URGENT Possible Con

[TheeCommerceConsultant]

Ok so I have to be careful as to not be sued for liabal.

I have just had a telesales call from a company called New Approach marketing. New Approach Marketing - Instantly front page of Google and websites from £99 + VAT for UK based businesses

According to them they have a business relationship with google where they have bought page one positions (in the sponsored links area) where they will garuntee you page one for one month 24 x 7. It sounds like a massive telesales operation with nothing to back it up, they tried to give me 8 different examples each one of which failed.

Ok so has anyone heard of this company? anyone know if google would ever sell off positions? seems crazy as they could get 15times the amount of money.

I think these guys are going to use geo adwords based on your town, so everytime you search you are there.

Even so if they get away with it they are going to walk away with n times 99 quid, so potentially thousands of pounds on unsuspecting customers.

Sound to good to be true, well it probably..........

Perhaps a warning shot to your clients.

 

[KingPin36]

Lol, I almost fell of my chair laughing when I read " According to them they have a business relationship with google" lol. Quality stuff.

I always educate my clients so when they get silly emails like that, they just delete them or forward them onto me to confirm if they are real or not.

Just bin it. Seriously.

Edit - I just called them and was like "WOW I really like this" and sounded all excited lol.

I love to play games with these jokers

KP

 

[TheeCommerceConsultant]

No it wasnt an email it was a hard nosed telesales operation, dont worry I am not interested it was just a heads up.

Luckily none of the operators I spoke to had a clue, but they still carried on even after I told them that google does not form that kind of alliance (as far as I am aware).

But by god were they pushy sales men. I am sure they will make a pot of cash of poor unsuspecting sods and suddenly dissapear.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Ok you need to call your local trading standards officer, and also the trading standards officer in the town they operate from. You need to report that they are lying.

You also need to contact google and inform them about what is going on, the telephone number for google UK is on my blog Old Welsh Guy The Google Expert UK Google AdWords Telephone Number helpline speak to them and tell them what this company are doing.

 

[TheeCommerceConsultant]

Good points OWG,

Called Google, to say they are not amused would be an understatement.

To confirm, these guys said they had bought space from google in a partnership agreement and were working with google, essentially passing off. The lovely lady at google confirmed that google do not make these kind of agreements as it would be unfair to other advertisers.

This is the problem in our game, you get people who are completly transparent, hopefully most people here and operations like this who are at their core ........... (fill in the blanks.)

 

[newapproach]

A reply from New Approach

Hi Guys

As the technical head at New Approach I am disappointed to find you slandering us like this. We are a well established internet marketing company employing Google Certified Advertising professionals

We offer a service to 1000's of clients who see the instant benefits of our service. We do not tie them into a contract, we take things month by month so they can cancel at any time. We have a number of FSA regulated companies so we take compliance very seriously and are probably the only company who record all phone calls as a verbal contract.

If the customer does not see a traffic increase to their site, they cancel. It is a very simple arrangement between us and them.

I do not appreciate us getting bad mouthed on the net when you do not fully understand our company. We do not claim to be affiliated to google in any way shape or form so I suggest that the libellous comments end.

Adwords can be used in many ways - we have ours and you have yours - lets leave it at that.

 

[KingPin36]

"Google Certified Advertising professionals" - So where is the badge on your site?

"established internet marketing company" - That's funny because your domain was registered 2008-03-12 and I have been in this business for many many year ans never heard of you.

Your offering your clients something that does not work.

I called you and here is the convocation....

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - "So, you actually work with Google do you then?!"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - "Oh yes sir."[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - "That must be lucrative. Did you score a deal with Larry and Sergey?"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - "(flustered) I don't know about that but we do work with Google sir, yes"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - "So what do you do sorry?"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - "Well you know how over ninety per cent of searches are made via Google .."[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - "Yes?"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - "Well we can make your company appear at the top for certain words or phrases..."[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif](lists prices)[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - "So what you do is Search Engine Optimisation, but without actually mentioning 'SEO' ?"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - ".... err yes, sir (nervous laugh)"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - "And that sounds great. Do you have a standard promotional email explaining those rates etc. ? Shall I give you my email address?"[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - "Erm if I could put you through to my line manager and he can send the email to your address..?"[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif](a cocky idiot tries too hard to project confidence for a bit and drags out the whole process trying to foster a sense of urgency in me)[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]You - ".. and just for the record sir we are a legitimate business." [/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Me - Of course you are. A legitimate SEO business, partnering with Google.[/FONT]


Your company has been reported and I will slander you all day long

KP

 

[TheeCommerceConsultant]

I do not appreciate us getting bad mouthed on the net when you do not fully understand our company. We do not claim to be affiliated to google in any way shape or form so I suggest that the libellous comments end.

Then you really need to train your telesales guys to not over sell what you are doing, at the begining of the conversation they led me to belive that they were phoning on behalf of google.

and I state "We are calling as we are in partnership with google and we can get your site number one when someone searches for your keywords twenty four hours a day seven days a week."

This mate is bullshit for what you are actually offering. You are selling a service that you can not back up and you are trading / passing off as a partner of google, which, you are NOT.

Your company may well be the best company in the world but your telesales guys (the ones I dealt with) are simply not, if you are happy passing of a fictisious relationship with google we will quite simply let the court decide.

When I asked for example every single example I was given on the phone returned NO result in google let alone a top positioning.

What you are doing as far as I can work out is not what you are acutually offering, You are saying you will get someone number one on google, you are using adwords so it is a sponsored listing which was not made clear.

Also your advertising makes you appear as if this will be targeted to google generically, however I suspect you are going to sign people up and then use GEO targeting so that when someone searches their ad appears in their location only making it 'appear' as being on the top of google.

Ok I think that you are

A: Passing off
B: stating you have a relationship certified professionals but no link to your badge.
C: You are over selling a service you are not acutally offering.

I think you are praying on people who do not fully understand what they are getting involved with and you can not back up what you are offering.

All you have managed to do is confirm you are a dodgy telesales operation.

Proove me wrong and I will happily delete the post and issue and appology.

I want to know, Who are your adwords professionals, when did they qualify, proof they work for you in a full time capacity, examples 20 differnt companies with 10 keyword or phrase that is number one 24 / 7 across google.co.uk. I will then monitor it for a 30 day period and see if you are living up to your claims.

If you dont want to be associated with this then you need to retrain your telesales staff without delay.

 

[KingPin36]

Oooo, here we are.

www.jcssupport(.)co(.)uk - Is a site designed by this snake oil company.

Ok, lets break it down SEO style

<title>JCS Cleaning and Support Services Essex</title>
<meta name="description" content="description" />
<meta name="keywords" content="keywords" />

Hmm, not looking promising fella.

The header logo is not a link? - Surely one of your SEO "experts" would have spotted that or asked Mr Google how to do it.

Only two pages? - Hardly no content really.

Now, I'm not a PageRank fan personally so this site having no PR is not an issue to me. Might be to your customer though.

Oh look. In Google.co.uk, your clients website is nowhere to be found for "Support services essex". And there is only 1 PC campaign running. Tut tut, I would have thought Google would have told you about that

Oh oh, but wait!! it gets better. Even for the keyword "Cleaning services essex", guess what? no where to be found. Not even in the sponsored listings.

Seriously, you should tell Google off for not telling you about that.

NewApproach, you certainly live up to your name. Seems like the new approach is just to rip unsavvy web business off.

KP

 

[TheeCommerceConsultant]

SEO but your site can not even be validated, an error or two would be acceptable but can't be validated!

Markup Validation of http://www.newapproachmarketing.com/ - W3C Markup Validator


link:www.newapproachmarketing.com - Google Search=

Great off page marketing that, better known as link building? really!

site:www.newapproachmarketing.com - Google Search=

A whole three pages! wow you really are good you lot...

We're honest ... we won't promise you the world, and leave you empty handed. Every campaign and situation is unique, however our process will always remain the same.

Every situation is unique yet our process will remain the same? erm is that not a contradiction in terms? How can everything be different but you stay the same.

Just out of curiosity how many characters do you think should ethically be used in a meta description?

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Do you want your business instantly at the top of Google. Are you a start up and need a basic online presence. With products starting from just £99, New Approach are your ideally online partner for instant google and web design and development services in the UK.">

 

[allenion]

"We are calling as we are in partnership with google and we can get your site number one when someone searches for your keywords twenty four hours a day seven days a week." the holy grail !! perhaps we should all pack up and go home can they also guarantee that every visitor will spend loads of money and make me a millioniare

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi Guys

As the technical head at New Approach I am disappointed to find you slandering us like this.
The written word is libel not slander, slander is verbally communicated . Also in scotland it would be defamation not slander, nor libel.

We are a well established internet marketing company employing Google Certified Advertising professionals. Where is the proof then? there should be verifiable 'google certified' links on your site.

We offer a service to 1000's of clients who see the instant benefits of our service. No-one has said you are not!

We do not tie them into a contract, we take things month by month so they can cancel at any time. Again no-one has said otherwise.
We have a number of FSA regulated companies so we take compliance very seriously FSA complaince is about adverti content, nothing more nothing less. I own FSA registered companies. I have also carried out the SEo on the Norwich Union website for them. If you think I am lying about that then i can give yu my contact within Norwich union who will confirm this as fact.

and are probably the only company who record all phone calls as a verbal contract. Would this be the same contract that you said above you do not tie people into? Are you telling people in advance that conversations will be recorded?

If the customer does not see a traffic increase to their site, they cancel. It is a very simple arrangement between us and them. Again, no-one has said otherwise.

I do not appreciate us getting bad mouthed on the net when you do not fully understand our company. You are being badmouthed on the net, as a result of your companies actions.

We do not claim to be affiliated to google in any way shape or form so I suggest that the libellous comments end. FACT, 2 people independently have verified that you sales staff ARE misleading people, that they ARE claiming to have a special relationship with Google, in fact it appears that they are saying they are working on BEHALF of google.

Adwords can be used in many ways - we have ours and you have yours - lets leave it at that. LOOK! No One is questioning your ability as a company to help other companies, we ALL know how that PPC works, most of us carry out PPC campaigns for clients, it is NOT your ability that is being questioned here, it is your sales force integrity.

As the man in the nationwide ad says 'it doesn't work like that' . I don't think anyone hasquestioned the fact that what you do works, as most of us do it also. What IS at question is the FACT you appear to be breaking the LAW! Your sales staff ARE BREAKING THE LAW. They are LYING to customers. or at least have lied to the two people who have stated this as fact here.

My advice to you is to go to court for libel. You record all your conversations,so we can call those tapes as evidence, we can then see whether or not the chap that spoke to the member on here, claiming he was from google, then had 'done a deal' with google, is telling the truth.

here is my guess. You have either

1. A bent sales manager who is making a shedload of money

2. a bent sales person who doesn't give a toss for the company he works for as long as he gets his weekly commission cheque

3. An endemic problem that the company is unaware (unwilling to look at) whereby many sales staff are lying to clients in order to get the business, but as long as they are getting results then that is ok right? WRONG!

This is how it is. Client pays you £100 (for example) you spend £30 on ads, and keep the £70. now the client needs to know that they are doing this, else you are actually obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. this is a CRIMINAL offence, and the police can (and will ) get involved.

 

[newapproach]

I think everyone is going a bit extreme on all this. There are plenty of customers out there so rather than fight between ourselves, lets just accept that my hat is a little blacker than your pristine white one!!!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I think everyone is going a bit extreme on all this. There are plenty of customers out there so rather than fight between ourselves, lets just accept that my hat is a little blacker than your pristine white one!!!

Actually this goes WAY beyond white hat black hat what your salespeople who spoke to the people on here are doing is a CRIMINAL OFFENCE. It is called obtaining property by deception!

You simply can NOT lie to people in order to get their business, it is illegal to do so!

We are not 'fighting amongst ourselves' we are discussing allegedly ILLEGAL pbusiness practices!

So what have you done about the salespeople who spoke to the members here? I assume you HAVE investigated this? seeing as you record all conversations it is pretty easy to sort this out, and sack the liars that are bringing your company name into disrepute!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

To Newapproach:

Just so that you know I am not being a git, and to prove that what I am saying is fact, and that you ARE leaving yourselves open to investigation and prosecution (A company in Swansea have been done and the guy jailed fo r doing this with domain names)

Obtaining property by a deception

s15 TA68 states:
(1) A person who by any deception dishonestly obtains property belonging to another, with intent to permanently depriving the other of it shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years. (2) ...a person is to be treated as obtaining property if he obtains ownership, possession or control of it and 'obtain' includes obtaining for another or enabling another to obtain or to retain. (3) the s6 definition of intention to permanently deprive applies to the s15 offence.
By any deception

The deception must be the operative cause of the obtaining of property, and this is a question question of fact for the jury to decide, requiring proof that the victim would not have acted in the same way had he or she known the truth. snip> in MPC v Charles (1977) AC 177, a causal link was implied even though the victim admitted not considering the question ......

----------------------------- END

Do you see now the importance of sorting out your sales staff, and I hope that you understand that it is not white hat black hat, it is Blue hat with a badge on it and handcuffs with your name on, in their back pocket!

 

[TheeCommerceConsultant]

I think everyone is going a bit extreme on all this. There are plenty of customers out there so rather than fight between ourselves, lets just accept that my hat is a little blacker than your pristine white one!!!

So we just sit by and let your salesmen con people out of money for a service you blatantly can not offer (by deception)! I don't think so mate.

You have in this above statment confirmed that everything written about this company is not limited to the sales staff but is indicative of the management throughout.

That sir is an admission of guilt in my book and it is also sticking two fingers up to everyone at the same time. You have basically admitted in saying 'just accept that my hat is a little blacker' that you are deliberatly missleading people and you are fully aware of it and you don't give a sh...

Just remember karma, I will sleep easy tonight knowing that you will get yours sooner or later, I have seen it happen more than once to sh..s like you.

 

[KingPin36]

Let's see how many clients you get when you openly admit that the company you work for practices black hat techniques.

I can tell you the answer right now.

Reminds me of latitude.

Best thing is, you have openly admitted on a public forum that the company you work for is not ethical.

KP

 

[OldWelshGuy]

No it wasnt an email it was a hard nosed telesales operation, dont worry I am not interested it was just a heads up.

Luckily none of the operators I spoke to had a clue, but they still carried on even after I told them that google does not form that kind of alliance (as far as I am aware).

But by god were they pushy sales men. I am sure they will make a pot of cash of poor unsuspecting sods and suddenly dissapear.

Quoted this in case our friend deletes it again to cover his tracks

 

[BeckySharpe]

Hi Guys

Just looked in to let you know they're still playing the same game, http: //groups.google.co.uk/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-chit-chat/browse_thread/thread/8def650730f0cde3/5bd4170080c0218b?hl=en&- tho' with a large helping of abuse, too. Not very nice at all.

There's a space between http: and // - I had to disable the link to post it.

 

[rhyswynne]

This link is the link Becky posted.