Warning for you all – Beware of "UFindus"

[Phill Fenton]

Yup – I’ve had at least one call from them. Told them I wasn’t interested so it looks like I did the right thing.

Thanks for flagging this up.

I hope you get your money back and do pursue it through trading standards. There’s too many scams like this going on these days.

[Robert Lambie]

thanks for the heads up… not been contacted by them but one similar a few years ago, like you we signed up. we were told that signmakers that have also signed up in our area went from 0 enquiries to a minimum of 10 “per week” we planned to build a good site and thought doing this early would get us ahead of all else. few hundred quid later for a small link advert nothing…. 1 year later…. still not 1 call as a result. in comes the lady that gave us all the stats etc asking will we renew the contract. F&**K %$f *&% yeh f*%^, or words to that effect, and she was gone! 😉

[Mark B]

I forgot to mention the call I had today was the fourth since signing up.

Keep an eye out when Watchdog returns on the Beeb you might just see me.

Mark

[Jon Fields]

we listed our business but did not sign up for the extra “boxed” ad ( like yell.com)..which is where you are being charged..I assume this is the part you are referring to.
anyone can register their business with u find us as they can with yellow pages..but there will be all the competition listed as well so no real gain..

Jon

[Mike Rogers]

Hi

It seems this lot is owned by Iomart and come in various disguises.

See http://uk.blagger.com/db4/company_id/25 … indus.html
for complaints about them from non signmakers

My only advice is nearly all these companies offering this type of service cannot deliver – they promise everything and deliver very little.
So if someone rings up and says they can get you to the top in the search engines forget it – but if you are still desperate to waste your money send it to me and I promise to give you nowt in return as well. My Customer Service Department (the wife) will deal with complaints but even I get no where with her so best of luck.

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

I sincerely hope you get your money back but I suspect these guys have been around the block and will have a well tested system for defending summons or frustrating you in to submission. Making complaints to Trading Standards and DTI letters to BBC and newspapers will do them more harm in the long run.

Mike

[Andrew Bennett]

Thanks for the warning MArk.

[Aaran Mansell]

a little late on the uptake, sorry!

i use google’s ad-word service and have found them to be excellent. for about 20 quid a month (with carefully selected keywords) i get around 2 sales a week and a few more queries. not alot but worth the 30 nicker.

regards
Aaran
:2thumbs:

[Phill Fenton]

Ufindus called us again today. Alison took the call and told them we’re not interested.

[Brian Little]

Thanks for the warning marc

[gruntyv8]

I got caught with them as well. Most crap….

Al

[Dave Bruce]

Anyone heard of Startright/Startrite or something like that, they get you so many leads per month, you choose the postcodes you want covered and you get, all new telephone lines registered, business takeovers, new business setting up and stuff like that. Not much for the year to get 50 ‘leads’ a month.

Cheers

Dave

[John Childs]

Dave,

Except that you are unlikely to get fifty leads a month. The results seldom/never live up to the promises. That’s what this whole thread is about! 😀

If you are keen, and don’t want to get ripped off, then find some of their existing customers and ask about their experiences.

I tell this sort of people that I will only deal on a payment for results basis, that is if they send me clients then I will pay them a commission. It’s amazing how quickly they backpedal when they think they might have to actually deliver something to earn thir money!

[Paul Hughes]

guess who called today (?)

when they said who it was and asked to speak to the boss (me) i told them i was out and was unlikely to be interested anyway 😉

thanks for the warning 😀

Paul

[Janine Chrispin]

I got cought by these, but am in the process of doing them for fraud!

I was promised top ranking in the search engines “within 4 weeks of signing” when they called me. At first I said no, but they offered me a discount. I wasn’t told that there was any monthly fees involved – just a set up fee. I gave them my meastro card for the first payment which turned out to be £211 pounds. When I phoned them, they said that it included the first monthly fee!

With the pack received I got a disc that allowed me to edit my listing. and it also analysed the page to say whether or not the keywords were mentioned enough. I managed to get it so that the programme told me that the key words were mentioned enough. I am still waiting to appear on some search engines.

As they had charged me for the first month (as well as a set up charge), I decided that I wouldn’t fill out the direct debit until I was top of the search engines. I am still waiting. During this time they used my Maestro card to take money from my account without my permission.

I phoned a solicitor for advice and he told me to write to them telling them that I wanted a refund due to the fact the they had failed to perform on their side of the contract (failing to get me to top search engine rank). I also pointed out to the company that they had called me on a phone that had been registered with the TPS and that I felt bullied into buying their product. Their response was that I could have put the phone down at any time (I don’t do things like that). I also told them in my letter that I wouldn’t make any more payments. I was advised by my bank to cancel the issue 1 of my maestro card so they couldn’t use my card anymore.

Two days after I received their reply, and a week after I had cancelled my card, they used my card and took another £23 out without my permission. The bank checked out the details they were using when entering the details and with their online banking system, they were using issue 0 which allowed them to take my money. I have since been refunded by the bank, and of course the fraud squad are onto them. I haven’t received any correspondence from them, but will see if they try and take the money out again.

I now never buy anything over the phone!!

Janine

[David Rowland]

A few years ago Overture was an excellent search enginge advert thing, Google adwords was good but a little pricey.

Search engine submission is a bit crazy, it is down to how well you design your pages, google indexes the words within a page etc.

However there is 10 people in this particular topic, if each of these people registered the keyword “sign”, then I suspect I would be tenth (not including the how many other meanings Sign is) and the other thousands of Sign companies world-wide.

[Janine Chrispin]

http://www.ritchiehicks.co.uk/iomart/index.htm

Visit the above site to see even more complaints re UFINDUS/IOMART. There is also a petition on it. There are currently 113 signatures on it.

Janine