Yahoo! Search Marketing A Scam?

I was wondering if anyone else besides myself has had a lose-lose experience with Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture)?

Six months ago, out of curiosity, I went to the trouble of creating an advertising account and setting up different keyword campaigns. After a few days of running our ads ... and a few cycles of our bank account being auto-recharged when my account (according to them) 'was low', I disabled all campaigns offline. The next day, when I was able to FINALLY view the stats, I noticed that my funds were not low at all and that I had even more money from them recharging me, then I had began with!

Completely disgusted with this "adventure" and very shortly thereafter--using their in-house "Support Center" I requested that my account be canceled--and the funds remaining to be refunded. I have requested this of them twice a month for 3 months now. I NEVER received one reply from them. Not a peep! Completely ignored.

What they did instead, (I discovered after logging in a week ago to use up the rest of my funds since I was obviously not getting a refund), is disable my account as I DID request --which now has more money than it's original investment-- so that I can no longer turn my account ON "online'. However, they still have all of our money. I’ve placed calls, left voice mails-all with NO reply. I SHOULD have known better.

Any other experiences or suggestions would be greatly appreciated at this point.


Thanks!

Lilly

 

I'm surprised that you haven't been able to talk to someone when you phone; I've never had any trouble contacting them that way myself. Call 00-1-626-685-5700 during office hours and you should be able to speak to them about it.

 

Thank you kindly for your reply. I caught it in the midst of the Bears Game Guess I'm alone on this issue with the Big Y! I will check to be sure I haven't tried that number already. Either way, it's certainly worth the try once again. Have a great Sunday!

Lilly

 

I've been using Overture for about two years and have never had any problems. In fact, I've tried other CPC companies and always come back to Overture (YS). Their "funds low" emails are a little out of sync with actual funds, but you soon learn the pattern and live with it.

 

While I hate Overture/YSM and have had problems with them in the past, it seems like you're probably at fault here.

You probably did not read the TOS or the 'fine print' at the bottom of the Money Manager pages-

Each time I've called them at this number, I've been able to speak to someone- 1-866-924-6676

 

Thanks very much for the posts. I will try this new number as well. I realize that I am unfamiliar with YSM, (their "funds low" emails are indeed out of sync with actual funds) however I work with AdSense and understand what happens when your funds are low.

My issue is with a.) not being refunded my account balance after many months b.) being ignored continuously via email and their in-house help system c.) not being able to use up the remaining funds after they disabled my account, if they do not intend to refund the money. Having to chase them down to get any kind of resolution is a real pain in the arse.

I mean .. they obviously read my first email requesting account cancelation and a refund, or they would not have disable/canceled my account as I requested to begin with, no?

Thanks again,

Lilly

 

i think you should call them.. be nice , ask for a refund .

most likely they will refund your money, but in case they don't call your Credit Card company and ask for a Charge back Form, let them know you ordered a service on the Internet and didn't get the service promised to you.

you got 6month to do a charge back , so don't wast time .. call Yahoo support today , and if they like it the hard way , call you Credit Card.

good luck

oops just noticed , Bank Account and you said 6month ago...
well
you have one choice call them, and be nice

 

Once I mistakenly thought I was being scammed by YSM. I had a daily spend of like $30 and was billed $100 one day then $100 again the next. I was saying how can this be. I understand you charged based on 3 days but that is $90 not $200.

Turns out I was just reading my paypal emails which would say I was being billed the amount, then tell me it was completed, and to boot YSM would email me saying they took the money so I felt I was being billed multiple times.

Setting up online billing fixed these misunderstandings.

 

I totally do not like YSM (Overture),
it charge you in advance, and one day it even charge me 4 times. I canceled it after a few days.

 

compare with google adword, Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture) is really scam.

 

I just signed up. I'm looking into it as an alternative to Adwords. I'm glad I saw this thread so I know to make sure enough money is in my account!

 

I am also seeing some funny behaviour with Y search. i had some words for 0.60 or so. Today i checked and account has negative balance. the reason is average cost of click was $3.50 or so . Not sure how they managed to do it. Sent mail to them asking for a refund for the extra amount charged. Lets see how will comeback.

No wonder Google is stealing their lunch. Y need to work on their lousy bidding interface.

 

Just an update: I spent few hours on the phone explaining to the support lady, i did not make any changes to the bids to $3.50 a word. Only response from her was you are responsible for everything in the account as its self managed. She acknowledged there was some bug in their system which created a duplicated category with same name and same keywords. and she suggested I can contact my credit card company to do a charge back.

I have been with yahoo search since it was Goto.com oh well, Google is there. In this short years of yahoo's existence, its already a dinosaur

 

It is definitely not a scam... but I say stick with whatever works for you.

 

Yes, Yahoo totally sucks. I've got about a $3k balance with them that's doing basically nothing because they removed all my keywords.

I started a campaign last week and it was doing really well. Lots of clicks and lots of conversions. So they charged up my CC to cover 3 days worth of clicks. Some monkey of an editor comes in Monday morning and pulls all the keywords for the classic "insufficient content" BS - just like the old days.

 

A scam? No. An ineptly managed business? Yes. I had the same budget woes as you, because I didn't read the fine print close enough (they did give me a refund though).

 

I blew through a 1,000 budget in no time with no results...but then again I wouldn't blame it on Yahoo...I was very naive at the time and I didn't know what I was doing

 

I've had good experiences with them thus far... I once had 15 $60 charges in 2 days, but after reading the TOS closer, i realized that this was the projected expenditures for all the traffic my keywords were generating.

I have had some issues with the "Editors", but a phone call and a request for reconsideration resolved that quickly.

 

I've been using Goto, Overture, Yahoo for about 8 years now. I use them for low-bid terms, but get SOOO much more for my money with Google, I have a hard time even recommended creating a new account to noobs in the PPC business.

The biggest rip in my opinion is their Search Submit Express. You pay gobs of money, KNOWING that they may reject you and keep the money anyway. Once accepted, they hold you hostage. If you put the Search Submit Express on pause, your listings are promptly removed completely. Anyway, that is a topic for another thread.

Good luck! I'm lucky enough to still have Five cent terms that were grandfathered over.