AVirtual UK Reviews 3

Gross Negligence (Prime Pixel/Avirtual/Outsourcery)

Every plug-in was infected and malware downloaded by plugs-in Prime Pixel/ Outsourcery/ AVirtual used (Evidence sourced from an independent Full-Stack Developer, with an MSc in Computer Science) CPanel, WHM and Javascript, were also infected. The site was then hacked, and I was told to go live while these infected plug-ins were present, had I done so I would’ve been fined.

My quote was for a ‘complete rebuild’, they took the money and stated the incomplete site was because ‘phase 2’ would bring the site to completion, of which they needed more money, these ‘phases’ were never mentioned anywhere in the quote. I have since had a different developer company urgently amend these fixes and make the site safe. He was shocked by the quality of their work.

I was told I should request all my money back and that they only did 15% of the work. In 145 hours, 30 hours of which were ‘Quality Assessment’ and ‘Testing’, they didn’t produce a site anywhere near completion, and the design wasn’t finished, even though almost no custom codes were used, only templates (Again, I can verify this with evidence from an independent Full-Stack Developer)

Furthermore, their social media graphic designer used generic designs and the posts became very formulaic. I had to start sending font ideas/ graphics to him so he would change the design. I constantly had to remind the blog writers how I wanted the information presented, a lot of the research was also lifted straight from one or two sources. It was expensive and towards the end of our time together, the advertisements were grossing zero engagement.

I feel completely ripped off by this company. Reviews from the site they built for me, by users, are that it’s ‘complicated’, ‘hard to use’, ‘doesn’t work properly’ and that they wouldn’t return to the page.

I wish I had never given this company any money and I strongly advise people to find another company for website design and social media. Not only was their service subpar and grossly negligent, but they refused to admit their fault regarding the security breaches, even though I have evidence that their developer downloaded the outdated dangerous plug-in.

It really is hard to say anything positive about the experience I had with Avirtual. I went through three of their PAs, invested masses of time making sure they were properly briefed, helped them get on their feet, sorted all the IT for them to make their lives easier, but every time they proved to be completely inadequate. They couldn't follow simple instructions in writing, forgot instructions given verbally, said they understood when they didn't, had no idea about spreadsheets or filing systems and had no native project management skills. They initially promised they had robust systems in place for the constant power cuts that plague South Africa then denied it and used as an excuse. There are a long list of issues I could mention but overall the quality level was so poor that the only way you could get things to work was to micromanage to a level where it was quicker to just do it yourself - which makes the whole thing pointless. In fact worse than pointless because it was all so stressful. Worst of all no one was accountable for the mistakes they continually made and I was forced to pay for the vast majority of the substandard work. The PAs all resented my efforts to try to rectify things. At the end they even told me to pay for a tax disc on one of their accounts and refused to take responsibility for it or refund me the money (£50) when it never arrived. Apparently this was all my fault. Proper gas lighting. I could talk for hours about my experiences with them but you get the jist. Never again.

Had a virtual assistant who was clueless and was not able to tell the difference in property types.

Was paying 550 a month for 30 hours and she was not recording it. They state that help your business. Well I had to micro manage and keep checking there work .

No matter how much time you waste training someone, it will be a waste of time and effort.

Properties is specialised and this company was not able to find someone able to use there initiative when tasks were delegated.

They offered free hours and another virtual assistant. But does not solve the money and time wasted on someone who was incapable of the work and was more bothered about retirement and easy work.

Property entrepreneurs and companies avoid avirtual. They find a random numpty to do your work and mess it up, so you got to keep checking it.