Complaint / Review
Citysearch
Another Case of Click Fraud at CitySearch

I started advertising on City Search about a month ago. I never had my advertising campaign fully set up yet. I was going back into it today to finish when I noticed a lot of charges already showing up on my account. I could not figure why this would happen when there was not enough information about my business for anyone to view. One of the customer services reps even commented today that I only had one photo on my ad. That was intentional because I was not finished setting it up yet. The name of my business was only added a couple of weeks ago about half way through the billing cycle. They were having technical difficulties and could not change it when I started advertising with them. But yet there were all of these charges on my ad. This made no sense. These can not be legitimate clicks if the site was not completely setup. Only after viewing the number of complaints and lawsuits against this company for fraudulent clicks, did I realize I made a mistake. I should have checked out their rating on the BBB. You would think I would know better by now since I am a business owner myself. Before filing this complaint against City Search, I emailed their sales rep and expressed my dissatisfaction with City Search. While typing this complaint, I received a call from the sales rep and he said that they made a mistake and submitted my ad to the wrong search partner. This search partner was responsible for at least 100 clicks to my ad. He then wanted to know what they could do to keep my business. I said that after reading all of the complaints and law suits against his company, that I wished to keep my account closed. He said that they could do nothing to remove the mistakes and that they could not close the account until the end of the billing cycle. They made sure that they used up my entire minimum required budget of $250 before they closed it and then had the nerve to bill me for the full amount. Do not do business with this company. They have not changed their tactics even though they have been sued for this.