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Review 7/29/2011
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While a member of MerchantCircle.com, I purchased the PremiumCircle package for $99.00 per month. With this paid product I received 15 internal ads which showed up on merchants pages that I connected with, 7 extra cities, and a SPONSORED AD (Google Adword campaign). The sponsored ad part of the package I believe is run by some 3rd party Neanderthals somewhere in India. When my ad was first published, I would see it within the results of the sponsored ads when I typed in my keywords and GEO tags on Google. After time though, I noticed it wasn't showing up as often and eventually stopped showing up altogether. I approached MerchantCircle, and asked why it wasn't showing up. I was told to edit my keywords, and it would be taken care of. At the time, you could pick something like 7 keywords, and they would use them in your ad campaign. So I re-edited my keywords, and still nothing. They kept telling me it takes time. The funny thing is, at the beginning it was doing great. I saw it all the time. I wondered if my competitors were maybe clicking on it to use up my all my clicks, (which by the way MerchantCircle NEVER tells you how many clicks you're getting, or how much of the package price actually goes to the ad campaign)
I noticed other merchants complaining about the same thing, so I requested, and unbelievably received a report from MerchantCircle detailing my Keywords, Clicks, and Impressions. I was floored when I saw the report. IN MY KEYWORDS was the word MERCHANTCIRCLE. The report showed, that the majority of the clicks I was getting, was for the keyword MerchantCircle. So when someone would do a search for MerchantCircle my sponsored ad would show up. The people that were clicking it weren't looking for glass, but they were looking for MerchantCircle. I was pissed. MerchantCircle was stealing my clicks.They were also doing this to other merchants as well. This was UNETHICAL. I complained and it was fixed. I finally ended up canceling my paid product with MerchantCircle, and ran my own Google Ad Campaign with less money and better results.
Here are some more shady services and products brought to you by Merchant Circle
1. The Leads Program........This is a scam from the word go
2. The Verified Badge........ Do they really verify you? Pay and you are instantly "Verified" or do it the free way, and send MerchantCircle all your private info. I wonder what they do with all the info people send them.
3. The Local Sponsor...... They claim local sponsor will get you featured but I've seen merchants that have paid for local sponsor DEEP within internal search results. That's not very featured.
4. Sponsored ads...... Plastered in all the sweet spots of everyone listing Look at just about anyone's page and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's absurd
5. The Q & A......... Merchants waste time answering questions that will never be seen by the original person asking the question because MerchantCircle has the questions farmed in from great sites like Answerbag.
I could go on and on about the shady business practices of MerchantCircle.
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