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Report: #867484

Complaint Review: eGumball Inc. - Irvine California

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Affordable Investigations — Jacksboro Tennessee United States of America
  • Author Confirmed What's this?
  • Why?
  • eGumball Inc. 8687 Research Drive Suite 200 Irvine, California United States of America

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An eGumball sales lady called me and we talked about optimizing my current ads on the Internet. My concern was getting into the placement portion of the first page under "Knoxville Private Investigator" & "Tennessee Private Investigator". I agreed to pay the $318 up front fee that included set up and the first months payment. I was conatacted the next day by an eGumball technition that informed me that they were not able to do the deal because my address is a UPS box address and they could not use that address. The other address I had used and had current ads running on Google Adwords and Adwords Express was a 10 year old address that was used for a call forwarding number. This address does not exist. It was made up by AT&T just because they needed a street address in Knoxville for the phone number. When I first started advertising with adwords they verified the address by phone not by sending a postcard to the address. I explained that any changes to that address would result in my advertising dropping off of Google for that address. They said they would be unable to do it so we had to cancel the deal. I tried to stop payment on the virtual check I gave them over the phone but they had already taken it out of my account. They then had a guy by the name of Jeff Bode call me who stated that he could get the ad up if I gave him my password to my google ads and I got a second phone number to use at the UPS box. Again I explained that the call forwarding address was not to be touched and I aquired an additional phone line. He went into my accounts and added the new number to the call forwarding address promting a post card confirmation. That is impossible since there is really no such address and my ads were removed. As of this date none of my ads with egumball are showing and they still refuse to give me back my money.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 04/12/2012 07:48 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/egumball-inc/irvine-california-92618/egumball-inc-destroyed-my-advertising-and-ripped-me-off-318-after-promising-i-had-30-da-867484. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
4Author
1Consumer
4Employee/Owner

#9 Consumer Comment

Don't forget to file your FTC report at Federal Trade Commission. about egumball

AUTHOR: Nathan Haynes - ()

POSTED: Thursday, May 23, 2013

Don't forget to file your FTC report at  Federal Trade Commission. about egumball

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#8 Author of original report

Give your complaint department a call?

AUTHOR: Affordable Investigations - (United States of America)

POSTED: Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Are you serious? It has been a year. You know what the complaint is. You have done nothing to get my ad up and running except take my money. Give my money back. Why cant you just admit you cant get the ad to run? I am running the ad with Adwords Express and I am on the first page at all times using Google without your help and for a lot less. Google seems to have no problem with it but you use it as an excuse to take my money and do nothing. Your a joke.

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#7 REBUTTAL Owner of company

You are entitled to opinion/interpretation

AUTHOR: eGumball Inc. - (United States of America)

POSTED: Tuesday, November 27, 2012

When our clients signs our agreement they agree to our terms of service and within our terms of service eGumball reserves the right to remedy under search engine guidelines.  In your case, you maintained inconsistent information on the net prior to doing business with us.  If a client does not have the patience or understanding of how all of this works, we understand.  But this does not make us a bad company when a client, as yourself, expects "static" ad-placements like the good old days of yellow page advertisement or coupon mailers.  This is the internet and search engine guidelines change - often.  Especially when a listing looks like 'spam'.

Lastly, we do not have hundreds of complaints.  Our complaint volume is far less dating back to 2007 whereas other service competitors with the same complaint volume date back 6 to 12 months in business.   We do not participate in the writing of fake reviews to bury reviews like yours.  We analyze each review and harness the value of the review to further explain the industry and how search engine guidelines can become problematic.  The handful of complaints represents less than 1% of our entire client base.

Like I said earlier, rather than to accuse a company of being a cheat or a liar why don't you take the time to validate our position and try to understand the service.  Our customer service department is here to help so please give us a call.

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#6 Author of original report

Bottom Line

AUTHOR: Affordable Investigations - (United States of America)

POSTED: Monday, November 26, 2012

If you can not get an ad up as you promised them you should refund the companies money. You are not a reputable company. You have hundreds of complaints. Your sales person knew of my mailing situation up front. I have the emails that prove that and your people called and emailed a dozen times trying to convince me they would get it right and you never did, so you should have refunded the money. It's that simple. Your a liar and a cheat.

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#5 REBUTTAL Owner of company

This Question Should Have Been Asked First....

AUTHOR: eGumball Inc. - (United States of America)

POSTED: Monday, November 26, 2012

This question should have been asked first before you go out publicly calling a reputable company a liar and a cheat.  Don't you agree?

Google cluster's business data from several third party providers of business data - called ciations.  These third party providers aggregate information from multiple sources - including Google.  If your business information is publicly displayed at location "D" when your business is really located at location "A", as submitted to Google, then your trust score will drop.  When Google creates a cluster for your business on compiled information, all information must match to location "A" as submitted to Google for a high score.

When we receive your application we ask all of our clients to review the accuracy of your business information.  eGumball reviews your submitted information against several citations, including Google, for quality assurance.  If there is inconsistencies with the information found on Google we resubmit awaiting update which may take up to 90 days depending upon which directory is displaying the incorrect information.   Once the information is update and public it may take an additional 60 days for Google to index the correction.



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#4 Author of original report

EGumball. Liars & cheats.

AUTHOR: Affordable Investigations - (United States of America)

POSTED: Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Then why has my ad not run if I gave you another address?

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#3 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Affordable Investigations Now Contradicts Their Original Story.

AUTHOR: eGumball, Inc. - (United States of America)

POSTED: Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Mr. Affordable Investigations.  Please do us all a favor and get your facts straight before you start to post inaccurate information about your experience with our company.  We are an honest company who is looking to assist you within the lines of Google Quality Guidelines.

You are now contradicting yourself...

In your most recent and last post you write:

"You knew that when you sold me your service and you said so when you called back a week later AFTER my check cleared and said you could not do it. "  Please make note of this.  You are now telling the forum that the call we made to you was a week later - after your check had cleared.

In your original post you wrote:

"I agreed to pay the $318 up front fee that included set up and the first months payment. I was conatacted the next day by an eGumball technition that informed me that they were not able to do the deal because my address is a UPS box address and they could not use that address."
Which posting of yours is accurate?

  • Did eGumball call you the day after you agreed to service?

  • Or did eGumball call you a week later after you agreed to service and your checked cleared?

Our records indicate that our quality assurance department made contact with you the day after you agreed to contract to inform you that the address provided was not compliant per Google Quality Guidelines.  You decided to use a different address and you decided to continue with service.

This shall conclude our position in this matter.

Thank you.

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#2 Author of original report

eGumball Lies

AUTHOR: Affordable Investigations - (United States of America)

POSTED: Friday, June 29, 2012

There was no spam involved. You called me! I have a buisness that I want to advertise in Knoxville where most of my work is. You knew when you took my money that I have a PO Box and UPS post box and that you could not do the advertising but you took my money anyway. You knew that when you sold me your service and you said so when you called back a week later AFTER my check cleared and said you could not do it. You should have refunded my money at that time. You guess are crooks and liars. I am now up to seven people just in the Knoxville area that you have ripped off and we are not going away. I will get more. If anyone wants to email me at affinv@comcast.net , I have some information for an attorney in CA that is getting together a Class Action suit against eGumball.

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#1 REBUTTAL Owner of company

eGumball Adheres To Google Quality Guidelines And Does Not Support Spam

AUTHOR: eGumball, Inc. - (United States of America)

POSTED: Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Google Quality Guidelines mandates the use of a physical address not a "remote" forwarding address as the author of this address states.  Google looks at these types of listings as SPAM.  We thoroughly manage listings per search engine guidelines and do not support call tracking numbers or phantom address locations.

Google Places, in part, ranks its listings upon the quality of business data found by Google across the network of local search directories.  Google Places clusters this information and aggregates an overall score based upon its findings.  NAP (Name, Address and Phone) is an important component in Google Places Optimization.  If your business data is not consistent and verifiable then your listing will experience poor results, especially under the circumstances of SPAMMING.

Although there is more to this story, this factual bit of information justifies our decisions.
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