ReachLocal

Before I write my complaint about ReachLocal, it should be noted that by looking at the complaints that have been filed on the Revdex.com website and pages and pages of complaints from countless small businesses on other complaint websites, there is a pattern and a serious problem with them taking advantage of small businesses We went to ReachLocal for Internet advertising services We are a small flyer distribution company that only services Southern California in the Los Angeles area We explained to ReachLocal in detail that we only wanted our advertisements for a specific area in the Los Angeles area I have the map that ReachLocal produced showing us the area that our ads would show up in on Google, Yahoo & Bing when any of our keywords were entered into any of these search engines This campaign was a "PPC" (Pay Per Click) meaning that we pay each time someone clicks one of our ads I was already doing the online marketing myself with good results, but since we were starting to grow I thought a professional company would get us better results and leave me more time to grow our company As soon as the ReachLocal campaign began, they asked me to turn off all my other marketing efforts so if would not conflict with their campaign I immediately turned them off like they asked As soon as I turned off MY marketing and only relied on the ReachLocal marketing, the phones almost completely stopped ringing We were only getting between and calls a day With our web submission we were only getting between and a day When I was doing it myself, we were getting anywhere from to a day I called ReachLocal to ask them about this and they said it would take some time for their campaign to sync with Google and the other search emgines So we waited about weeks Then we realized that we were getting calls and quotes from other States like New York, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, New Jersey and New Mexico These are just some of the areas Again, we only service the Los Angeles area So we called ReachLocal for and explanation First they denied that our advertisements were being shown outside the Los Angeles area, but after calling a few friends out of State and asking them to enter a few of our keywords, it was confirmed Our advertisement came up every time ReachLocal had us on a Nationwide campaign when we specifically told them it was for the Los Angeles area only So we basically spent our entire advertising budget marketing to people that we could never service Page of It had been close to weeks with hardly any new business coming in and it was starting effect our business and our survival We called them and told them we wanted to cancel the service because we would go out of business if we continued They asked us to give them one more chance and promised us they would make it right and that they would credit us back all the money that had been wasted We decided to give them one more chance One week later I was in San Francisco and in Oakland I decided to look online at the flyer distribution companies that were in the Bay area What I found was our advertisement being shown in San Francisco and in Oakland I took screenshots of these and sent them to ReachLocal and asked WHY our ads were being ran in San Francisco At that point, I cancelled our service with ReachLocal The next day they took $more out of my account I have filed legal action to get the $7,that they took from me I will not stand by and let this company take advantage of us! If they return the money, I will drop the legal action If they do not, I will use every legal means possible until I get my money back PSYou can see the email regarding the lie that they told me about why my ad was showing up in San Francisco and Oakland They said that it was because my laptop was from Santa Monica It is hard to believe that they operate this way