This is to report that Elevate SEM (elevatesem.com) is posing as Google employees in an attempt to scam unsuspecting consumers out of thousands of dollars for supposed search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM) and pay per click (PPC) services.
On or around the 18th of March, I received a phone call from a person claiming to have viewed my website. He claimed to have gotten it off some social networking site, of which I had submitted my website to several... Facebook, Twitter, etc. Anyway, when I inquired as to which site, this individual couldn't, or wouldn't, whatever the case may have been, remember where he'd obtained my website. During the conversation he claimed he wanted to know about a couple of the items for sale on my website (he apparently got my phone number from off the contact section). Hoping I'd made my first sale, I began talking with this individual for few minutes. After which he was pleased and said he'd go back to website and re-examine the items of interest.
A couple of days later, I get a call from a person names Scott, who told me my website was 'static', like what the unnamed customer had told me when he contacted me a couple of days earlier. Now Scott contacts me seemingly confirming what the supposed 'customer' had said earlier. And as you may have already guessed. That 'customer' may have went back to my website, but never bought anything.
Scott told me that the links aren't dynamic, but static. Static meaning it associates all products with products.Asp? Everything after the question mark the spider crawler ignores everything after it. He also told me that no amount of advertising to the search engines would benefit, without search engine optimization, social media marketing and pay per click advertising. He told me about the expensiveness of doing this myself and suggested I discard my website. Scott claimed it'd be too expensive to maintain my website and get it compatible with http://Google.com webmaster rules. He told me if I wanted any questions answered to call a place called Elevate SEM at 800.936.4465.
Confused more than ever, I continued listening to what Scott had to offer. He told me about http://ElevateSEM.com, the company Scott claims to be working for as potential customer relations specialist in its sales department. I patiently listened to Scott's details and propositions, of which I told him of my financial situation and told him I'd have to save up and maybe in future we could do some business. He didn't get ugly or insistent of my verbally agreeing and binding myself to anything at that moment. I was thinking it was a legitimate company sales rep or 'customer relations specialist' (as he called himself). He politely told me he knew I was confused some (boy was that an understatement) and told me to think a couple of days about what we'd talked about and to Google the results and if I had any further question to arise to please contact his company Elevate SEM at 800.936.4465 (when I entered this number into Google it returns the website elevatesem.com).
Then, out of nowhere, I received another phone call from a gentleman claiming his name was Alfonzo and was a marketing specialist for http://Google.com (Big G itself, like who wouldn't listen). Like my 'customer' and Scott, Alfonzo didn't like my website either.in fact, he was so convincing he took me to Google's webmaster rules.in it, he explained he could sum up all of Scott's complaints into one thing-to just sign up. He told me to get SEO and attached to my website would cost around $5000-7200.00. So I told him I didn't have that kind of money. He told me he wasn't surprised, that I'd been given a website who's web standards were around 5-8 years behind industry standards. And after cooling his temper, he claimed to be angry because genuine people like myself were being 'taken advantage of' by out-dated websites being sold at ridiculously inflated prices. Alfonzo continued talking never directly naming Scott but agreeing point by point with him. He wanted me to invest $10,000 dollars into Google for promoting my website. I told
him I couldn't do it.
After the call I had a bad feeling, and was very very confused so I decided to try and track down this mysterious Alfonzo (supposedly from Google) on White Pages. After a quick search, I found he didn't work for http://Google.com, but for Elevate SEM (elevatesem.com). I don't know if the Alfonzo that contact me is the same Alfonzo that works at Elevate SEM, either way, I am just glad to know I was possibly being scammed and that I caught it before spending any money with them.
After some additional research I was able to determine that all 3 calls I received were from the same phone number listed on Elevate SEM's Contact Us page.in addition, it appears the the company, Elevate SEM has only been registered as a business in the State of Washington for a short time. I also tried to find any other sites that might have been SEO optimized by Elevate SEM, but couldn't find a single one in Google search. Can you say RED FLAGS!
I urge anyone who gets a call like this, or who is contacted by Elevate SEM to proceed with extreme caution. This person attempted to pose as a Google employee and tried to scam me out of $10,000 for SEO supposedly endorsed by Google. Come on! Why would Google ever call and recommend getting SEO from some company no one has ever heard of. If it hadn't been for my instinct, and ability to conduct a little research first, I might have been the latest victim of this obvious scam operation known as Elevate SEM.
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