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Report: #1155477

Complaint Review: LeadsByFone - Internet

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  • Reported By: GIGANTIC — Hamilton New Jersey
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  • LeadsByFone Internet USA

LeadsByFone leadsbyfone.com Unhappy Customer Snellville Georgia Internet

*Consumer Comment: I have used your company before

*REBUTTAL Owner of company: Two Sides to this Story!

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Buyer Beware!!

I've decided to write this report after several incidents with this company that were not resolved to my satisfaction. After spending 13 years with several Fortune 500 companies including Johnson & Johnson and XEROX in the sales and sales training departments, 7 years as a Area Developer for a top 50 Franchise company, I know a little bit about customer service.  Now being a business owner for the last 13 years in several service industries, I know an awful lot about customer service.  LeadsByFone knows little to nothing about customer service, Win - Win relationships and/or how to create "Raving Fans" from current customers ( which by the way, is any companys most valuable asset).

Background:

This company offers online lead generation services.  When you sign up, you have to give them a credit card to keep on file (which they will debit on a weekly basis), you have to select the geographic areas in which you want to market your services.  When a lead calls into a phone number in which this company provides, LeadsByFone is able to listen in on the conversation.  The leads are pretty expensive ranging from $100 for mold remediation call to $275 for water restoration call (this my package, there is another package more expensive than that).  For this price, your company is supposed to appear in the top 5, on the first page of google search when a customer is looking for the services that you provide.

Problems that we've experienced:

1.  A potential customer called for service, set an appointment for 3 hours later and on that same day.  Thirty minutes later, the potential customer called back on the LeadsByFone phone number (in which they can listen in AND they have a recorded wave file of the conversation), they can hear the customer cancel the appointment saying "it was a false alarm, no need to come, they are cancelling the appointment that they set.

* I callled or emailed the support team (getting this company on the phone is very difficult) to make sure they do not billed and hit my credit card for this type of call...................I was told that from their stand point, the call is still considered a lead and the credit card would be hit accordingly.  Even after I urged the support person to listen to the call, verify the caller's phone number and other information, LeadsByFone did not care..........they just wanted $275 for the call. So a customer calls back, cancels the appt, you are still getting billed.

2. A potential customer calls to inquire about service.  The phone rings 5 times and the customer hangs up.  LeadsByFone bills us $275 for the call (not even knowing whether it was for water or mold remediation). Water remediation allows LeadsByFone to get their biggest bang for MY Buck!!

* LeadsByFone response - "It rang 5 times".  Really...........do you realize that you serve the disaster restoration industry where disasters often happen to homeowners at the same time,  ie hurricanes and frozen pipes so the potential customer may have to wait a little longer than 5 rings. Moreover, since when does an unanswered phone call constitute a lead.  That prospect could have been calling for information only OR it could have been one of many telemarketers who seem to have the ability to access their dedicated phone numbers as well.

3. Lastly, the straw that broke the camel's back!  A potential customer calls, gets our 24 hour answering service, the answering service writes down the information as they are instructed to do then text me.  Within an hour, I inform LeadsByFone that the phone call came from an area in which we do advertise to service.  I have them check the large amount of zip codes that we signed up for, just to verify the caller's city and zip codes are not listed in our service area.

* LeadsByFone response - your person/employee/answering service wrote down the customer's contact information so we consider it a lead.  WHAT!!.............Even though I called you immediately to tell you that we do not service that area and SHOULD NOT have received the lead in the first place.  Their response - it's the several towns over and close to an area that you do service!   WOW!  This company just doesn't get it!!!  Your'e trying to bill me for an area that I did not sign up for?  When I asked them not to remove money from my corporate debit card until this matter had been resoloved.  What do you think they did?....................yup, took the money out of my account while we are trying to resolve the matter.  I'm currently challenging the charge.  Get this!! because I'm challenging/disputing the charge, they placed my account on hold and decided not to provide any further leads.  

Absolutely the worst customer service I've experienced on a professional and personal level.  This company is more concerned about what constitutes a lead for THEM as opposed what is a lead for THEIR CUSTOMER.  

Yes, I have gotten some business from their online marketing efforts (they use this as an excuse as to why I should not complain!!) however 15% of my money has been wasted on invalid leads, 10% of that could have been resolved if LeadsByFone was a more customer focused organization.

I defintely would NOT recommend this company to any business owner.  I hope a competitor develops a similar platform.........I'll switch to them in a heartbeat!

 

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 06/17/2014 12:30 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/leadsbyfone/internet/leadsbyfone-leadsbyfonecom-unhappy-customer-snellville-georgia-internet-1155477. 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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Updates & Rebuttals

REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
0Author
1Consumer
1Employee/Owner

#2 Consumer Comment

I have used your company before

AUTHOR: arborjons - (USA)

POSTED: Monday, March 09, 2015

I am sure you remember me John Simpson from Dallas Texas. I purchased leads from you for 3 months almost solid.

I had to rebuttal half of the charges. I had to use a tracking number because I did not have time to use your data base you provide for listening to your calls. It was easier to keep up with them in my own software because it told me the voip number that was calling me every time I got a call that was not really a lead,i went into my software and found out it was some one in your area coming from a computer and they was always odd times not really business hours. Like your company set that up to call me with a voip number.

For those that do not know a voip number is a computerized number that you can use on any ip including proxies that allows you to schedule calls from rather you are asleep or in the bathroom this devise will make the call to what ever number you schedule it.

I feel like this company built the company on fruad pretenses and after 7 years some people are noticing as well as making complaints.

I did not file a complaint because I cancelled the service and my attorney called them and they stopped trying to hit my card and decided to reduce the 650 bill to less than half.I did not resolve this issue with them.

I told them to take a hike and figure it out for themselves.

i read their rules for what a lead was in the description of our aggreement.

One of the rules was that the lead had to be a request from a decision maker in my case it was a husband or wife.

I had a client call me one time requesting for me to trim a branch off the tree in front of the apartment he lived in.

I told him that I do not do services for commercial clients and that he will have to call some one else. After him being presistant he informed me that he was paying for it I just needed to give the estimate to his apartment manager.

This would entell that he is not the decision maker for the trees on his property if he lives in an apartment.

That was the last call I debated with this leads by phone company.

I went up and drew out my money from my bank account and chnged banks and contacted my attorney.

They talk in this rebutal they put out about the rules for what a lead is? We now no of another situation where the rules did not apply because it did not help them...... I am really looking forward to the reply to this comment simply because For my protection I have kept all the recordings of every call in my computer so this day would still be glorious if they ever decided to persue me.

In closing, I finally decided to do my own marketing because of rip off companies like this.

I now provide leads in my industry to 10 companies in DFW area ..
I am not in the water restoration business 

>I do tree removal and tree trimming services so other wise I would like to help this client of theirs find some real help with marketing.

I will say it is easier than one would think to market the business they have people like leadsby phone just take advantage of this lack of interest.

John Simpson find me on face book or Google plus if you need help with marketing your company.I will help you with some better resources than these scam artists.

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#1 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Two Sides to this Story!

AUTHOR: LEADSBYFONE - ()

POSTED: Thursday, June 19, 2014

We have been in business for 6 years, are servicing over 400 water damage companies, have national endorsements from national franchise groups including PuroClean, 800 Water Damage, and AdvantaClean.  We have 70 sold out areas of the country and 180 companies on the waiting list for our services.  We offer the most leads and the highest quality of leads available.  We have 100's of references from our current customers.  We generated over 70M in incremental revenue for our customers last year and will surpass 90M this year.

Now to address the issues:

 

For openers, our normal lead fee for water damage service calls are $199. This customer has opted in to pay more so they can get higher placement...that was their choice.  Advertising on google and bing is expensive for our industry and we work on small margins so billing for legitimate leads is essential.

1. We are a lead generation company and we don't promise every lead will converts to a sale.  When marketing, we inform our prospects that on a national average, our customers convert 58% of our leads to a sale, that means 42% do not convert.  This lead in question was a lead and was billable.  We have no control of what happened after the lead was generated and why it took the company 3 hours to respond to this call is not in our control.  We tell our customers they have to respond within 1 hour, we are talking water damage emergency services here.  Most of the time when a customer cancels, it is because of lack of response or time delays that the customer is responsible for.  We judge all our leads from the recorded call, we record every call, we listen to every call, and this call was a lead under our written definition of a lead.

2. Once again, in the written agreement that this customer signed, it is clearly defined that any call that goes unanswered after 5 rings,and customer hangs up, is billable as a lead. Phone actually rang 7 times in this instance.  When dealing with emergency service leads, it is imperative that phones are answered quickly since the consumer has many other options available on the internet.  We also send text and email alerts letting customer know they missed this lead with the caller's number and they can call the caller back right away and we have no recording on this call.  Our lead definition policy is in writing and the customer signed the agreement that stated this.  If we did not bill for these calls, customers could let the phone ring 6 times, callers hang up, and the company can hit redial on their phone and get free leads. This is why it is billable.

3. Once again, since on the recording, the customer took the information of this caller, we have to judge based on the recording and this falls into the definition of a lead.  It is the customer's responsibility to determine if the customer is in their service area on the call.  We make all our lead determinations based on the recorded call. We tell the customer all thiß upfront before they sign up...we just cannot take responsibility for not running your compan¥ properly.  We get 1000's of calls a day, and we cannot investigate each call after the fact, our system is black and white and we let customers know upfront.

Our customer service ix excellent, we responded within 24 hours of each of this customer's issues.  He thinks it is horrible because he did not get the answers he wanted.  We are fair across the board but our lead definition is the our lead definition.  If that doesn't work for you, you can cancel anytime with 14 days notice.

Now the funny part...this customer has not canceled...he does not want to cancel and acknowledged that our system is working for him  He just cannot understand why we would adhere to the written agreement he signed with us related to what is a lead.  Well, since he disputed calls with his credit card company and slandered us publicly on this site, and as per our agreement, this mandates auto cancelation of his account.  We have 8 companies on the waiting list for his spot and will replace him with one of these customers who hopefully will read the agreement and understand what the definition of a lead is and appreciate the business we generate for them.

Thanks for listening to our side...and we hope you understand our position.  We take pride in the services we offer, and would rather only service companies that appreciate our services and understands our policies.

Paul Robinson

Managing Partner

 

 

 

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