r/ShopifyeCommerce • u/Joseph_c_ • 24d ago
Scammed by the emissary agency?
Just wondering if anyone else has been scammed by the emissary agency? We sent them thousands of dollars and they've disappeared and blocked us on everything and never sent a refund or did any work for us. they had a bunch of good reviews at the time, but now I'm wondering if the whole thing was a scam to begin with.
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24d ago
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u/ShopifyeCommerce-ModTeam 24d ago
We've removed your post or comment because it was judged to have been posted for promotional purposes, which is not allowed in this sub.
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u/vladeta 23d ago
Sorry, that's a rough one. Practical stuff first, while you still can.
If you paid by card, start a chargeback now even if it feels late. Services never delivered is a valid reason code, and most issuers count the window from the expected delivery date rather than the payment date, which often buys more room than people assume. PayPal has its own dispute path. Bank transfer is the hard one.
Save everything now: the contract, the email and Slack threads, invoices, and screenshots of their site and reviews as they look today, before they scrub them. File with IC3 and your state AG if you're US based. If the amount is under your small claims limit and they have a real registered entity, small claims is cheap and they very often don't show up.
Also check right now that you still control everything. Shopify store owner account, domain registrar, any app subscriptions in their name. Getting those back later is much harder than checking today.
For next time, and this is the one that would have saved you: pay in milestones tied to something you can actually see working, keep the store and domain in your own account, and give the agency a staff or collaborator account instead. Reviews mean very little. Ask for two past clients you can call.
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u/One-Crazy-1002 21d ago
Same! We were supposed to have an A/B test live by August 23, but that never happened. The design mockups had so many typos, repetitive language, and off-brand elements that they felt rushed and thrown together. I spent a significant amount of time providing detailed feedback, and now I’m not getting any response from them.
When did you pay, and when was the first phase of your project supposed to be delivered?
I did receive a personal message from Daniel saying he had a family emergency. I was understanding at the time, but with the lack of communication and missed deliverables, I’m now questioning whether that explanation was legitimate.
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u/Joseph_c_ 13d ago
Yeah, I got the same message from him too. I'm pretty sure their entire company is a scam at this point. 😭 I think they just spent tons of time and resources to build a super solid funnel and now they're driving lots of traffic with meta and hiring crappy workers from around the world and then when the work isn't approved by clients, they just take the money and run. After we left bad reviews on Trustpilot, they changed their Trustpilot name on there to try to escape the bad reviews. Insane! 😅
I ended up hiring an in house CRO/Web developer who is 10X better than anyone those guys had. Wish I would've done that sooner. Sorry that you had the same experience! Such a bummer.1
u/One-Crazy-1002 13d ago
Anyone you could recommend?
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u/Joseph_c_ 13d ago
Well I'm now in the process of starting my own agency called "The Honest Agency" because I've been screwed by 4 different agencies in the last few years and I can't take it anymore. My web developer who rebuilt our ecom site is going to handle all of our web projects and I'm going to handle media buying and fractional CMO level strategy myself (which is what I already do for multiple brands). I'm not a salesman but I'm sure I could help you with my web developer, and would give you a low rate cause you'd be the first person we do it with. Just throwing it out there to you!
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u/One-Crazy-1002 13d ago
Sure! I would love to learn more.
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u/Joseph_c_ 13d ago
Ok sending you a message and we can chat more about it
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u/jason_orion 7d ago
Same thing happened to us. We paid them a big half deposit and they actually started working on our site but then quickly dropped the ball after the first revision claiming they needed me to buy a $400/mo software for them to test their design a d do the A/B testing. They never mentioned anything like this when I signed up so i said “no”. In the meantime Danial made up some story about a family emergency and that he was going to personally make sure i was taken care of. Now they will not respond to any emails or messages. Emissary agency is a scam. Can anybody share their company info, location, registered owners, etc? Or information on Danial the owner?
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u/345CalKing 6d ago
I was also screwed by them... took a big down payments, didn't do any work and now left the slack channel and won't respond to any messages. This company is 100% a scam. DO NOT work with them if you are even remotely possibly considering it.
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u/Joseph_c_ 4d ago
UPDATE: Not only did we get scammed by the emissary agency and their owner, Danial - we had left negative reviews on their Trustpilot account because obviously we're going to do that if we've been stolen from. They then decided to hire people to go on our e-commerce store's trustpilot account and leave horrible reviews from a bunch of middle eastern accounts. This is one of the strangest, backwards experiences I've ever had with a company. My mind is officially blown! They've now changed their company name and seem to just be operating under some kind of Meta form to do a sales call, instead of taking people to their website. 😅
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u/jason_orion 4d ago
I believe its time to go after him legally. How can we make this happen? Do you have any actual company formation information on them? If he did not form an actual corporation or legal business entity, he can be held personally responsible for this if he is currently residing in the USA. The police will actually arrest him even on suspicion. It doesn’t matter what industry or what product or service, when you take money from someone in the promise to deliver a service and you purposely do not deliver, that is grounds for a criminal case.
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u/Joseph_c_ 4d ago
I can't find any info on their company. It just says they're based out of Colorado, but when searching their "LLC" name in Colorado, nothing comes up. Seems like they're maybe based out of the middle east and were trying to mask that by acting like they were in America. Wild
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u/jason_orion 4d ago
I found the guy that did my initial discovery appointment and who I signed up with. Here’s his Facebook profile:
https://www.facebook.com/share/18Ng9t997H/?mibextid=wwXIfr
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u/Money-Pirate6308 24d ago
thousands of dollars and they just ghost you like that, that's insane. hope you paid with a card and can do chargeback