@spinsunlimited.com 30 days prior to cancellation/payment is due” I was giving notice for the next payment which was due June 15, 2014.
On May 16, I got an email from David at 7:30 am telling me that I must contact him by 10am or my site would go down at 11am. He emailed me several more times to contact him – If I didn’t want the site to go down I must commit to paying him maintenance for June 15-July14, 2014 because he has work scheduled thru then on the site. I checked the site at 9:15 – it was already down.
I have not contacted David or his wife since then, they have sent me multiple emails and left me a phone message – instead I have given his contract and all information to my lawyer. The last contact I had with them was the email terminating the monthly plan they were told I was contacting an attorney.
Clearly they doubt it because every email they have sent since says to have my attorney contact them (if applicable). His main defense is that he has all our conversations taped. My lawyer is aware of this. She is a partner in a prominent law firm specializing in theft of intellectual properties and domains. She is also a personal friend who has helped me on other issues.
Was I naive for trusting David, absolutely! I have learned an expensive lesson, But learn I did, this is what I’ve learned about the site David built, the site he raves about as being the first ever and arrogantly claims he did a great job on.
The site he built is CRAP! It is not SEO ready, nor is it Mobile ready as he claimed it was. Yes it needed a FREE module for SEO and yes it is responsive, but it does not work well on mobile devices because each device needs a different template.
The site he built is confusing and difficult to use, it is unorganized, it is a mess.
The sharing didn’t work correctly, the cart did not work correctly, messaging did not work correctly and the list goes on. Most importantly google was not ranking the site – no wonder there was not traffic! He told me that was because I needed SEO – yes I did, but not from him!
We have the SEO plan he kept requesting, but never gave it to him because my nephew recognized right off the bat that David does not know what he is doing, he did not share the plan because he felt that David did not want to use it for our site, he would have used it for himself.
I have since learned that the software I paid for are FREE open source platforms, with modules, extensions, and plug-ins also FREE. I checked the demo version and found that the “issues” we had were already part of the software, why they did not work on David’s site is beyond me. I can only think that David either “broke” the platform due to incompetence or he was slowly adding features so he could either charge me more or tell me he did me a “favor” like the K2 module he supposedly installed for me out of the goodness of his heart.
I have learned many things since my encounter with David, mostly that this practice of holding a site hostage is common among a certain type of web developer.
The internet absolutely gives less than honest folks a way to prey on the stupid and naive. I hate to admit it, but I was stupid and naive.
I am not sure where this will end with David, we have since moved on, but he is not forgotten. He is mistaken if he thinks I was bluffing or just threatening with a lawyer. I do not bluff, nor do I make threats, just because he hasn’t heard from me or my attorney does not mean I was bluffing or lying. I know it is like closing the barn door after the horse got out, but right now under the advice of my attorney we are studying the contract and the new laws regarding domains and intellectual property.
I write this not in anger, but really for others out there like me who was way too trusting, naive, and stupid. I hope they will learn from my mistake.
On a side note – I received an email from Jency saying it was unprofessional of me to make someone write the above review – I did not ask anyone to create this blog, I had no idea it was here until she sent me the link. And what about the other review from the link above? I don’t know who wrote it and didn’t know it existed until I saw the link
I’m sure David and his wife will see this, and like they did to the review on ripoffreport.com will rebut. But I have the contract, the receipts, and emails to prove my point. They have recordings? I am only relating facts as it happened to me, also the OPINIONS are mine based on my experiences with them and what I’ve learned since then. I believe it is my First Amendment Right to express my opinion.