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Originally Posted by
Shaun
Do you really believe that? Regardless of age, learning from the those who are wiser is preferential to learning from your own mistakes.
At 16 he is doing sensitivity testing!!!
He can now be sure that those providing advice are actually well versed in providing advice as he has undertaken a test case and proved they were in fact correct.
Therefore £100 well spent and can be sure of good advice in the future.
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Put this nice hat, with the 'D' on it, on your head and go stand in the corner to think about what you've done you silly boy!!
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Originally Posted by
charlie brown
It could but I have already parted with the money. It isn't a contract.
I have now cancelled the services completely with them as it's effected my natural search rankings.
Interesting one... if you can put a price on the effect that the drop in natural search rankings has had, and prove that it was their actions which have affected them, then you might even have a case for compensation. Unfortunately, the former is hard to quantify and the latter is even harder to prove (given that how Google ranks pages/sites is a bit of a black art).
I'd respond to their email stating again that you do not believe that they have provided the service that they promised and that they have effectively breached the contract of sale and that you would like your money back. If they explicitly stated during the sales call that they are a "Google Certified partner" then mention that you will be reporting them to your local trading standards office as their sales technique amounts to nothing more than a pack of lies.
As someone else has already said, if the purchase was made using a credit card (not debit card) then you have more cover as credit card companies are generally happy to reverse transactions and then let the companies concerned try and chase their money. If you paid using a debit card, then your bank will only get involved if you have not received the goods which you paid for, which is very hard to prove with virtual goods such as adwords. Note that they will not get involved if they think for any reason that the seller has fulfilled their contractal obligations and that you want a refund after the fact (I cancelled an order under the distance selling act before the goods were dispatched and the seller blatently ignored my cancellation and sent the goods which I then returned, and then they ignored my requests for refund - the bank said that the seller fulfilled their obligations so wouldn't get involved).
The last resort is always the small claims court which isn't as intimidating as it sounds (I've done it a number of times now). In preperation for this, keep notes of the dates and times when you have been contacted by the company and the conversations that you have had with them. Ideally, try and keep to email conversations because they're easier to produce in court
I'm pretty sure that any judge would rule in your favour, and I'm also fairly sure that the company concerned know that already, so they're likely to cough up if you threaten enough. But be warned, these people are usually seasoned professionals and you'll have to show that you mean business before they give you anything back.
Note to anyone else - Google Adwords is easy enough to do, the analytical tools supplied with it are brilliant, the keyword selection process isn't hard (just think what search terms your customers might enter to find the services similar to those that you offer), and these firms don't get it any cheaper than you can get it yourself.
In short, when they call, the first two words out of your mouth should be off followed by an audible click
Julian
Last edited by DJ Jules; 29-07-2010 at 09:26 PM.
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So you reckon I'm wasting my time trying to persue it and getting my money back?
I was even going to write to watch dog. I reckon they would have a field day!
This is interesting:
http://www.business-startup.ie/gener...es-beware.html
Thank you very much for your lengthy reply Julian.
I'm not going to give up too easily.
I'll pop down to citizens advice tomorrow and see what they have to say.
1) They tried to take £139 out my account when she said it was £99. - Technically stealing.
2) Told me there was a booking pack and I would receive everything in writing. - Lie
3) Told me I wasn't on the first page of Google. - Lie
4) Told me I would receive 50,000 Facebook ads - Lie
5) Told me that the account manager would work with me on a add for both Google and Facebook - Lie, they just presumed what keywords I'd like.
6) General poor customer service and lack of interest.
Last edited by Shaun; 29-07-2010 at 09:31 PM.
Reason: merged
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Dinosaur
Last edited by Excalibur; 29-07-2010 at 10:09 PM.
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I think you was rather stupid doing that.
Top of the first page within 48 hours. Google may not crawl your site for the next week or so.
Charlie I thought you would have had more sense than this...
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Originally Posted by
DJWilson
Charlie I thought you would have had more sense than this...
Yes, we established that four hours ago.
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Originally Posted by
charlie brown
Yes, we established that four hours ago.
I've got to be honest, I've had some fairly lengthy conversations with either these guys, or a very similar company a few years ago. My background is web development and when they called I'd been using Adwords for about three years, so I'm not exactly unfamiliar with what they're talking about, and they almost had me going for a minute. I've given them a real grilling before and they have all the right answers (though probably not the ability to back them up with actions).
They're extremely persuasive, very persistent and they don't take no for an answer easily (hence my suggestion that hanging up on them is usually the best idea, especially if you're easily persuaded).
They're the double glazing/energy provider salesmen of the web world
Julian
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Web Guru
A wise man once said "I wouldn't touch SEO companies with a bargepole"
Anyway, all I'm going to say is that your claim that their Adwords tactics affected your organic listings is not true. Your site is still fairly new and will still be "bedding in" as far as SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are concerned, add to that you may have been tweaking it recently, or any other factor (new competitor websites, or existing ones improving theirs). Nothing you (or someone on your behalf) does on Adwords will affect the organic listings for your site.
Originally Posted by
Matt Cutts
The most common misconception is that you have to pay Google to get listed in the organic listings. Not true. Google crawls web sites for free. Another misconception is that the PPC (pay per click) listings will help your organic search engine rankings. Not true. PPC has no affect on your “editorial search results.”
Last edited by Marc J; 30-07-2010 at 08:03 AM.
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