I was contacted back in April by a telemarketer for First Web Search (as I write this it is nearly September). The following may be lengthy and detailed, but make no mistake... This company is a bona fide rip-off and scam. At the time I signed up however, the company was very new (in name anyways) so I could not find any negative reviews. The telemarketers knew this and even encouraged me to look. I doubt they use that tactic now.
Anyways, the telemarketer contacted me stating that they had found my home business website and that they could guarantee me page 1 results for 20 keywords of my choice on Google, Yahoo, and MSN among others. When I inquired how they could accomplish this, she stated that they could only work with one business in my industry and named off some other home business companies that she would contact if I were to pass on the offer. The initial charge for my service was $2495.00. The telemarketer stated that it would be a couple of weeks before I would see some progress. Soon after I signed up, I received an email from the CEO of my company warning about SEO scams and specifically naming FirstWebSearch among others. Unfortunately, it was too late. I also received multiple telemarketing calls trying to solicit me after I had signed up, which I inquired about since I was assured that the company would work with no other companies in my industry once I had signed my contract. Clearly, that was not true.
On May 1, my keywords were selected and on May 7, my rep told me that work had begun and the search engines would be indexing my site and that I would see results in 3 weeks from that time. From that point on, FirstWebSearch did not contact me unless responding to an inquiry from me. They never even asked for my FTP password info, which they would have needed if they actually intended to do any real SEO work on the site. Over the course of the next several months, I complained about the lack of results several times, only to be guaranteed that I would see results and to be patient. On June 16th, my rep stated that he would provide me with a rankings report that would show my progress... Which he never sent. When he did reply, he said that there were no results to report and he would send a new report in 3 weeks. Three weeks later, I had not received any report, so I emailed my rep. He sent me a blank Excel spreadsheet. He then tried to say that I wasnt getting results because I hadnt updated my blog enough. My response was to email and ask if the SEO was solely dependent on me updating my blog, then what did I pay $2500 for? There was no response. I have emailed 4 times to every email contact I have for FirstWebSearch and received no response to those either.
After researching further to make a complaint, it became obvious that the owner of the company (Robert Jenkins) is simply operating the same scam over and over with different company names... Which I could not find any negative info on FirstWebSearch back in April, when it is abundant now. I submitted a complaint with the Nevada BBB and the FTC. The response to the BBB complaint (which was very similar to the above text) was the most appalling part of the entire situation.
The person who responded to my complaint (but did not sign his name to the response) claimed that I was told before I signed up that I was unlikely to have success with a home business website because it was banned from many search engines and that they could provide no refund because they had already finished their work, which was building me a website. Every single part of that statement is untrue. First of all, why would I sign up with a company that told me I would not have any success? That is ludicrous. On the contrary, THEY solicted ME and said it was BECAUSE I had a home business website and guaranteed that I would have success on multiple occasions. If they cant provide success for a home business website, then why solicit them? Also, the part about not being able to refund my money because they built my website is a joke. They found me through my website which was built and online months before they contacted me.
FirstWebSearch can prove NONE of their claims, and I can provide documentation of every one of mine (and have already done so through the proper venues).
Please dont be fooled by FirstWebSearch, or any other companies owned by Robert Jenkins. It would be one thing if there were even minimal progress made over the past 6 months, but there has been absolutely zero, and that is because they never had the intention of doing any work in the first place, because it is a scam.
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