I received a phone call from this company with an offer of a 30-day free trial for providing a zip code based, rotation of my company listing (website?) thru top positions on several search engines. The woman told me that she was calling from a suburb geographically adjacent to my hometown, but didnt know where my hometown was or how to spell it, so was obviously lying. She promised to send me paperwork confirming our agreement, which I never received. If she told me when the trial would start, I did not write it down, thinking that it would be on the paperwork. While she told me that I would be charged $49.95 per month after the trial period, I did not think that it would start automatically after the trial period, because I never gave her a credit card number. She did not tell me that I would be billed through my telephone bill. IF she told me that I needed to cancel (I dont remember), I thought that it would all be included in the paperwork that she would be sending and that I would be able to review it.
A man from the company called to confirm some days later. I told him that I had not received any paperwork, and he said that he would have it sent. I also told him that I wanted to include additional zip codes, and he said that he would have a sales rep call me that afternoon. He did give me the customer service number—the first time I was given some way to contact them. When I received no call from a sales rep, I called customer service. The woman who answered also said that she would send paperwork. Still no call or paperwork arrived. I assumed that the trial period would not start until they could provide the zip codes that I wanted.
Probably 3 weeks or more later, I got a sales promo piece in the mail. Although personalized as if done in a mail merge, it had no details of our agreement: no website of mine to be listed, no zip codes where the service was to appear, no dates of trial period, etc. I have no way to confirm whether this service was ever provided. I always ask my prospective clients how they heard about me, and no one ever mentioned seeing me on an internet search. (And yes, I realize that there are no guarantees of clients.)
When I called my local phone company about the billing (since the name on the bill was not ZipWeb, but ZlocalHost) and was patched thru to ZipWeb, Christine supposedly cancelled my ongoing subscription. When I asked about being credited for the first month, she told me that my local phone company had already credited my bill for $49.95. This was another lie, because they cannot credit my bill for a third-party billing. The phone company rep confirmed that after Christine hung up. When I called ZipWeb directly, I got Christine again. She put another drone on the phone who was supposedly a supervisor. He was very rude and said that he would not respond to my idle threats to report them for their shady practices. He said that the service was provided and that I was informed of their cancellation policy, so they would not be applying a credit. He ignored my declaration that no paperwork had been received after 3 different people made promises to send it.
At best, ZipWeb is guilty of misleading clients, lying, and other unethical practices. And at worst, this is a total scam with no service provided. I will also be following up with my phone company as to how a 3rd party could bill me without any confirmation from me.
Barbara Arvada, Colorado
U.S.A.
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