I was cold called by Jump up Media who claimed that they could put me on the first page of Google for five key phrases. I was at first dubious as no one can be guaranteed the first page of Google, however they said this was done in the paid advertisement section at the top of the page. For £90 per month, they guaranteed that all of my 5 key phrases would appear on Google every day for the month. At the end of the month they then promised a report detailing all the hits and impressions my site had received on Google.
This seemed like a good idea and so I signed up for the months trial. I agreed 5 key phrases and was then transferred through on the phone to another department who once again confirmed these 5 key phrases. Upon receiving my email confirmation though, I found that they had completely changed all the key phrases and repeated one twice (so in effect only giving me 4). I had to contact them to put this right, but did not receive any apology or explanation.
When the phrases went live, I checked them on Google myself, only to find spelling mistakes in the website descriptions so I had to again contact them to put it right. Again, no apology was received. I should have known then that this was a poor company, but it got worse!
I decided to give it a few months to see how the campaign went but when receiving my first months stats, they struck me as being faked, falsified figures. It claimed I had over 500 hits on my website in a month, however I had only 2 enquiries which didn't add up. The figures also did not match up against my own website and google analytic tracking. When I queried this with them, they could not (or would not) give me any proof of the figures. They said they did not have anything other than the total figures available to send out.
A few days later, I was checking my key phrases and to my horror, several were not showing on Google. I immediately queried this and after taking a long time to get back to me, they told me that all they were required to do to fulfil their contract was show my key phrase for 1 second per day on the first page of Google. I was shocked by this as in the original call, they led me to believe it would appear on there all day every day for the month. Although they didn't actually lie to me in the original call, they definitely misled me and withheld important information.
Due to all the problems, their very slow response times to my emails and my lack of confidence in them, I decided to cancel the contract with them (needing to give one months notice). I spoke to them on the phone and they confirmed they would cancel the contract, that the last payment would be taken out early and that everything would be confirmed on email. The payment was taken out but nothing was confirmed on email. I have so far sent about 4 emails to their customer service department over the last 3 weeks, all of which have gone unanswered.
The final straw came when I received last months stats for the key phrases. They were identical to the ones I had received the month before! The chances of all 5 key phrases have exactly the same impressions and hits 2 months in a row is almost impossible so the figures were obviously incorrect (and possibly faked). I once again chased my "account handler" who has so far ignored my emails.
I am monitoring my bank statements closely to see if any more money is taken out by them this month.
If you are contacted by this company, my advice is do not go with them. Although the produce itself is good, the company have extremely poor customer service standards and very poor communication skills. They mislead and allow you to believe you are getting something you are not. If they were honest and provided accurate figures, I would still be using them now.
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