[asterisk-biz] Fraud advisory: Wes Penner/Morewave Communication

[Alex Balashov]

To Whom It May Concern,

TL;DR version: Don't do business with Morewave Communication/Wesley
Penner in Vancouver, BC.  You are likely to get scammed.

Long version:

I'm writing as a fellow vendor of VoIP-related services to advise you
that we have had an extremely unfavourable experience with Morewave
Communication, a VoIP provider based in Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada.  Morewave is headed up in part or in full by one Wes Penner.
It is my hope in writing this to save others the pain of chasing
Morewave generally and Wes personally for money.

Our interaction with Wes has been characterised by extremely spotty,
poor communication on his part.  He has a tendency to disappear for
days or weeks on end, and later claim that he has a busy schedule and
wears many hats.  As a result, trying to advance even the smallest of
technical goals essential to the completion of a project tests even
the most pliant and generous person's patience.  He contacts on his
schedule, on his terms, whenever he feels like it, without any regard
whatsoever to any communication received by him in the interval since
his last unannounced hit-and-run.

This in and of itself is not so exceptionally uncommon. However, Wes
has defrauded us of a ~$3500 payment in connection with a small project.

The contract stipulated that it was due upon completion of the work.
A reasonable period of post-delivery testing and evaluation was
foreseen, and very fair.  However, it has been almost a month since we
delivered, and we have gone unpaid.

The most disconcerting element of our interaction has not been the
lack of payment, which could be for any number of reasons, but rather
the obvious desire on Wes's part to shift the costs and risks of his
business onto us, the vendor.  Specifically, he has articulated a
particular point of view of what it means for the project to be
"complete" that ties our payment to the vicissitudes of his own wildly
variable personal schedule, and additionally, to the fulfillment of
business objectives on his end.

In other words, rather than to paying us for the deliverable that we
were contracted to deliver, Wes takes the view that he has no
obligation whatsoever to pay us until precisely such a time as he gets
around to using it in a way that is subjectively satisfying to him.
He has stated that he will not pay until he puts production traffic on
our network element, which in and of itself is not necessarily
controversial.  However, weeks have gone by without any progress on
this objective, and he disappears for long periods without any
communication or status update and has been extremely difficult to get
a hold of.  Moreover, very adequate demonstration of the deliverable's
functionality has been provided in lieu of his employment of it in
production.  He does not dispute the functionality nor
feature-completeness of the deliverable, but rather finds that he does
not need to pay until he feels like calling the matter "complete".

This is akin to not paying for a billboard until you receive a certain
dollar amount of business from it, or not paying your ISP because you
haven't yet found anything interesting on the web.  Moreover, it is an
impudent attempt to shift the burdens and risks of implementation onto
the vendor, when in fact the procurement of capital goods is a risk
precisely for the entrepreneur to assume.

My charitable speculation is that Wes never had the money, and somehow
intended to come up with it in whatever time frame suits him, on the
theory that he could get away with it.  The "constantly busy" routine
would then constitute camouflage for insolvency.  That's not a new
routine.

We've been burned before and haven't said anything.  It takes a lot to
compel me to make a public scene.  However, I truly and wholeheartedly
believe that this guy is going to scam others in an effort to spend
money only in a way that suits him, and does not reflect how business
actually works.  From this experience, as well as his impertinent
attitude, spastic hit-and-run communication style, and ability to drag
out simple matters into lengthy affairs with the intent of avoiding
payment, I would call into question his creditworthiness or
suitability as a customer for professional services, if not other
services.

At the very least, I would strongly suggest a mandatory 100% pre-pay
policy.

Thanks,

-- Alex

-- 
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems LLC
260 Peachtree Street NW
Suite 2200
Atlanta, GA 30303
Tel: +1-678-954-0670
Fax: +1-404-961-1892
Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/