Reporting Adwords policy violators?

I come from an ebay background which is user moderated. If your competition is doing something against the rules you have to turn them in, eBay doesn't check listings themselves.

So I found an ad that says a price in the ad text, then when you go to the page it lists a higher price. I know this has to be against adwords policy, is there a form or something I can use to report it to google?

TIA

VoIP Supplier

Isn't there some kind of "contact us" link in your adwords account?

Or you could click on the Goooooogle Ads link on the lower right corner of most ads and write a comment.

Email the site owner. They might appreciate the info. I have thousands of keyword ads running and change my prices once in a while... and I might miss getting an ad changed...

Or what if you have a really big job of changing a lot of websites and a lot of ads. Its hard to get them all done at the same moment.

What I don't like is that a lot of ads are written by lazy people and there are lots of grammar and upper/lower case problems and they stink up my site.

Its called bait and swich and i am not sure it is against policy but i dont use it so i am not an authority.
You could go down the honorable proffesional line and ignore it or you could do the devious yellowbelly way and report him.
Depends how much respect you have for yourself and your business.

good answer mick!

Adwords does have a bot that checks your ads and compares them to your landing page. I have screwed up a few ads and have gotten an automatic email that their bot didn't see my offer within one click of the landing page. I don't know how thorough their system is but it found some ads that I was very happy to change.

Also, my customers let me know when I have a bad ad up.

I once created an ad for one line of products (about 10-15) on a page. My text was something like "..as low as $1100.." and within 2 days my ad was disabled, as my lowest price was $1102 (which they stated as the reason for disabling the ad, and further suggested to use "...as low as $1102..").

Not sure if it was a bot or a human checking it, but it's definitely not kosher with them.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one Mick. I would not consider it a matter of respect for myself or my business on deciding whether or not to report false advertisements. I would also not consider it a matter of honor or professionalism to continue to allow my competitors to violate Adwords policies or basic ethical standards.

True, I was probably quick to jump the gun and it would be more honorable to contact the advertiser first. But being from an eBay background it was my initial reaction to the situation. BTW if anyone encounters a situation where the advertiser will not remove false advertisements after being asked, the proper way to report them is through "other" on the following link:

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py

Or you could worry about your own business and keep your nose out of others.
I see your point in a way that if he is getting people to his site using creative marketing and if he is doing better than you it is often tempting to report people and get bogged down with the nitty gritty.
All i woulod suggest is focus on your own business and build it stronger.
What are the options if it becomes commonplace?
Spend all day looking for people to report and refreshing adverts and monitoring other peoples actions to see if they are violating any terms and conditions?.

Maybe the time spent would be better spent elsewhere.

"What are the options if it becomes commonplace?"

Considering the servere negative impact it would have on user experience, Google would have to implement a more efficient way of reporting. Possibly similar to that of eBay.

"Maybe the time spent would be better spent elsewhere."

Possibly, but then again maybe his bait and switch is so effective the 5 minutes it takes to report him would be worth while but the only way to find out is to have the adds changed. Considering that the margins in my industry 5 minutes in effort would make that about $1000 per hour if I get one more sale. I would probably have to roll the dice on this one!

Why are you coming into an SEO forum to ask where to report someone? Do some research on "Goolge" and figure it out.

And some food for thought: if you were any good, you wouldn't sweat small stuff like this.

A competitor violating Google adwords TOS?!?! ...LOL... is that why you are losing sales? I doubt it....

Why did I post here?

Because I've been reading this forum for a couple of months now and know that *some* people here are very knowledgeable on ecomm.

Judging by the reactions I've got this forum it leans a little too black for this type of question. Most of the responders to this question obviously don't mind people who degrade the user's experience or violate contracts they sign. I guess our mindsets are just different. I am not out to beat the system, nor do I want to make the quick buck at any cost. I am not afraid to step up to the plate if I see someone doing something wrong. I will ask them to stop and if they don't I will report them.

"And some food for thought: if you were any good, you wouldn't sweat small stuff like this."

My competitors ads have been removed for 2 weeks now and I'm laughing all the way to the bank. That "small stuff" has turned into a couple grand, but thanks for the advice.

If your cheating takes food out of my daughter's mouth, be prepared to face the penalties for your actions and I'll be prepared to reap the rewards.

There are millions of cheaters with adwords.
If you feel so go about reporting them you can always start at A in the dictionary and run through every word on google to see who is cheating.

I am sorry your experience has not been what you wanted but you seemed to be looking to justify reporting someone.
Why did you need to ask the questions in the first place?
What answers would you have prefered people to give you?

Ok, i will answer how i think you wanted the question answering.

Yes,, fantastic,, report him and then you will clean the seps up and make it a better place for all of us.
Yes you will line your pockets as well, but thats a hidden benefiet.
I am so please you have made the web a better experience for all of us.

Now what are you gunna do about the other 7 billion pages of useless content out there?

Nothing becuse it wont line your pockets.

Get real,

I think it obvious we're not going to agree on this. I am not out there to clean up the whole of the Internet, but I call em like I see em. If I see some low life beating on his wife, I'm going to call it in. Does that mean am going on a crusade to find every wife beater? No, but if I run across one... You see not everything is a slippery slope.

I worked very hard to get the distribution and pricing agreements that allow me to have the cheapest prices of a few models on the net. Then I see my competition lowers his adwords price to a few bucks lower than mine only to have it $28 higher when they go to his page. My sales noticably dropped and you think I should mind my own business?

I would argue that I am.

I am both a Google qualified AdWords Professional and a person who has cheated using AdWords before.

you see how you spoke of your background evidence "business dropping off" only after you had a 10 post arguement with others?

leaving out half of the facts is a common debating technique. the nice thing is it allows you to add in whatever you want to later on - no doubt does the added information support your position.

another possible situation is that your competitor could have been wasting their money and scaring people off with the bait and switch technique.