How to report SEO companies if they havent' performed

If a SEO company has not performed, has lied about its product and services, and has also not performed its promise within its guarantee is there anything or anyone you can report them to?

:-D

Tough question? Not that there isn't an easy answer but before reporting anything - think about this.

What does your contract say about:

1. time duration to perform deliverables

2. what was the precise guarantee and what (if any) limitations where disclaimed

3. The guarantee - what does the contract say about default of the guarantee

4. The guarantee - does it stepulate your total satifaction or refund (e.g. no clause on time and no clause on satisfaction or a refund - the guarantee could be a simple "best effort".

5. what does the company say when you approached about the guarantee

If 1, 2, 3, and/or 4 are vague and you signed a vague contract then I doubt very much they have breached their contract - just yet.

If you have not talk to the company - you should do first but appreciate this:

the SEO has no control of what or how search engines rank sites, and in their defence "the past two month Google (at least) has not updated as normally" - thus the precise wording of the contract will determine if they are in default or not.

If you wish to email the contract, and your URL (email in my profile I will take a look).

If you wish to move forward on your own -

http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html (page bottom).

If you feel you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on "File a Complaint Online", call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:
Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580
If your complaint is against a company in another country, please file it at http://www.econsumer.gov/.

Wow thanks for all the information!

1) I havent received a contract. It stimpulates this guarantee on the companies website. No Contract was sent even after asking many times for one.

2) It is now 9 months since I commenced with this company.

3) The guarantee states "ABC Company GUARANTEE to place your web presence on page 1 of the major search engines and directories. The search engines submitted to will be (.co.uk and .com versions where applicable):
Altavista, Google, MSN, Hotbot, Northern Light, Lycos, Yahoo Webpages, OpenDirectory, Go, Fast, AOL, Netscape, Overture, Direct Hit, WhatUSeek and Inktomi.

By submitting to these search engines we are infact submitting to over 2,200 different engines as they pull results from the databases of these main search engines.

We do not shy away from any competitive phrase, a number of other companies offer GUARANTEES however, the phrases targeted are unlikely to be used by the search engine users, as they are often very obscure.

Should, for some reason, ABC Company not meet our GUARANTEE within 6 months of your programme start date, we will continue to work at no cost to yourselves until the GUARANTEE has been fully met"

I have spoken and emailed the Managing Director of this company who never answers my emails, and avoids speaking to me on the telephone.

I have seeked advice from the Advertising Agency in the UK, to find out if they are breaking lawns with false advertising. The guarantee is there to "suck" people in, then not keep to this guarantee after.

The fact that they never gave me a contract does this affect me in any way?


:-D

Normally the way this works is - no contract, and you asked for one, no money.



And I assume they continue to provide free service or have they stopped.



This is interesting - the lack of contact may offer evidence to contradict their guarantee? You should save and copy all your emails, and print, as well as copy of phone bill for calls.



Admittedly that's marketing - everyone get sucked in to buying things they may not have wanted "in hindsight".



Yes - normally - however, a screen shot of their web page guarantee may suffice - also check to see if the wayback machine has an archive.

Realistically however, you did provide the fee knowing full well the limitations of the guarantee - that they will work on your site for free until you rank.

On your side - lack of contact, the web page guarantee, and question:

How do they optimize (at start and now > assuming they were fulfilling their obligations):

1. do they have access to your FTP account

2. do they provide you changes and you upload

3. is link development part of this

4. do they report changes, ranks, visits etc.

5. This wasn't simply a submission service?

6. what are the last time time stamps on the web pages

all of these thing are important to prove - as you have stated "false advertisement" - the guarantee however is rather useless.

Thanks!

1) They don't have access to my FTP account, it was only when I look into it further that I found out they designed 'service pages' which linked through to my website.

These service pages are the pages which they were going to link in the top 10 of the major search engines in my last post.

2) No changes to my website at all. The service was around these pages that they designed to link to my site.

3) No Link development. The "service pages" had links to them initally but to other websites they apparently work on.. not other sites with higher PR, same content as mine etc.

4) They provided me with stats, thats why I initially started my complaint, as the number of unique visitors to these "service pages" was going down.

5) It was a submission service on these "service pages" but these pages were not on MSN, Go and the other search engines above, the only website they were on were google.

6) No time stamps

I have emails from all of my emails to them, I have screen shots of these backdoor pages, and I have screen shots of the companies webiste and the guarantee page.

Basically this company has charged me £70 a month, for desiging a few backdoor pages (which I find now is illegal) which they have submitted to Google only. I could of done this myself.

My complaint is basically where is the listing of these "service pages" on MSN etc.

I also want to make sure people are aware of this scam this company is pulling.

I suspect that your only satisfaction is making a complaint and helping someone else not get burned.

The unfortunate part of online development is that the technology is usually foreign to the customer and therefore with some companies you never realize there is a problem until it is too late.

I send you a private message, and if you forward the requested information I will see if there is anything I can do.

Your best bet is spending a hour a day here and read, learn, and post a few questions.

You are quite correct - and in a very short period of time you can produce good results - at least to make a fair return so that if you don't have the time needed to continue learning you can hire a qualified professional.

Also remember - a contract does not protect you either if vague, and non-specific. Also guarantees in this business are near worthless, a company can not guarantee something they do not control. They don't control the search engines, market habits, or the competition, and each of these dramatically effects rankings.

You can report companies like this to www.seopros.org. I don't know the process and I would not expect much in the way of results for you, but it will warn off anyone that checks there that this company is confirmed to be bad.

I would also post messages on all the SEO and webmaster forums you can find. Actually, what I would do, personally, is contact this company and send them a registered letter. In the letter I would demand a refund. I would tell them that if they do not refund the money, you will share your message on the Internet and with the local newspapers in their area.

Then, if it were me, I'd still do it even if they gave me a refund, but I would be sure to point that out when I told my story.

But if you post on the Internet, like you have done here, I would continue to NOT mention their name, just what they promise and the way they do business. This keeps you on the "high road" which I admire, and your message will be more effective. I do think it is ok to tell someone who this company is if you are contacted in a personal message.

Sorry that happened, and I wish you the best of luck with your site!!

Christian

Thanks Christian.

Owning a business you have to make some tough decisions and working with this SEO company has put me off from working with this type of company.

Yes, Fathom is right that I could do all of my own marketing, but when you are the sole trader you have to do everything, sales, marketing, web design and optimisation.

It's not really about the money, even though a refund, or for them to keep to their guarantee and work for me for free, until they meet the guarantee would of been better for me.

They havent kept to this guarantee, and have also been very unprofessional.

I am going to write an offical letter, and if I do not see an apology / refund or they stick to their guarantee I will ensure that no one uses this company again..

Another interesting fact, that ABC company was called something else up until about 12 months ago. Why did they change their name ... something dodgy is going on I think.

:-D

It's generally accepted that any company that makes those kind of claims is not to be trusted.

But there are good professional companies out there that would be very glad to do the work for you and charge you a fair price.

I recommend that those who could do the work themselves, but would rather not, use the free RFP system that www.seopros.org offers. Once you have some bids, you need to check the company's background and one place to check is www.seoconsultants.com. They are very picky about who they list and any company listed there should be at least "ok".

We are members, of both sites, but that is our only connection.

Good luck,
Christian

Unfortunately there are a large number of companies (in the UK that i know) who offer 'off the peg seo' packages which usually invlove picking a few keywords to get 'guaranteed' listings with then they will either knock up a few gateway pages, add a load of noscript text (or similar) or just clean up your code a little and predictably it doenstreally do much.

This is harsh or sole traders who as leedslad73 says have to do everything for the business.
Send me a private message if you would like a list of people in the uk i would recommend you dont use. (ps: i dont outsource and have no interest in slating other companies other than i know many people who have been stung, have seen the seo work they hav e been given and woudl prefer others didnt get stung)

Leedslad,

I know what you are going through as I had a similar bad experience with a rogue SEO firm a few years ago.

If you haven't spent too much money I would put it down to experience and spend the time you would have been chasing
this firm for a refund, visiting this forum and picking up good sound SEO tips and advice.

Like you I paid someone and it got my site nowhere - and so I learnt to do it myself and now I'm top 3 for all my keywords and
haven't look back since.

If you follow all the info on this forum you will get your site up there in the serps and it so much more satisfying when you have achieved it yourself too!

Regards,

Stuart
Internet Trading UK


:grin:

To be honest, an entry in and reporting to seoconsultants or seopros means nothing. I know of a fair few of the companies listed in those directories that spam the search engines and are far from ethical. I know, as I've had to clean up the mess a couple of times :-/.

I would also dispute that if you offer a money back guarantee to achieve a set number of top x positions within a certain time frame that you must be dodgy. I offer a money back guarantee and stick to it. Not one customer has requested a refund, and they wont either as I keep my guarantees realistic but not so weak that they are meaningless. To be honest having clicked around the companies site in question (btw, never quote site extracts if you dont want the website / company to be found ;-) ) ominously the portfolio page is under construction as is the case page. Paragraph 10 in their online terms and conditions should be read btw.

If they are using SEO methodology that clearly goes against the Google guidelines you could take legal action for professional negligence (or whatever it is called in the uk nowadays.

Anyway. Good luck if your case is valid. But in my experience there is always two sides to a story.

Hey Webby,

Seopros will list anyone, as will most of the others, but seoconsultants.com really is interested in maintaining standards.

If you have proof of what you claim, then I would encourage you to inform them. It's quite possible that they've pulled a fast one or have changed what they do and I think you will find that a legitimate report will be well received.

If it's not, I'd like to know about it, since I tell eveyone about them, based on my experience with them.

Thanks,
Christian