Ocean Marketing's Paul Christoforo: Douchebag of the year

Everyone's doing their year-in-review and the best & worst of 2011 reviews so this couldn't have come at a better time. We're not going to waste any time or energy trying to go back and analyze all the idiots over the past year, we don't even have to do that - because we have the perfect candidate by which all other douchebags pale in comparison. Meet Paul Christoforo, "President" of his soon-to-be-defunct marketing company Ocean Marketing.

Paul Christoforo, through Ocean Marketing, was working as an outsourced representative for N-Control's Avenger controller attachment when he received an e-mail from a customer wondering where his order was.


Read the exchange that started it all here.

Customer "Dave" had ordered the PS3 controller attachments on November 3rd and was initially told they would be arriving to him by early December. Well, December rolled by and after a couple of weeks passing with no order yet, Dave decided to contact customer service on Dec. 16 to see what was up. Dave was very polite and even wished Ocean Marketing happy holidays:

I ordered 2 of the upcoming PS3 controllers (invoice xxxxxxxxx—Nov 3, 2011). Any chance of getting an update of when these items will ship? I’m not really happy about being forced to pay upfront then have the advertised date of “Early December” be completely missed without any sort of update on availability. I really need one of them for a X-mas present as well. Anyways, looking forward to finally using one of these bad boys. Thanks and happy holidays.

-Dave

With such a nice initial communication, how could anything go wrong? This is the company's chance to go out of their way to show empathy for the customer and apologize for the delay, and do everything they can to make sure the product is sent out as soon as possible. What actually ended up happening though is a completely different story. Paul Christoforo turned the situation into one of the biggest customer service nightmares we've ever seen.

When asked about the estimated time of arrival for the attachments, he responded "Dec 17", the next day. A few days later he writes "They still haven’t shipped yet on the way here from china".

Well that sucks, but hey, that happens sometimes right? Product releases get delayed, and it's just the nature of buying things online. Well Christoforo was just getting started. Here are some of the more interesting responses from representative Paul Christoforo to customer Dave:

"im sure you don’t complain to activision or epic games so put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everyone else."

"Feel free to cancel we need the units were back ordered 11,000 units so your 2 will be gone fast. Maybe I’ll put them on eBay for 150.00 myself."

And then it gets much worse...

"Son Im 38 I wwebsite as on the internet when you were a sperm in your daddys balls and before it was the internet, thanks for the welcome to message wurd up."

"You just got told bitch … welcome to the real internet"

"We do value our customers but sometimes we get children like you we just have to put you in the corner with your im stupid hat on."

And if simply shitting all over a customer wasn't enough, Paul Christoforo then digs himself a bigger hole by pissing off industry insider Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade and gaming convention Pax, after customer Dave forwarded the exchange to him and other gaming sites. The exchange then continues between Christoforo and Krahulik, the most amusing part of which is Christoforo's "Do you know who I am??" attitude when he's quite the nobody himself, especially in relation to Mike Krahulik.

"Were in 6 countries and you’re not going to take my money for a booth that’s a crock I can guarantee I’ll get a booth if I want one money buys a lot and connections go even further. He’s a native Bostonian from Little Italy . Who are you again"

"If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone."

Paul Christoforo then seemed to have finally realized he fucked up big time, but it was much too late.

Mike I’m not trying to fight with you I’m really not , you should give me the benefit of the doubt before judging over one person’s bitching . Did I feed into his emails a little bit too much yeah ok . But it’s one person dude for real. No disrespect intended for you , My name is good in this industry and I know a lot of people. I’ll be at CES are you going ?

Awww poor guy, it was just a misunderstanding. Shame on us for siding with the dirty customer and not good guy Paul Christoforo. And plus, he knows a lot of people. ooooo we're impressed, and Mike Krahulik definitely was too. His response: "Please remove me from this mailing list". Ouch!

This all went down a few days ago, and ever since then we've been witnessing a public meltdown eerily similar to that of Charlie Sheen's, where Paul Christoforo has taken to his twitter account to defend himself but in doing so only reveals what a nutbar and douche nozzle he is. Oh and in case you were wondering, Christoforo and his Ocean Marketing group has been fired from the position of representing the Avenger controller product. N-Control has issued a statement:

"We apologize for our poor representation from Ocean Marketing," David Kotkin, the owner and inventor of Avenger Controller told Kotaku. "We wanted to give Paul a chance. He was rough around the edges, but he had drive and enthusiasm. However his behavior was unprovoked, unnecessary, and unforgivable. We are no longer represented by Ocean Marketing."

Let this be a lesson to companies out there: be very careful before you let some outsourced company (or in this case, probably just 1 guy) take control of the one thing that matters most to your company: the relationship with your customers. Really, you shouldn't be outsourcing that at all. You need people who actually work for the company, because there's a much higher chance they'll actually give a shit than just some fly by night Joe Schmoe like Christoforo, where the only thing he cares about is himself.


Update: A friend of People Liking People has sent us Paul Christoforo's contact information:

Paul Christoforo
Address: 295 Chestnut Ave, Apt 33 Carlsbad, CA 92008



Update 2: There is speculation that Christoforo is experiencing wild mood swings as a result of a steroid abuse problem. It's unconfirmed at this time but if you have any additional information please let us know.

Update 3: We have learned that the Twitter accounts initially thought to be Christoforo's are not his at all. His real Twitter account is @OceanDeepSea. The @oceanmarketting and @oceanstretagy accounts are fakes.