Weeww! People I trust always tell me that those who ask for MONEY first are really up to something fishy. But man, I get fooled sometimes because I get persuaded perhaps, more easily then others. Because of that, I admire your husband for being so firm!

Thanks for sharing your story here.

I get regular calls every week from various people telling me they are working with Google and can arrange to have my name on the sponsored ads for £400! I tell them my name is already at the top of the Google page, I put it there myself for nothing and they tell me theirs would be permanent and not get moved around. I tell them mine doesn’t move around and this is a scam isn’t it? They then deny it and I hang up. But try finding someone to complain to at Google; it’s almost as though they are reluctant to deal with the public, to whom they owe their existence and their customer service is very bad for such a high profile organisation. These sales people may not be connected with them, but it’s in Google’s interests to put a stop to it because as a result I would never advertise with any of Google’s schemes as it reflects badly on them, particularly when you can’t find a contact at Google to speak to. Today’s number came from 0161 260 0120. That’s a Manchester number! Well I’ve wasted enough time on them. Next time I’ll leave my phone off the hook.

Hi All, I have just found this site in a Google search in an attempt to phone Google to make a complaint about a telesales pitch I have just received from ‘Google’?, interestingly, from a very rude Mancunian. I have now decided its a waste of time even trying to contact Google from other sites/forum’s I have found, and I have calmed down a little now. I am a relatively new driving Instructor, and thus new to internet advertising, and this guy, phoned me to try and sell me a ‘sponsored’ link to my web site for only £195 for the first month and £99 a month after, promising me top ranking in Google searched etc etc. I don’t buy anything from cold call selling at the best of times, but this guy wouldn’t take no for an answer. I tried to be polite and say I had spent my advertising budget for the next month, so he came back saying ‘you mean to tell me you haven’t got 99 quid!,,, I’ll phone someone who has got 99 quid then!’, before I could vent my spleen, he hung up. 1471 was dialed, and it was a withheld number. I wonder if it was the bloke Paul was talking about?

Hi,

I worked for a telesales company offering right hand side google listings to small to medium sized-businesses.

The manager was this twitching, foul-mouthed Mancunian who sweated an incredible amount and was really abusive to his staff members. He used to ‘motivate’ the telesales staff by shouting at them and telling them that they were ‘grovelling pieces of shit that need not have bothered getting out of bed in the morning.’

We were all employed on a commission-only wage and although what we were offering was legit and to some extent and purpose was effective for our clients, (we would check after to see if the companies we signed up got listed, and many of them repeat-subscripted) the emphasis was always to get the sale on the first call, never allow the potential customer to ‘think it over’….in fact belittle them if they even suggested it.

We could not send an email, fax information, the company did not even have a website!! – how unimpressive is that for a company that claims to offer an IT service to other businesses?!

After the standard script was used by the telesales staff there were no limits to what we could say in order to get the sale. We could promise exclusivity, that their search criteria could not be offered to anyone else for a minimum period of a year. What’s told over the phone and what binds in a legal written contract are two very different things.

We were told to ask for the sale three times before hanging up and moving onto the next call. In other words if we were not being pushy to the point of almost being rude we were not doing our job! So much for emapthy selling or allowing the product to sell itself – just be pushy – just ask, how would you like to pay? Visa or Mastercard?

Unfortunately this is just the sad, sorry state of the telesales profession in this country – the company may offer a professional service, but the short-sighted ego and substance addictions of the middle/top-end management are the driving force behind these organisations and their dated sales techniques.

I have worked as the main decision maker (regarding ecommerce and marketing spend) within a SME for 2 years now and previously held similar roles elsewhere.

I get 1 or 2 of these calls a day, I even get people calling me up telling me that they are calling on behalf of google or are google.

While you can quite easily get an account manager at google they will not make such promises.

I wouldnt think too much of this and there are products out there that will preobably get you onto the 1st page very quickly (using a form of authorised parasite hosting) but I wouldnt deal with these guys just because of their attitude.

The other main thing to watch for is companies that make promises on systems they cannot control, like Google.

No-one, except Google can guarantee certain placements. A good SEO company can certainly get you ranked a lot higher, but there are no guarantees – if your competitors are doing the same.

There are also SEO ‘professionals’ who think that just submitting sites to search engines is SEO – given that most search engines will find your site naturally pretty quickly (as long as there is one outside link) this does not help – google even say on their site there is no point in resubmitting a site that is already listed.

I doubt it was a phishing deal. Just a really lousy and inaccurate sales pitch. It’s undoubtedly a den of thieves, but I doubt they’re churning and burning with stolen card numbers. Just soaking those who might not know better. What rats!

Hi Carol,
My company Bistro L!VE operate live music restaurants in the Midlands, and we regularly contribute a table for 6 or 10 people for schools to help them raise cash.

I received a call yesterday from a Stephanie from “The Children’s Fundraising Campaign” to let me know that the books that our kind donation had bought were now ready to be sent to the school of our choice. They were all nicely printed up with the Bistro L!VE logo, and all we had to do was to choose a school to benefit – did I have one in mind?

I was very busy at the time (writing the copy for our March birthday mailer), so was only really listening with one ear. I said, no you choose, and she said, OK we will just pick a school that is close to the postcode of your business in Leicester – is that OK? I said fine. She then said, (and this is the killer, sucker punch), OK, where do you want me to send the invoice for £199.00 for this.

I then started to ‘smell a rat’. I said to her that I felt she was employing extremely sharp sales practices, as I had never agreed to this. She said that according to her notes, she had spoken to me 2 weeks earlier, and I had agreed to this, and on the strength of this they had ordered the specially designed (and bespoke to Bistro L!VE) books. I said that this was not true, and the conversation ‘to’d and fro’d for another few minutes or so.

Anyway, the upshot was that I said to her, let me have your business details, name address, tel no etc, and I will speak to Trading Standards about what they were doing. She finished by saying that they had a good relationship with Trading Standards, and then hung up!

The fear I have is that she may well have me on a recording saying “fine” to sending the books to a school of her choice, and may use this to infer that I ‘agreed’ to the sale!

The thing is, this is not the first time that we have seen this sort of scam – the same thing happened with an American company selling till rolls – they just ring up all matter of fact, and say “we are just about to despatch your latest order of till rolls that your Head Office ordered – is that OK?” They then ask your name, and BINGO – you’ve said it’s OK, and they have your name !

Hi Carol

Sounds like a scam of some description. The only way I’m aware of have exclusive rights to PPC phrases is if the phrase is a registered trademark and you own the trademark.

If you search on Luftwaffe Collectibles there’s more than one PPC ad on Google, which doesn’t tie in with the sales patter.

Also had a couple of clients have a phone call saying someone is trying to register a domain name with a variation of their company name and offering to protect it for a huge amount. The caller is well informed about the company and location and very specific about the person who is trying to register the domain name.

It angers me there are people out there doing this.

Grrr!!!

Regards

Nigel