Constant Contact Misrepresentation of Services Offered Waltham , Massachusetts

Here is the partial letter I received from Constant Contact compliance Department on August 27:

<<______,

Your account, login name: "______", has received an unacceptable rate of spam reports.  Our guideline for complaints is 1 per 1000 emails delivered. Your last email produced over 1 abuse complaints on just 84 emails delivered. 

Additionally the account is being cancelled due to non-compliance with the terms of service of your Constant Contact account. The industry in which your organization operates is not compliant with the content policy outlined in our terms of service.">>

After being with this company for a year and not even using there services since last May I wrote back. I then received a phone call about my letter. The person I spoke to offered to keep me as a client but couldn't guarantee I would not be tossed at a latter time.  According to their stats, (and I have no doubt) my business has a high number of them.  So rather than waste any more time or money on this and because I should not have even been allowed to use their services in the first place, I asked for a full refund. I thought that was a small price to pay for all the time and money I had spent learning and training someone to use this system. He explain that because I had used the service I was not entitled to a full refund.  However, according to their TOS my particular business category was not even supposed to have been eligible for services in the first place.

There TOS Agreement section 5.5 reads as follows:  I have emphasized the part as it pertains to my business:

5.5 Prohibited Content. Constant Contact prohibits the use of the Products or web site by any person or entity that:

Provides, sells or offers to sell any of the following products or content (or services related to the
same): pornography or illicitly pornographic sexual products, including but not limited to magazines,
video and software; escort services; dating services; adult "swinger" promotions; illegal goods;
illegal drugs; illegal drug contraband; pirated computer programs; instructions on how to assemble
or otherwise make bombs, grenades or other weapons.  Displays or markets material that exploits children, or otherwise exploits children under 18 years of age......
Revised October 2009  This is a Partial Section 5.5 TOS

Apparently I got ONE spam hit on an email from someone who had to opt in in the first place from the email I sent out back in May. Constant Contact is just now informing me of this?  I'm sure someone just got lazy and didn't want to bother to do the multiple click through it takes to be removed so they just hit spam.  It was also stressed to me that because of section 5.5 I did not meet their requirements to engage in their services?

So after a 2 month trail period which started back in August of last year, whereupon I immediately enrolled in and which have been auto debiting my CC ever since, I am just now being told my business does not qualify for their services? If their threshold for spam is 1 per thousand emails  then how could I meet their threshold when I only sent out 88 emails? If I'm not an acceptable business then how was I even allowed to engage in their services in the first place? Why did it take them 3 months to cancel me, without any prior warning notice?

After all the money and time I spent learning how to use the product along with the 20+ times I spoke with them, at no time ever did anyone mentioned my business was not acceptable to their TOS standards.  Even though I had been asked by several people, including the sales rep who sold me the service, what type of business I was in I was always happy to explain tell them.  It wasn't like I was trying to hide what I did.  In fact the first mailing I sent through their services during my trial period was an invitation to a speed dating party, which they helped me create!

So, while the letter from CC indicated they have already refunded August payment they will only agree to additional refund for 2 months of service since I haven't used it since then.  This doesn't  it doesn't come close to a years worth of paid for services, which I am/or wasn't even entitled to in the first place. We won't even talk about all the time I spent away from doing my business just to figure out their program, set up templates and send out the few emails I did. There answer to that is because I used their service they could not refund me.

They have misrepresented their services, cost me time and money and now have left me with no way of contacting my clients in the same manner as I had been doing. I now have to spend yet more time, to research other services or hire someone who can create emailing templates for doing performing similar tasks. I don't think asking for a full years refund is asking too much here, given the inconvenience and disruption it has caused to my business.

Buyer be ware: Constant Contact is only out to build their client list and customer base first at the expense of smaller start up business. The sales team was very aggressive. Their tech support wasn't always as knowledgeable about their products as one would expect, and getting through for help always required several attempts. This can be extremely frustrating when youre in the middle of generating an email on deadline.

Personally I would not recommend any company that feels they can have it both ways especially when their competitors do the same thing for less and offer the user to store a larger list before being bumped to higher price level.

Constant Contact is nothing more than a money hungry corporate big brother organization who because of the canned spam act is so scared to have any spam reports they will cut you off for just getting one. Or perhaps they are just so unorganized they only review these reports randomly.  Not sure which one it is but their definitely not worth the hassle!