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A South Salt Lake company has closed its doors, leaving customers coast-to-coast angry and out of thousands of dollars they paid up-front for Web site designs they say never materialized or were seriously flawed.
In November, Origin 3 at 670 E. 3900 South stopped responding to complaints registered with the Better Business Bureau. Around Dec. 22, after a number of complaints about failure to deliver promised Web design services, the company shut its doors, its employees left and customers say phone calls and e-mails weren't being answered.
Co-owner Russell Scott Burnett II, of Herriman, said Monday the company failed after majority owner Matthew Allan Jackson, of Herriman, walked out and an investor stopped making promised payments in December.
"It broke us," Burnett said, saying he had sold personal property to raise money to pay employees and customers.
Although the company's Web site makes no reference to the Origin 3's problems or its efforts to settle accounts, Burnett said he was working with a new investor who was putting money into company accounts to pay back customers. He also said co-owner Christopher Shaun Symond, of West Jordan, and several former employees were working to finish Web designs on about 90 active accounts.
Cathy Craig, of Wildomar, Calif., said that on Dec. 18 she paid $6,140 through a credit card for a redesign of a Web site the company had previously created for her fitness instructor business. A few days later, an employee who had left Origin 3 called her on his own to say employees had been laid off on Dec. 21, the company was closing down and that she should try to get her money back.
Now, she's angry that the salesperson took her money just days before the company shut down, and took down her Web site.
"Obviously he knew his company was going to close," she said. "You don't out of the blue on a Friday say, 'I've had it, I'm closing,' and take money two days before."
Burnett confirmed Craig had made the payment but said that without examining customer records, he could not say why the company accepted payments just days before it went out of business. He said customers who request a refund from their credit card companies will have payments returned as money is put into the company's bank account.
Burnett said he was speaking on behalf of Symond. Jackson did not return two messages left on his cell phone.
Jane Driggs, CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Salt Lake City, said the organization had received 20 complaints about Origin 3. She said the company had been responding to the bureau until the end of November, "then they just stopped."
Barbara Widmer, of New York, signed a contract March 28, 2007, for a Web site design for her business that helps people relocate to the Carolinas. It was to be completed within three months. She paid $400 initially, then in May was charged another $400. When her Web site turned out not to be what she ordered, she was given a credit but then was charged another $75 on her credit card.
Widmer said the company used four different designers on her account but that what Origin 3 produced "was totally useless," She said the company eventually stopped responding to her queries.
"I would e-mail, I would call. I would get nothing." Similar complaints about Origin 3 are posted on two consumer complaint Web sites, http://www.complaintsboard.com and http://www.ripoffreport.com.
Burnett said he is able to respond to only about 30 calls a day and that the company is receiving several hundred daily.
Burnett said the business has been investigated by the Utah Division of Consumer Protection and given a green light to continue to pay back customers or resolve complaints.
Division Director Kevin Olsen said he could not confirm or deny that it had received complaints about Origin 3.
"I can say we haven't taken any legal action," Olsen said.
* E-mail russ@origin3.net
* Call 801-269-8300