Client Review on The Natives

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We were first introduced to the natives via an acquaintance, Andrew Archibald who is the co-founder of Social Garden. When we first met Tom Brownie, who is the director of The Natives, he appeared to be friendly and met up with us eagerly several times to discuss marketing campaigns. He also introduced us to his "copywriter" Celia Murray from the Natives, which initially worked on the project for a week or two, and then disappeared. We then with Tammy Trinh also from the Natives.Seeing Tom's enthusiasm, and based on the trust Social Garden has on The Natives, in January 2016, we decided to proceed to use the services of The Natives and made payment in FULL of approx $5k. We did not hesitate to make the payment in full as we believed The Natives would be as reliable as Social Garden, given the good name Social Garden has. However after payment has been made, Tom stopped contacting us and was extremely difficult to get in touch with him. We have not heard from Tom for about 3-4 months after payment was made and whenever we attempted to contact him, his usual reply was that he's busy and will get back to us the next day, which never came. The agreed scope of work was only at best 1/4 complete. Trying to be as fair as possible, on the 13th of July, we demanded a refund from Tom for work not done yet via email. We never heard from him until the 14th of August and only he only made contact when we mentioned that we will take this matter to VCAT. Tom agreed to proceed with a refund of an initial 10% and the remaining balance the following week. The weird thing is that he does not want to refund through the company's account but through his personal account. We received the 10% on the 15th of August 2016 but 4 weeks later we have not heard from him nor the balance being refunded. We attempted to make contact via email and phone, but still could not make contact with him.This is not something anyone should need to go through. It's a waste of time and dishonest. It's a shame as it seems like this company is out there to scam and it's very distasteful.If anyone is contemplating on using an advertising agency, do not use The Natives. We are in the midst of submitting an application to VCAT. We will do what is right and the public has to know of this dishonest and fraudulent director and company.