Target Point Media is a HUGE SCAM. They ripped us off for Thousands Of Dollars.
We contracted with them for an e-mail marketing campaign to bring "targeted" traffic to our website. The campaign was based on how many people actually clicked through from the e-mail into our website. We were "guaranteed" a specific number of visitors.
We were told that the company did not accept credit cards or checks so we purchased a money order for the cost of the campaign, which was several thousand dollars, and sent it to them in the overnight mail envelope they had forwarded to us.
Their customer service had been fantastic up until the day that they received our money order. They had always answered calls immediately, returned calls promptly, and spent appropriate time with us on calls to explain their services and our options, etc.
The day they received our money order, the good customer service came to a screeching halt. Our sales rep would not take our calls. She would not return our calls. The only way to get through to her was to not say who we were so that she thought we were some new unfortunate person who she could rip off and discard.
We were told that the campaign would go live within about a week. After endless attempts to get talk to anyone at the company, we were finally told it was going live after a few weeks— (the computer technicians were always at a conference, or training, etc and the campaign couldn't go live without them, blah, blah, blah).
We were given a link to track our campaign. The click-through rate was incredible... Thousands and thousands of people per day. The problem was that we had a very consistent ratio of how many people clicked into our site and how many products we sold. Also, all of the thousands and thousands of "people" who were susposedly clicking into our site never clicked onto any other page than our main page. This is almost statistically impossible. With, for example, 5 thousand people clicking into a website, at least some of them should be viewing other pages than the main page. We immediately knew there was a very serious problem.
Due to the fact that we had a very specifc visitor to purchaser ratio, as well as a general awareness of the percentage of people who clicked around the site to gain more information, we were absolutely positive within about a day that the whole thing was an OUTRAGEOUS SCAM.
I called immediately to speak to our sales rep, who of course was out of town—"death in the family"—big surprise. So I requested to speak to her supervisor. No call back for 3 days despite my diligent, numerous attempts to get through to anyone who could discuss the situation with me. I left at least 30 messages during those 3 days in an attempt to stop the campaign and try to get at least some of my very hard earned money back. NOONE EVER CALLED ME BACK.
On the 4th day of the campaign, I finally was able to speak to a manager. The manager told me that because my "guaranteed" clicks were already over half used up, there was no way for me to recover any of my money. I told him I had been trying to get through for the past 3 days and was told that there was no way he would help me.
The manager I did talk to was rude, condescending, and unprofessional. He was clearly a true scam artist.
I found out later that these companies actually can have software programs that go into your website and click on the main page so that your website tracking information will indicate that thousands of people have visited your site when, in fact all of the clicks are fake clicks generated by a computer program. This is why none of those clicks ever resulted in other pages being viewed or any sales what-so-ever... The computer clickers don't buy products.
I do not understand how this company is still in business. I'm sure I am not the first honest, hard working person who has given them their money as an investment just to learn that they would have been better off betting it at the horse races.
I am devestated by the financial loss that I sustained from this bad business deal. They should all be in prison for grand theft and fraud.
Please, please, please protect youselves and your money and do not let them have a dime of it. You will get nothing in return except frustration, desparitation, and despair.
I hope they all end up in prison some day. How they can sleep at night is beyond me.
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