Web Creation UK - anyone use them?

[domains]

A client of mine was seriously hurt by WebcreationUK.
Please leave well alone.

did they bang their heads from falling over at the prices quoted

where there's blame there's a claim Jen

 

[FreshPage Web Design]

No it hasn't got any better.
We have an issue where the website performs fine for 2/3 days and then performs EXTREMELY slowly for 2/3 days. The person who coded the website has come back and said that one of the functions we have is causing it to slow down and it is also due to the number of members we have. Basically each member is given a star rating depending on how much they post, whether they have have a completed profile etc. The minimum stars is 1 and the most of 5. We only have 150 members. Apparently that is causing the system to slow down. But if that was the case it would be slow all the time not sometimes. I'm so pi**ed off with them as this is a basic function and we told them we needed it and now they are making excuses. It took them 16 months to code the things when they told us it would take 3/4 months and it's been live for 4 months and it's never worked like it should, there are always issues.
I would like to take legal action against them but I'm worried it will take too long and also because I don't know if I'll be successful or even if I am what they will have to do.

This sounds extremely likely to be a hosting problem. Your site is probably being hosted on a server which is shared by other websites, so if they are getting high traffic (or even worse, if they are getting a denial of service attack) then your site will also be slowed down. How much are you paying for hosting if you don't mind saying?

 

[deniser]

Gosh, can't believe this old thread has been revived! What a can of worms I opened up!

For the same project we got quotes ranging from £1,000 to £100,000!

 

[domains]

Gosh, can't believe this old thread has been revived! What a can of worms I opened up!

For the same project we got quotes ranging from £1,000 to £100,000!

the oldies are the goodies!

if anyone has super bad issues, one of my centers is 7km away from theirs

however, a number of UK DCA's have failed big time to get anything back from anyone who holds nominee shares in the holding company...

how about a nice group sue instead of a group buy!

 

[domains]

Gosh, can't believe this old thread has been revived! What a can of worms I opened up!

For the same project we got quotes ranging from £1,000 to £100,000!

Was that including court fees

 

[AsifHussain]

This sounds extremely likely to be a hosting problem. Your site is probably being hosted on a server which is shared by other websites, so if they are getting high traffic (or even worse, if they are getting a denial of service attack) then your site will also be slowed down. How much are you paying for hosting if you don't mind saying?

It's free for the first year with the company who designed it. I think it's a combination of bad coding and rubbish hosting. Are all shared servers this bad? We could change but if the problem is still there then they won't touch the website again. But if we stay there we're constantly going to have a slow website. Dedicated servers are too expensive for us.

 

[FreshPage Web Design]

You can have shared hosting which is fast. It all depends how many websites are being crammed onto the same server, and how much traffic they get.

You can get virtual private servers which are cheaper than dedicated but ensure you get an allocated chunk of resources at all times.

 

[AsifHussain]

You can have shared hosting which is fast. It all depends how many websites are being crammed onto the same server, and how much traffic they get.

You can get virtual private servers which are cheaper than dedicated but ensure you get an allocated chunk of resources at all times.

How can I check how many websites they have on their server and how can I find a shared server which is going to be faster? (I'm sure they all claim to be brilliant)

 

[Chunkford]

How can I check how many websites they have on their server

Search google for 'reverse IP check'
That will provide tools to find out, but take the figures as a rough guide

 

[DesignerNick]

Search google for 'reverse IP check'
That will provide tools to find out, but take the figures as a rough guide

Does that not only show for each ip? If you go with a reputable host you dont need to worry about overcrowding, if you want to pay a dollar a month for unlimited hosting then you can bet it is crowded

 

[Chunkford]

Does that not only show for each ip? If you go with a reputable host you dont need to worry about overcrowding, if you want to pay a dollar a month for unlimited hosting then you can bet it is crowded

It will give you a rough guide though, but like I said, take it with a pinch of salt.

But like someone's already said, I would go for a VPS. The cost of these nowadays are negligible, and you have some degree of control and peace of mind then.

 

[FreshPage Web Design]

Unfortunately shared hosting is one of those situations where its virtually impossible to tell the quality of without trying it. It's a bit like ISPs in that respect. The only way to get an idea is to look for reviews of the web hosts.

 

[AsifHussain]

It will give you a rough guide though, but like I said, take it with a pinch of salt.

But like someone's already said, I would go for a VPS. The cost of these nowadays are negligible, and you have some degree of control and peace of mind then.

Can you (or anyone else) recommend a decent company which doesn't charge an arm and leg?

 

[bdw]

Vidahost seem to get a lot of favourable comments in here.
http://www.vidahost.com/virtual-and-dedicated-servers/semi-dedicated

 

[lustrum]

Consumer Direct have a register for all complaints against this company. I would urge all Webcreation's dissatisfied customers to register. Consumer Direct have already contacted Trading Standards (Wiltshire) regarding the number of complaints. An Action Group working against Webcreation UK has been formed.

 

[CS-Cart]

Can you (or anyone else) recommend a decent company which doesn't charge an arm and leg?

Hi, AsifHussain. Some of our clients use SiteGround ( http://www.siteground.com/ ), rather positive reviews are got.

 

[bdw]

Siteground

It is not a good idea to use a US host if your market is in the UK.

.

 

[joe2012]

Hi

It seems that I am the latest victim of a very dishonest, unreliable, unprofessional company WebCreationUK.

I will be in touch with all other victims and link up to lunch a legal action against the company. I will liaising with solicitor based in Trowbridge.

I have very good and effective ideas and plans that would help very much in our positions.

I pledge here I will strive and do all the possible things to take my right from them and get compensated of all the loss we have had during designing our website.

Kind regards,
Joseph

 

[IGM_Computers]

Unfortunately shared hosting is one of those situations where its virtually impossible to tell the quality of without trying it.

Very true. A lot of my clients are on shared servers as it saves money but it's not an ideal solution for everybody. One size doesn't fit all.

 

[macmacman]

There are better options out there. From my experience with webcreation, it was a waste of money. Although I gained valuable experience to know what to look for next time. I scrapped all their work and found a different supplier. Work was outsourced to Indian, design was average and code was terrible.

I would start with an out of the box solution, keep it very simple and then build on it and move to big platform as and when.

 

[Ivanzyt]

I used these guys to create a simple website. Cost me about £600 I think.

Was it the best site in the world? No
Was the experience easy and painless? No there was a language barrier and you needed to check everything twice.
Was the project on time? No it was a bit later than they agreed.

But I paid £600 for a website that does the job I needed it to do. For the price I paid I got exactly what I expected and consider it to be money well spent.

I can understand why a lot of UK based Web design companies are annoyed at Webcreation UK. They can't compete with them on price and they will be snaffling up some bread and butter business from these companies. The long and the short of it is that for basic web design jobs, like we had, UK based design companies are simply not competitive and out sourcing to India makes absolute business sense.

That being said do NOT use web creation uk and companies like them for anything other than the most basic of sites.

- If you want a site with anything other than very basic functionality or content then use a "proper" web design / development company and expect to pay several thousand £. You are paying the extra for the consultancy and expertise to translate your business functionality (vision) into a working website. The actual coding is only a small part of this (which is all you pay for when you outsoucre to india)

- If the look, feel and branding of your site is important then use a proper company and expect to pay several thousand £. Again you are paying the extra for design work rather than simple coding. The site you get from web creation uk and their like will look "ok" but ain't going to win any design awards. If, like us, you are selling to a fairly boring B2B market where web site aesthetics are not really important then it might be ok to use such companies but if image is important then you are kidding yourself if you think you can get good design work for £600, regardless of which country the "design" work is being carried out in.

- If you want to get you site finished to a dead line.... well in my experience this never seems to happen regardless of who you use but matters will be worse if you are dealing with a company like Web Design UK because there is simply no business relationship.

 

[bdw]

I can understand why a lot of UK based Web design companies are annoyed at Webcreation UK.

I am not annoyed at them at all. They are doing a great job of proving that outsourcing is at best extremely risky.

The long and the short of it is that for basic web design jobs, like we had, UK based design companies are simply not competitive and out sourcing to India makes absolute business sense.

With respect that's not true. You seem to have been wildly misled at some stage. We do simple websites from £400 and that includes design, consultancy, graphics, initial SEO and advice on how to promote your website on an ongoing basis.

.

 

[Ivanzyt]

I am not annoyed at them at all. They are doing a great job of proving that outsourcing is at best extremely risky.


With respect that's not true. You seem to have been wildly misled at some stage. We do simple websites from £400 and that includes design, consultancy, graphics, initial SEO and advice on how to promote your website on an ongoing basis.

.

When I got quotes no uk company came close to this for what I wanted. I guess its possible that I only spoke to a bunch of sharks who were out to rip me off but the cheapest UK quote I got was about £2,000. If you are different then great, I'm not sure how you would do it and make a profit but if you can good for you.

But its simple economics the cost of semiskilled labour in India is far cheaper. Simple coding of basic websites is just semiskilled labour, it used to be different but now its just a commodised skill. They will thus always have a competative advantage over a uk based company doing the same job. The important term here is "the same job", if all that is required is basic layout and design then India is were you want to go, or eastern europe. If you need some proper design and consultancy then you have a very different requirement and you are actually buying a different service.

When I got my main website designed I spend £3,000 on custom design work for the skins for the CMS and on training and help in setting up the CMS. I was not buying coding I was buying expertise and consultancy. Then the important factors in determining over all value are not the cost of labour but the quality of the labour and, just as importantly, the ability to foster a relationship with the consultant that is good enough to allow effective translation of my business needs. There is no way on earth I would trust such a project to an outsourced company in India, it didn't even cross my mind to get a comparitive quote from such companies. Why? Because I knew I needed a long term business relationship and was buying a service rather than paying someone to simply do a job.

I suggest that you are actually selling a completely different product to these Indian out fits. Were people get in to trouble is that they expect what YOU are selling when they buy from India.

 

[bdw]

Simple coding of basic websites is just semiskilled labour, it used to be different but now its just a commodised skill.

I am not sure what a "commodised skill" is :| but developing even a simple website properly is not "just semi skilled labour" and I suspect that I am not alone in this opinion.

I came into this as a trained electrical engineer with additional qualifications in computing. I have been working at it for over ten years now and I know that without my earlier background it would have been a struggle.

I suggest that you are actually selling a completely different product to these Indian out fits.

I suggest that you are right.

.

 

[pathfinder9]

have you looked at shopcreator - monthly fee but you can be up and running in hours. I set one up - took me 40 mins for the 1st product to be live. If you want a discount go via some of the merchant providers such as handepay or worldpay direct or cardsave.

 

[Ivanzyt]

I am not sure what a "commodised skill" is :|

Sorry I meant commoditized (my dyslexia strikes again)

but developing even a simple website properly is not "just semi skilled labour" and I suspect that I am not alone in this opinion.

I actually agree. But what Web Creation UK sell is not web development. They sell basic design and lay out, or at least thats what they provide. One can argue the toss about whether they misrepresent themselves. But at the end of the day you have a load of coders, or more accuratly people that can use and HTML compiler. This is a basic skill than pretty much anyone can learn in a a couple of weeks. So they will lay out your website for you with using whatever software they use and thats that. Simple basic commodity type work. With our basic site I recon that I could probably have done it myself but by the time I had purchased the necessary software, spent time learning the programs etc then it was just not worth my time it so I might as well out source.

I came into this as a trained electrical engineer with additional qualifications in computing. I have been working at it for over ten years now and I know that without my earlier background it would have been a struggle.

I suggest that you are right.

.

Indeed. I do not in any way mean to belittle what web developers and designers do. I think the £3,000 we spent on skin design, advice and optimisation for our main site was money well spent. In fact I think we got far more from the company in question than we paid them and almost feel guilty about it, I am sorting them out with excellent refference, leads and further business from ourselves on other projects.

But there is a place in the market for coding (dreamweaver) monkeys. As long as people understand the difference I see no problem with Web Creation UK. Sadly most people are tight and think see the price and think they can get a £3000 product for £500. Its funny how the prospect of saving a few quid can switch off peoples brains. No one would expect much from a £500 car, a £500 car (and I speak from experience on buying £500 cars) is a bit of a lottery, unreliable, unpredictable and it should get you from a-b for a while but only a fool would expect years of trouble free motoring. So it is with £500 websites. That being said I just brought a 13 year old Skoda as a run about I know the score and I know what i brought and i know the risks. £500 cars, just as £500 websites, have their place and uses but people need to wise up as to what the differences are.

 

[j600com]

Sadly most people are tight and think see the price and think they can get a £3000 product for £500. Its funny how the prospect of saving a few quid can switch off peoples brains. No one would expect much from a £500 car, a £500 car (and I speak from experience on buying £500 cars) is a bit of a lottery, unreliable, unpredictable and it should get you from a-b for a while but only a fool would expect years of trouble free motoring. So it is with £500 websites. That being said I just brought a 13 year old Skoda as a run about I know the score and I know what i brought and i know the risks. £500 cars, just as £500 websites, have their place and uses but people need to wise up as to what the differences are.

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.

What is interesting is that they appear to have moved domains recently? If you Google Web Creation UK you now get 2 urls. The old webcreationuk.com but now also webcuk.co.uk (this was only registered this week - 6th Feb 2012). I wonder if on the back of the bad reviews they are now going to move away from the old domain and start fresh on a new one?

 

[j600com]

I don't want to worry anyone, but I've received a creditfocus update today showing a change of status to "Extreme Risk" and if you view the recent updates there is one in March showing "Intentions to dissolve"

HOWEVER, I cannot see this company just vanishing into thin air - I have a feeling they may phoenix the company and continue to trade under a different name (such as the new webcuk domain they have set up). Watch this space I guess!!

 

[Ali-v-8]

Very interesting. Wonder what they will do with the clients that they do get results for.

 

[WebLord]

Their prices are not as dirt cheap as some are saying.
395 for example only buys you a single page website!!!

545 for up to 4 pages...

all their sites Ive just looked at are Wordpress driven. They dont custom build any of them, just plug in a template and put the posts in the right places etc...

395 for a basic 1 page wordpress site.....


once I have my 15 posts up, I will be able to post my link and offer better prices than this! UK based also...! till then...

 

[ITsoldUK]

Their prices are not as dirt cheap as some are saying.
395 for example only buys you a single page website!!!

545 for up to 4 pages...

all their sites Ive just looked at are Wordpress driven. They dont custom build any of them, just plug in a template and put the posts in the right places etc...

395 for a basic 1 page wordpress site.....


once I have my 15 posts up, I will be able to post my link and offer better prices than this! UK based also...! till then...

OT. Good luck competing on price in this marketplace.

It is neither easy nor something I would entertain.

Price sensitive web design....yuk, you will need 25 hours a day and a budget of £1,000's to get noticed via G etc...

As stated, good luck tho.

Back on topic...Phoenix card at the ready...

(JMTC and is NO WAY intended as an opinion on the afore mentioned company nor its services)

 

[finleydesign]

Buy Cheap, Buy twice

 

[Azam.net]

I tried to contact them over ten times using the form on their site, emailing them etc. and didn't get a single response despite waiting two weeks.

I'd personally stay well clear.

 

[tryingabit]

Hello,
I'm a newbie here so please don't have a go for posting in the wrong place. Direct me instead.
I want to know if anyone has been successful in getting their money back fromWeb creation UK?

I have handed over a 50% deposit of £600+ to them which is non refundable, but they did not tell me the work was being outsourced. I was promised the work as agreed and discussed with the sales team, but just got an email from the web designer saying he cannot and will not do what I want. This is at the time when I was promised the work would be done. I have telephoned them and the response had always been positive but there does not appear to be any progress or commitment. After reading these posts I am nervous about working with them. I have spent great deal of time and energy compiling all the emails and images for my site which has now been passed on to someone who has a poor level of english judging by the emails. Is there anyway legally I can get this money back as I doubt asking them will get me a positive response.

 

[bdw]

Only you know what your contract with them says. WRT them telling you that the work was being outsourced, there would be no requirement for them to do so. There would only be a problem if they explicitly told you that it was not being outsourced.

.

 

[tryingabit]

Hi BDW,
Thanks for your reply. WRT the outsourcing, I was previously unaware that this was the case or I would not have went ahead. I took issue with this, because the designer has a poor level of english which means he does not understand what I want and prior to being told that I would receive what I asked for I have now been informed that I cannot and I must submit a website design I like instead for them to work from. This was not in my original agreement with them. It is this that I have to rely on that they have not stuck to their side of the agreement but it probably means very little since I only have it by email and not in a contract.

I am in the process of claiming back my money and I will report back if I am successful or not so I can help future people who may find themselves in a similar situation.
It may well be some people are content with a simple design website but I have been completely mislead and deceived by a very deceptive and plausible salesperson and it is this that I am more angry about than anything else.

 

[bdw]

Best of luck.

.

 

[learndrive]

hi, i notice this is an old post but so hope someone reads this;

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT USE WEBCREATIONUK!!

do not use this company! I have taken this company to court after months of emailing India re our website design going nowhere, I personally think it is disgraceful that their name ends uk! the company agreed to settle out of court and yet months later I am still awaiting refund. When I find the time I will most certainly be posting my reviews on various websites. This is my personal opinion and I did research the company and found many satisfactory reviews however I was also informed that upon posting numerous reviews they provide some free SEO? unsure if this is true? All the best with your website, I used a guy called Duke Mettle and very happy with his design etc. I am now looking for a good SEO firm.

 

[Sha.Daly]

Hi BDW,
Thanks for your reply. WRT the outsourcing, I was previously unaware that this was the case or I would not have went ahead. I took issue with this, because the designer has a poor level of english which means he does not understand what I want and prior to being told that I would receive what I asked for I have now been informed that I cannot and I must submit a website design I like instead for them to work from. This was not in my original agreement with them. It is this that I have to rely on that they have not stuck to their side of the agreement but it probably means very little since I only have it by email and not in a contract.

I am in the process of claiming back my money and I will report back if I am successful or not so I can help future people who may find themselves in a similar situation.
It may well be some people are content with a simple design website but I have been completely mislead and deceived by a very deceptive and plausible salesperson and it is this that I am more angry about than anything else.

hi, i notice this is an old post but so hope someone reads this;

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT USE WEBCREATIONUK!!

do not use this company! I have taken this company to court after months of emailing India re our website design going nowhere, I personally think it is disgraceful that their name ends uk! the company agreed to settle out of court and yet months later I am still awaiting refund. When I find the time I will most certainly be posting my reviews on various websites. This is my personal opinion and I did research the company and found many satisfactory reviews however I was also informed that upon posting numerous reviews they provide some free SEO? unsure if this is true? All the best with your website, I used a guy called Duke Mettle and very happy with his design etc. I am now looking for a good SEO firm.

Did anyone manage to get their money back

 

[antropy]

Has anyone any experience of this company?

yeah ive had a few dealings with them and they seem decent, check my website

This one? http://www.officeruler.co.uk/