ADBRITE sham operation....STAY AWAY from those crooks!

[SwirlsGirl]

Attention all new webmasters and even semi experienced ones who are considering using adbrite or black label ads....

I will caution you only out of concern that you do not get skimmed and scammed by these crooks. First thing to consider about any company that you have an account with but will not offer you telephone support is an immediate red flag!

They will not offer you telephone support when you are an existing paying client. But new clients who don't even have an account can get telephone support instantly. If you are an existing client you must send a detailed email to support and wait 4 days for a response!

Oh yes even when they fraudulently charge your card and take your last bit of grocery money from your account, you cannot get anyone on the phone two remedy this problem.

Basically I added 100.00 to my account on Nov 19th, I recieved clicks for two days and then I decided to PAUSE my campaign! Pause meaning pause all activity associated with the account. That means no ads running, no clicks being recieved, no further charges being made until I resume or reactivate the campaign right? Sounds logical and rational to me!

Well on Dec. 1st I get charged 86.00 with my account still on "pause status".

I immediately try getting someone on the phone and I discovered that as a paying existing client I was not entitled to telephone support! WTF?? Side note, this is becoming the trend I had this problem with two other companies recently whom I have accounts with and was told that because of the economy they have scaled back operations and do not have the staffing to provide phone support to EXISTING paying clients!

Anyways back to my issue... I had to call and pretend that I was a new customer with several thousand dollars to spend to get A live person to call me back. The telephone number provided is for new customers only and I was sent straight to voice mail.

So I left a message saying that I was pretty furious about my card being billed without AUTORIZATION(credit card fraud) and no one called me back. It was only when I left a message saying that I was a new customer with thousands to spend that they called me back within seconds!

Now that I have a LIVE person on the phone I explain that I am sorry for decieving you into thinking I was a new client or customer but your company charged my card without my autorization and quite frankly I don't have days or weeks to play email tag about MY MONEY Being taken without my autorization. I said I need a manager on the phone immediatley and I was told that there was no one who could talk to me and I would have to write an email and send it to mrs D Cappelli .

I sent the email on Monday, I just got an email reponse on thursday. 4 days to respond to me after they Billed my card and cleared out my remaining grocery funds! Oh yeah sorry some webmasters are actually living week to week. Sorry to insult the majority of you guys that are sitting on millions! I am just a small fish trying get by.

At any rate I recieve an email saying that I was billed for clicks that I recieved between nov 19 and nov 21 st Mind you there was already 100.00 in my adbrite account on Nov. 19th I paused my account on nov.21 and still had about 15.00 worth of credit in my adbrite account.

The reason I paused my account is because I had a feeling that they just like all other traffic brokers would love to have unfettered rebill activity on everyones card. They say" for your convenience we will auto rebill. But many times small webmasters don't have the huge budget and would rather add funds manually when the we have the funds to add. So to avoid being billed I paused my account!

Now adbrite does not know why I paused them. I could have had a server down. I could still be in the process of updating. There are many reasons why people pause their ads, and yes sometimes people pause them because they don't have the funds to cover the rebill!

The bottom line is they say that the 86.00 charge was for clicks between nov 19 and nov 21st. My question that they will not answer is how do you bill me for clicks when I still had money in my adbrite account. I had not exhausted my account and my account was paused!

Bottom line this is a desperate attempt by another struggling company who has a built in skim mechanism where they can bill you card and make it next to impossible to get a live person to remedy the situation.

It is clear it is obvious and it is pathetic. They should really be ashamed. I asked them on monday to close my account and refund my credit that was in my account and refund 86.00 dollars that was billed for clicks I have yet to recieve. Still no return phone call, still no refund, and still probabally scamming and billing people without authorization!

I wish someone would come in from that company and try to defend this action!

Maybe adbrite works for some of you but once I find out that a company is setup to take your money without giving you what you pay for, and then making it virtually impossible to get to the bottom, they must be crooks!

At this point its clear they are desperate and have no shame. Why not give an unhappy cusotmer a full refund. Or try to make it right, but no they took my money, have not sent the clicks, will not return calls, and will only return emergency emails after 4 days!

If their building was near me , I assure you someone would get a visit they would never forget.

SCREW ADRBITE and most other traffic sellers who skim traffic, and who value non account holders more then current paying account holders.

Also just recently closed my yahoo ppc account because of the scam I caught them engaged in. When I finally got a manager on the phone after a week of trying (being transfered to 5 different departments,holding on the phone for 20 minutes or more only to have the call drop by them, being asked to write an email,etc. Total wild goose chase to get a refund for fraudulent clicks that I caught YAHOO sending me. Yes I said it, they sent fraudlent clicks, I have the proof to back up my claim, but don't have the time and resources to take it any further. Kind of got my hands full trying to run my own business.

Funny thing I got the yahoo rep to admit that she knew what I was talking about with the click fraud, and I was not the only one with this concern. She even mentioned that many were closing there account because of the exact same issue I was calling about and it may force yahoo to re think its own SKIMMING MECHANISM.

I am just tired of the skim and scam. Just give me what the hell I pay for! without your skim. Without your Stall tactic, your redirect tactic, pass the buck tactic, not return calls tactic hoping the scammed customer will just go away tactic. I am beyond finished. Its unnecessary and only hurts the indusrty as a whole with all the click fraud billing fraud and deception. I think it is a direct result of some greed and survival combined.

I have purchased traffic on occasion from many different places, and overall I can say that the quality of traffic has tanked and the price for it has sky rocketed. Not too metion customer service for ppc, ususally results in an entry level customer support rep, who knows nothing about the adult business trying to lecture you in a condescending manner about what you are not understanding about clicks.

Just fed up all the way around with skim and scam. Starting to reconsider skimming and scamming myself, seems like people do it with impunity and its standard operating procedure all thoughout the government, private sector, everywhere. Literally the service quality everywhere from comcast to yahoo, to google, you name it is really horrible. At least thats my experience lately.

respectfully yours
Swirlsgirl

[cherrylula]

yikes here we go

[SwirlsGirl]

here we go?
What have I breached the public trust for calling out adbrite? Is there an unintended consequence for speaking up about being scammed?

Like I said just trying to warn others cause had I been warned myself I would have avoided them.

Swirlsgirl

[seeandsee]

Adbrite suckssssss

[spacedog]

Chargeback time

[IllTestYourGirls]

Their stats are not live. Are you saying days after you paused the campaign you were still being charged clicks? Or just a few hours after?

[BradM]

1) Chargeback
2) Adbrite are fucks, they do this constantly. It's deceiving billing
3) If you live on $86, I STRONGLY suggest getting a second or third job to get by, that's not healthy.

[Vox]

Your local Wendy's is hiring. I suggest you look into it.

[SwirlsGirl]

The point is not that I had 86.00 in my account at the time, the point is what they have done is at the very least deceptive and wrong, and perhaps is organized white collar theft and fraud.
Thats the point, I know some people need to be comedians and get a laugh whenever and wherever possible, but I meant the warning in good faith to fellow webmasters everywhere, and if I need to be the butt of jokes about wendy's then fine I'll be that.

Jokes on me everyone.... haha haha I only had 86.00 in my account in december after black friday, right after paying my rent,etc... never fails. Just like anyone trying to warn people of danger, deception, fraud, tyranny, martial law etc., doesn't matter how serious the issue, always a comic genius on the loose to make a mockery out of the whistle blower!

Thanks for the advice!

[notime]

ever considered doing www.ero-advertising.com ?
Just to get more of what you expect and less of what you don't ...

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr...00&w=470&c=1&u[]=ero-advertising.com&u[]=blacklabelads.com&u[]=etology.com&x=2008-10-22T18%3A06%3A56.000Z&check=www.alexa.com&signature =XNhTugpapj48dqiteaMkux3aO2c%3D&range=7d&size=Medi um[/URL]

[NaughtyRob]

Thats some serious fucked up shit, go here, they will not fuck you over.

Juicy Ads

[SmokeyTheBear]

i would suspect what happened is once your funds dip below a certain amount they will increase your funds to match $100 by billing your cc. so you had 14 bucks left they billed you 86 to keep you "topped up" to 100. I would imagine this is standard protocol ( i.e. in the tos )

i understand your frustration about the other stuff though.

maybe learn from their errors by trying to obtain fresh traffic sources and eliminate them

[JamesK]

Congrats to the winners!

[papill0n]

cliff notes please

[BAKO]

They billed my CC $100 bucks for 16 clicks

[eroticsexxx]

Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear

i would suspect what happened is once your funds dip below a certain amount they will increase your funds to match $100 by billing your cc. so you had 14 bucks left they billed you 86 to keep you "topped up" to 100. I would imagine this is standard protocol ( i.e. in the tos )

I was thinking the same thing. Sounds about right when it's calculated.

Perhaps they have a minimum account balance that was overlooked by the OP?

[Forkbeard]

There's no doubt they *are* grasping assholes, though; they just sent me an email giving themselves a thirty day payment holiday, by extending their payment period for thirty to sixty days.

[Profits of Doom]

Go with MadisonAvenue.com, I dropped Adbrite a long time ago and will never use them again...

[tiger]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

There's no doubt they *are* grasping assholes, though; they just sent me an email giving themselves a thirty day payment holiday, by extending their payment period for thirty to sixty days.

Yeah I got that too.

What kind of fucking bullshit is that. I'm dropping them as well just because of that stupid bullshit.

Thanks blacklabel for giving me almost no notice that I won't be getting a check this month.

Forgot to add, anyone that wants my blacklabel traffic and thinks they can make me the same or more feel free to hit me up.

[SwirlsGirl]

thanks for responding everyone, I pretty much figured I was not the only one whom they have screwed. But those of you who think it was standard protocol for them to top up my account remember this...... My account was PAUSED by me! My account is still on PAUSE! I emailed them and left messages to close my account and refund my remaining credit and what the charged and still no response email or telephone!

I can see if my ads were still running and adbrite billed me so that my ads would not be suspended but with a paused account. My account could have been paused because my processing fell through. I mean pause means pause.

Its plain abserd and they know it, thats precisely why they have carefully placed them selves in a position where you cannot get them on the telephone unless you are a new sucker oops I mean client.

Thats ok they forget that word gets around in the adult community and they will not be in business very long with these tactics. Google is the only company large enough to fuck clients over indefinitely and get away with it. Adbrite folks news flash you will never rival google, so get out of their playbook!

[SmokeyTheBear]

Originally Posted by SwirlsGirl

But those of you who think it was standard protocol for them to top up my account remember this...... My account was PAUSED by me! My account is still on PAUSE!

the account on pause would have nothing to do with the auto-billing. I would bet dollars to donuts that if you look carefully the auto-topup feature probably explains this. Its to keep your balance at a certain amount from month to month, you were below the amount so they billed you.

How else would they have billed you 86$ ? unless you bought something for $86 it is DEF not standard practise at all to bill for $100 then rebill for what the user has left in his account. they dont have access to your balance, and they wouldnt be allowed to troll for your balance by slowly decreasing the amount they are trying to bill by $1.

not standing up for adbrite just explaining how the billing likely works as i have seen it done this way before

[geedub]

they tried to jack me for 100 once

[IllTestYourGirls]

Originally Posted by Profits of Doom

Go with MadisonAvenue.com, I dropped Adbrite a long time ago and will never use them again...

Originally Posted by tiger

Yeah I got that too.

What kind of fucking bullshit is that. I'm dropping them as well just because of that stupid bullshit.

Thanks blacklabel for giving me almost no notice that I won't be getting a check this month.

Forgot to add, anyone that wants my blacklabel traffic and thinks they can make me the same or more feel free to hit me up.

Been using madison and have seen an huge increase of number of clicks vs what blacklabel ads says Im sending them.

[KillerK]

adbrite rocks, you are just unable to read the TOS.

Now, they may be slimebags due to selling torrent or password traffic, but that is a different story.

[pornask]

Originally Posted by Vox

Your local Wendy's is hiring. I suggest you look into it.

[[db]]

That sucks. Do a chargeback.

[GTS Mark]

Sorry to hear about the poor experience, I'm very suprised they don't offer phone support?

Not all traffic brokers operate the same way so hopefully you won't lump the rest of us into that kind of auto rebilling category. I would love to rebill people at will LOL! But unfortunately we would'nt be in business very long ;-)

If you would like to give us a try, I would be glad to give you a free $100 credit thru GTSADS. No strings attached (or rebills LOL! unless you want to of course)

Thanks,
DH

[bloggingseo]

Yahoo does this same crap!

[bellybuttonlint]

If I remember correctly, i think i was site number 239 when i joined them as a publisher.
Monthly checks started hitting 600.00 and kept climbing, checks delivered ontime.

Just before i decided to use their checks on a car note, everything went downhill.

Now all of a sudden my 5000 clicks aday were worth 2.80 cents.
monthly checks flatlined to 100 bucks and lower
" We need access to your web server stats "
If i didnt email them 6 times asking where the fuck are my past 4 monthly checks, i doubt i would of recieved them.

They HAD a very good thing going on at one time...now its all downhill.

What gets me is:
Why the fuck would you purposely fuck a goodthng? who knows.

[bellybuttonlint]

Originally Posted by DrinkingHARDEST

Sorry to hear about the poor experience, I'm very suprised they don't offer phone support?



If you would like to give us a try, I would be glad to give you a free $100 credit thru GTSADS. No strings attached (or rebills LOL! unless you want to of course)

Thanks,
DH

now thats how you run a company.

[mansanabar]

adbrite, kinda sounds like a dishwashing detergent.

[SwirlsGirl]

Update, it looks like they refunded my 86.00 today. Someone from adbrite must have been shown this thread! Kudos to gfy!!

And for those that try to defend Adbrite by saying "you should have read the T.O.S. the billing policy is explained" Please snap out of the matrix!! I don't care what any body's T.O.S. says when it comes to adding funds to my ad campaign, whether its google,yahoo,adbrite,adengage,miva, all the way down the line...the point still remains that you and only you should be able to add funds to your account!

How hard is it for me to make 2-3 clicks and manually add funds to my account when I DEEM it appropiate to add funds! Thats the point that we should walk away with..

Let me spend my money when I am ready, not when you jerry rigged software thinks I should add funds. Thats the scam and skim operation right there embedded into the TOS policies everywhere.

I can pour my own drink when my cup gets low. I can add more food to my plate when I finish,

So why do I need your help adbrite,yahoo,and the rest adding funds when my account is low!

If you don't see this skim scam for what it is, and you try to hide behind well its in the TOS, then you are missing the point. It should NOT be in the TOS. Its only there to benefit the ad company, not us individual webmasters, and I am so glad most of you can see where I am coming from.

happy holidays everyone!

[Kudles]

Thanks for the heads up

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by DrinkingHARDEST

If you would like to give us a try...

I went to check you out from a publisher perspective but only got this far: "At least one IM handle required".

I think we have incompatible business models, I'm all email all the time, no IM at any time ever never.

[ianlester]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

I went to check you out from a publisher perspective but only got this far: "At least one IM handle required".

I think we have incompatible business models, I'm all email all the time, no IM at any time ever never.

Hey Forkbeard, just enter something fake then into the field and the system will then take your account. Then I will mark that you only want email contact in your account .

In addition, we will be removing this requirement in the next couple days from our site.

-Ian

[Forkbeard]

Cool, it's late now but I'll be back during the weekend.

[doridori]

Originally Posted by Vox

Your local Wendy's is hiring. I suggest you look into it.

LOL omg i love that picture.



but yea blacklabelads suck

[doridori]

curious @ swirlgirl,

how much clicks have you received for 86 dollars?

how much has it helped your traffic, or conversion ?

[andy83]

glad to hear u got it solved else u should just charge back

[Babaganoosh]

@aol.com

[V_RocKs]

ADBRITE is NOT compatible with FireFox.

All of your surfers using it (18% or more) will get a hung looking page and just close the window...