Have you heard of Google?

Submitted by Shane on Mon, 22/02/2010 - 22:02

Web Design Cork

I recently picked up the phone to a sales pitch. The opening line of which contained the phrases "We have an opening for companies in your field" and "have you heard of Google?" in the same sentence.

Stiffleing a chuckle to myself I played along to see where this conversation would go. Well it seems this UK based company were calling me "on behalf of Google" and they were apparently promising to sell me Google search results that would place me on the top page for any search term I could ever dream of. This, of course, is total nonsense. Google do not cold call selling advertising, nor to they hire others to do so.

At this stage i decided to point out that most companies in "our field" (eh that's Web Design, you might look at our website lads before calling us) have indeed "heard of Google" in fact we're more then familiar with Google and we happen to know Google don't sell search results, apart from Google Ads, with which i am very familiar. This didn't put off our intrepid sale man, he proceeded to promise me all sorts of things which I happen to know are not possible. I'm not sure if he was ignorant to how Google works or whether he was trying to fool me into signing up with them.

On reflection I wish I'd paid more attention to the company name and reported them to Com Reg because they could easily fool people into believing they're going to get something that simply is not possible.

The moral of the story? Beware of phone calls from companies promising to sell you search results. For some reason the calls seem to come from the UK and in effect they're after your money and seem to have no shame as to what they'll promise you to get you to sign up.

Shane's blog
537 reads

Tue, 16/03/2010 - 02:28

Stranger

This is a great post

really great lads

Thu, 18/03/2010 - 11:05

Stranger

I had this call too

I got this call (or one very much like it) myself. I also get spam emails every week promising it. SEO has become such a dirty market. As soon as Google whimsically change their algorithms, the whole market will pop. It's a very dangerous game, especially with so many people thinking they can make a quick fortune promising the unpromisable to potential clients.

Thu, 11/11/2010 - 11:34

Stranger

name and shame

good post - unfortunately i have met many people especially in the tourism industry who have been scammed by such promises for many hundreds of Euro's on their credit cards.

Their sales pitch can be quite agressive and they are full of BS - sometimes they say they are calling "of behalf of Google" - other times they say THEY ARE GOOGLE (depending who they are talking to!)

I say name and shame them...if you can remember the *company name* just search google for "scam *company name*"

I bet you will find lots of posts from people who have had the wool pulled over their eyes.

The companies usually originate outside Ireland (in the UK..or even Spain) and sometimes have a guy / girl with an Irish accent doing the sales pitch.

The catch is with the contract that you enter into with them - the only way out of it is to WRITE THEM A LETTER (after you realise your credit card spend with them is huge) - their terms state that only once they receive that letter will they cancel your agreement AFTER 30 days (so they get to scam you for another month on your credit card)

I know one man in Donegal who was scammed for €700+ on his card, he was so angry with them that he decided to pay their company a personal visit - he took a plane from Dublin to Blackpool and tracked down their office (an empty looking crappy office block in some dodgy part of town). He buzzed their doorbell & phone and asked to speak to someone in charge - they made him wait outside for over an hour but he would'nt leave - eventually some guy came down and started his defence with the legal contract which he had entered into. Unfortunately the man did not get any of his money back. What the company are doing is in fact NOT illegal. However the way they sell it is how they trick people. The man was so eager to get some help to promote his website that he believed their hype without reading the small print.

Name and shame i say - thanks for a great post!
Sligo man

Thu, 11/11/2010 - 11:36

Stranger

captcha

Heya, sligo man again...

The captcha code that you use to publish a post on this blog is VERY difficult to read (..maybe one of the most difficult i;ve seen!) - it seems that if you cannot read the code there is no way to 'refresh' it and get another code to try and interpret.

Try it out yourselves..

cheers :)