Client Review on EberlyCollard Public Relations

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I am an interior designer in Atlanta. I have 27 years experience in my industry. I relocated here in Sept. 2015. I talked to other designers and they said the best thing I could do would be to hire a PR firm. With some research I found of Eberly & Collard PR. I signed a contract with them on Aug 25, 2017 for $12,000 and they were to deliver verbatim "One press release/article, a written bio, mission statement and brand narrative messaging". I was clear with them that I needed results before demand falls off during the holidays.I paid them $10,000 on Aug. 31, 2017. They did not send me questions for the article until Sept 8. On Sept 14, I sent my response. It wasn't until Sept 26 that they completed the 598 word article. It got submitted to one, online outlet, PRNEWSWIRE on Sept. 27. Their agreement said verbatim "A press release will be submitted to a network of over 30,000 journalists, 3,000 National Newspapers, 3,000 TV Stations, 3,000 radio stations and 6,000 News/Web Databases." I took this to mean they would distribute the article to a network of their own cultivation, a network that they developed, I was wrong. While the article did get placed on various websites via PRNEWWIRE, it generated no business. I was left in a tail spin.Tues Oct 3: They demanded the remaining $2000 of the contract total. They had only delivered the article the prior Wednesday. According to the agreement it was due on Oct 1 (a Sunday). They threatened legal action if payment was not made immediately. "You are now past due on your remaining balance of $2,000. By your defaulting on the owed balance, you are preventing us from staffing and servicing the branding narratives that were earmarked for October. Should you like to remit the past due balance in full by tomorrow, October 4, 2017, 5:00 PM EDT, we will be glad (and enabled) to proceed with the branding narrative portion of the contract. In closing, the unpaid balance of $2,000 was never an optional payment. Moreover, it was and is a requirement on your part as allocated for in the signed agreement. (not 2 parts). It is our hope you will remit the past due payment and thus collaborate with us in a professional manner, so we can together work on the branding narratives amicably. If you otherwise choose to handle this matter negatively in any way, or disregard the above information, we will have no choice but to turn this matter over to our counsel." (2 days after due)October 4th, I paid them the balance on the contract. Oct 5th they sent a questionnaire for a narrative of my company.Since the $12,000 I spent with E&C generated no inquiries, no business. I asked them if we could come back to it when I could address it. Their response was:Oct 13: "We will complete the narratives after we receive your finished questionnaire. Of note, since it is past the timing of the project, we will have to work it back into our schedule after we receive your answers to the questions we provided. This may mean it will take a bit longer than if we had had the information in hand when the project was still active. But, yes, we will provide the branding narratives as described in our plan." I took them at their word.April 22: I sent my response to their second questionnaire.April 23: I follow up on having sent the questionnaire.May 18: As I received no response whatsoever in nearly a month, I filed a small claims case. July 23 at the courthouse. They said I didn't give them enough time to respond to my April 22 email and they say they would still be willing to deliver the remaining items from the agreement, just like they said on Oct 13th.Since I felt that their agreement was misleading, I sued for refund. The judge sided with Eberly & Collard because their agreement said the project contract was for 9/1 - Oct 31. So despite their promises to deliver the remaining items later, I never got them and they got $12,000.00 for one 598 word, one page document.