After receiving some degree of success with the customer testimonials posted to the Kudzu public website we decided in March to sign up for display advertising for our carpet cleaning business in their spring cleaning guide.
On March 24 someone posted a false and defamatory posting accusing our company of overcharging and over wetting their carpets.
On March 29 we contacted Kudzu to bring this to their attention. After a few days and not hearing form anyone we cancelled the display advertising. The sale representative acknowledged the cancellation. We were told that someone would get back to us and that the problem was currently under review by a committee. After waiting several weeks and making several attempts to make contact someone in the Kudzu customer service and months later with no response we finally contacted someone in upper management. We contacted the president of Cox Enterprises which went from the vice-president where we were contacted by the director.
Before we even begin to discuss the issue of the defamatory posting this executive wanted us to acknowledge that we had received statements for the display advertising. I was a little put off at her demeanor but I explained to her why the statements had not been paid and was she aware of the notice of cancellation.
After what we thought would be an investigation and removal of the defamatory posting they decided they would leave it and stated that they didn't feel as though it has caused any injury to our business.
We have made every attempt to show these people why it was defamatory and why it should be removed.
In our next attempt to remedy this situation we went directly with our concerns for the second time to the president of Cox Enterprises (Jim Kennedy) who only forwarded the information to their attorney who promptly advised them to terminate their relationship with us.
They immediately removed our listing without notice and all this was done in violation of their own agreement. Our business is now down by at least 70% and the goodwill testimonials that we have developed over the last year have been deleted.
We have forwarded our complaint to the Governor's office of consumer affairs.
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