AdScientist a scam?

Does anyone know anything about AdScientist? Here is my story. I received an invitation for a free 30-day trial from AdScientist - manage all PPC accounts via one interface, great, I thought, this can be handy, indeed, so why not try out this software for 30 days free of charge, right? When I signed up, however, the message said 'Your credit card will be charged $1 for security purposes'. Now at this point, I should have clued in that no one ever charges anything for free trials and no one ever asks for credit card information when offering a free trial, but I proceeded nonetheless (don't know why, I am usually quite careful). Once I completed entering my credit card information, the confirmation message insisted that I 'read attentively' what follows below, so I did. It turns out that they charged me the full amount (i.e. $29 per month) and will continue charging this amount until I cancel. Naturally, I tried contacting them - no email, no phone number, no physical address available anywhere. The 'contact us' form on the site was - surprise! - not working, no matter what and how you fill it out, it gives you an error message. I tried canceling my subscription - an error message again. How convenient, they can always claim that it was a temporary bug, etc etc. In any case, I called the credit card company and had to cancel the card (there is no other way to stop a charge, it turns out). Does anybody know anything about them? I received a print magazine, Search Engine Marketing something rather, and the AdScientist promotion was included there.

what a scam.. thats why we should be careful and ask someone's suggestions before we purchase or accepting some offers online.. theres alot of scam out there...

I have not heard of it, but in general always do the research and get unbiased reviews from users before, even for free trials. I have been scammed like that even for "free three month supply" of something.

Some companies factor in complaints verses people who will just go with it and let their CC card be charged. I am not saying these people do that, but it is sometimes common, but a very unethical practice. Don't believe what companies say about themselves.

Also, you can't manage, but you can see other ppc platform campaign clicks and conversion through your AdWords interface IF you put cross channel conversion tracking into place.

Dear Anna,

My name is Boris Mordkovich and I'm the Director of Operations at MordComm, Inc. - the parent company of AdScientist.

I realize that this response is long overdue since I only found this thread today. Nevertheless, I wanted to address some of your concerns and explain our practices.

In terms of our free 30-day trial, it is just that - absolutely free. Throughout the website and on the order form, we do mention that we will authorize your card for $1 (but keep in mind that this is just an authorization - not the actual charge, so you're never actually billed for that amount). The reason for that is to minimize fraud and ensure that every person that does sign up is a legitimate customer. We did used to offer no-credit-card-required trials, but that simply opened the floodgates to fraudulent accounts and illegal distribution of our software, so we decided to implement this extra security step.

It is also correct that your credit card would continue to be charged after 30 days unless you cancel. We're quite clear about that and mention this fact at least 3 times throughout the sign up process to ensure that you are aware of it. It is not our goal to be misleading about this in any way. Furthermore, even if you forget to cancel within 30 days and then just remember about it a week after when you see a charge on your credit card, we offer a grace period, as well. So, if you just contact us, we'll issue a refund for that charge.

Is this better or worse than mailing you a bill? It depends on the preference of each client. Some prefer to manually submit each payment every month. Some prefer to deal away with the hassle and be billed automatically. For the convenience of our customers and to make billing simpler and more efficient, we do it automatically. But that doesn't mean that it's a scam. It's just our company's billing policy.

Finally, regarding the contact information, the contact form on our website is working just fine at our website. We haven't changed it in over half a year, so I'm not 100% sure why you weren't able to use it in the past. Furthermore, our phone number is available for tech support for all of our customers. We offer live phone support Mon-Fri from 10am to 5pm EST and you can reach us at 800.543.9579.

I hope that this has cleared up some of your concerns. If there is anything else that we can help you with, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Best Regards,
Boris Mordkovich
Director of Operations

Hi Boris,

As they say, better late than never, glad to hear that AdScientist is a real company with real people. But. One comment stands. At the time, I tried filling out your contact form a NUMBER of times and it was NOT working, I also sent emails to info@ ...and support@ and sales@ but did not get anything back either, the phone number was not available, neither was the address. I can assure you I was really trying to get a hold of someone at your company. When all other efforts have failed, I went to this forum - and finally got someone! Also, the confirmation message said "your credit card will be charged", it did not say "authorized". In any case, all is now in the past and I am glad that the scam issue is now resolved. Good luck! Anna

Please use their phone number to contact them... there is no need for this thread to remain open.