3 Juvenile Deliquents
- Thread starter HoosierLife
- Start date
- 30,590
Ozarks? Oh, that's them thar Arkansas flat lands..
They've got some pretty big "hills" thar. This Yanks got some hillbilly blood in him.
- 141
Don't sweat it bro.. We've all experienced your style of doing biz.
- 2,627
- 5,243
Well this just became a lot more interesting thread
- 141
Is the answer to the riddle, Napoleon?
That joke went over his head.
sleavitt
Expert
Sorry for what may be the longest post ever...
This is at least a 2 scotch post.
- 26,175
As everyone has been sharing, I would also like to share an event that happened with an unnamed Avatar lead vendor. Communication, or rather, the lack thereof seemed to cause this issue. Except for a few occasions when I spoke to this lead vendors office girls, R and D, all our communications were done by email and private message here on the forum. To this date, I have never spoken to this lead vendor in person or by phone.
A little history: I had been purchasing leads from this vendor for a number of years. Things were always great. It was very profitable for me. In the fall of last year, I was getting in excess of 30-40 leads a week. At the time, this lead vendor was my sole source for leads. Towards the end of October into the end of January, something happened. It went from getting 40 leads a week, to 20-40 leads a month. So in January I started adding more lead sources.
Things started to get better for a while, but then the leads started trickling in again. As I had moved on to other sources, I just let these leads continue to trickle in. During a sale offered by the lead vendor I purchased 100 leads. That order had still not been filled when the next sale came around. I had called and spoke D and asked her to fill that lead order when the last one was finished. I assume that communication didn't result in the order being processed.
So when the next lead order was finished, nothing happened. I was getting leads from 3 different sources at the time, so I didn't even notice at first. The way I run my business is when leads come in, they get forwarded to my setter. When I noticed the leads were not coming in, I started emailing the owner of the vendor. I emailed him at the email I had always used in the past. (Later on, I was told that the vendor no longer used that email. I was never alerted to that fact.)
After a number of emails, with no response, I started to get a little perturbed. Sitting on $850 worth of leads can do that to a guy. At the same time, there was a thread on the forum bashing this lead vendor about the speed of return on his leads. I also received a private message from a respected member of this forum about a lawsuit that had been brought against the lead vendor for calling folks on the DNC. Unbeknownst to me, that suit had already been thrown out/settled. I really don't know all the details. And to be fair, the guy that filed suit was one of those jerks that has multiple phone numbers in a state waiting for folks to call him so that he can entrap him. Again, I didn't know any of this at the time.
So with all that happening and no communication from the lead vendor, even in the thread that he was actively participating in, I requested a refund on a couple different occasions. Again, I received no response. Finally, I emailed his office girl, D. She asked what areas I wanted my leads in. I gave her the area, which was the same area I had been working. But I received no response. I even sent more emails to the lead vendor in the days following asking what was going on. Then I told him I was going to dispute the charges. Still no response.
So 5 days later, I disputed the credit card charges. In the vendors defense, when I had emailed D, the order was processed. But I didn't know that at the time and again, multiple emails/private messages were sent to the lead vendor in the intervening time. By the way, when I did receive the first email containing my leads, there was 1 lead. At the time, my thinking was that this was a day late and a dollar short.
Once the dispute went through, then the lead vendor started responding. As you can imagine, he was not happy. He told me that most of my $850 had already been spent on ordering the data and setting up the campaign. I cant imaging that that is possible, but I am not a lead vendor.
So over the next few weeks, I told them to stop the order, that I was not accepting the leads. Plus, about a week after they started coming in, my other leads were coming in another location, so they were going to be no good to me anyways. No response to most of those emails either, except when the data started to run dry. His office girl, D, emailed me like nothing was going on, requesting more area. I assumed that they kept filling the order so they could use that as ammo in the dispute. They had filled around half the lead order when the area dried up.
Finally, I just stopped communication and decided to let the dispute run its course. A few weeks later, I was informed that I had lost the dispute. I called my bank and asked how they could side with the merchant without any of the electronic correspondence. They said they could elevate the dispute and would allow me to fax them all the correspondence. So I did that.
A few months go by and I get another email from my bank saying that I had lost the elevated dispute. That Visa had sided with the merchant.
Ok, game over.
So I sent a mock congratulatory email to the lead vendor. And in his defense, he said he would fill the rest of my lead order. I gave him the area. And leads started coming in.
Thinking that everything was done and over with, I was surprised to get a call from my upline asking me what had happened. Even though I had explained to him what had happened a month or so earlier when he wanted to work out some sort of deal so that fex agents could order from this vendor at the discount price and no monthly fees.
Then things got interesting. My upline tells me that the lead vendor had called him saying that I had won the dispute (this was the first that I had heard about it). And that the lead vendor was now going to sue me and anybody else that had profited from me, unless I reversed the disputed charges. I assume that meant my uplines and carriers. The lead vendor made another anonymous post to this effect a few weeks back and has since deleted it (though I've been saving screen shots since this all went down) about everyone that profited could be sued. I think he found this out when he was sued, his company and Foresters over the alleged DNC violation. The lead vendor also said that he would cut off all fex agents from buying his leads. My upline told me that if he filed suit, I would have to go to California to defend myself.
Now in the lead vendor's defense, I could see why he was upset. I guess he assumed that I lied about losing the dispute, so when he started sending me more leads, not to mention the other leads he had sent; it looked like theft to him.
Now my first reaction was "Ha! I won!" But not knowing what all this would entail, figuring the lead vendor had much deeper pockets than I, figuring this would cost me more money and time than it was worth and not wanting to screw over my fellow fex agents and also because I had accepted about 30 or so more leads since I thought I had lost the dispute, I called the bank to reverse the charges as soon as I got off the phone with my upline. I assumed my upline would tell him.
They said they would reverse the charges on a certain date. I then emailed the lead vendor, at the email they told me to use after the dispute had started, since the owner was no longer using the email associated with his previous lead company's name, and told him that I had reversed the charges and that it would go into effect on a certain date. Guess what? No response. But as that was their MO, I assumed the office girl forwarded it onto him.
I'm assuming from a recent drunken tirade that that email was never forwarded on to the lead vendor's owner. So after speaking to someone who was "in the know", they suggested I send an email to the lead vendor with proof that the disputed charges were reversed. I took a screen shot from my bank account and sent an email to all 3 emails I had associated with this lead vendor.
Not long after that, some complaints lodged anonymously against an unknown agent were deleted. Then I received a call from R from the lead vendor. She told me that they had yet to receive the returned charges and wanted me to call my bank. I responded with an "Ok sure, if the lead vendor will apologize on the insurance forums for being a little too hasty in their accusations." She said she would pass on the request....no response.
That's the last I've heard from them. I also haven't received any leads for over 2 weeks.
Sorry for what may be the longest post ever...
#reasonsnottodobusinessontheforum............
If someone hypothetically posted an alledged slam at my character for some hypothetical scumby action I would not have waited this long.
""No response ....No response....No response ....."" ""Once the dispute went through, then the lead vendor started responding.""
Funny how that works. So a grown man does business with a grown man, There is a dispute and one of the grown men runs to tattle to another grown man? That grown man says you need to make nice with the second grown man or he will not let our other grown men play with him anymore?
OMG! Bring in the mean girls!I have to imagine the Text, Emails and PMs were burning up.
#reasonsnottodobusinessontheforum............
If someone hypothetically posted an alledged slam at my character for some hypothetical scumby action I would not have waited this long.
""No response ....No response....No response ....."" ""Once the dispute went through, then the lead vendor started responding.""
So a grown man does business with a grown man, There is a dispute and one of the grown men runs to tattle to another grown man? That grown man says you need to make nice with the second grown man or he will not let our other grown men play with him anymore?
I have to imagine the Text, Emails and PMs were burning up.
Sounds like a reason to avoid sending someone money to me
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