As you might recall, I was "bamboozled" by a lead reseller known as RECR.com. Thinking that an Active Rain advertiser would surely have some integrity was a mistake on my part.
I am writing a letter to my credit card company that outlines what happened, I thought it would be useful to post it here. If I stop one customer from purchasing leads from them, then I will be happy.
To Whom It May Concern,
At the beginning of September, Wendy Johnson at Real Estate client referrals contacted me to solicit me for their business. In the call she told me of a “hot” lead that was sure to close and that their leads have a 1 in 5 close ratio.
In addition, Wendy explained that I would only have to pay for QUALIFIED leads which were defined as:
• Someone interested in buying or selling in the next 6 months
• Someone who communicated with their call center to verify that the information was indeed accurate
Furthermore, Wendy explained that the people would be expecting my call. I was not interested in signing up UNTIL Wendy offered this information to me. “Just call Gary at customer service, he’s the nice one, he’ll replace any referrals that don’t work out,” adding, “You can call him for the ones that are unrealistic, like people looking for homes under $100K.” We had a longer discussion that included, “You can return as many referrals as you like until you get a good one. We want you to close a deal so you can come and buy more!”
She directed me to their website http://www.recr.com which proudly proclaims:
GET STARTED RISK - FREE
* No monthly fees
* Only pay for the quality referrrals you receive
* 90 days money back guarantee
* Close a deal within 12 months with our guaranteed closing package or get FREE referrals till you get a closing
After an almost 2 month period I received 12 referrals (the 12 referral explanations will be listed below). At first when I called Gary he would gladly replace the referrals. In fact, I got confirmation e-mails that they were not counted against me. However, on September 30th I received an e-mail stating that I will not receive any replacements. I then called Gary who directed me to Amber.
When I spoke with Amber she did not give me any reason for discontinuing the service but instead tried to get me to sign up for additional leads. When I explained to her that the last lead they sent me did not even speak English, she tried to suggest that we may have a lot of non-English speaking people looking for homes. When I asked about the guarantee and explained what Wendy had told me, she said sorry that is not the case. Later in our discussion about the leads, Amber hung up me.
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Hey Joshua I'm really sorry you had to find out that Lead Generation Companies work for themselves, not Realtors. I have tried a couple in my first year in real estate and NEVER CLOSED ONE DEAL... now I have a stock sentence, I do pay REFERRAL FEES to other REALTORS, only at closing. IF they persist I say no thanks and then I hang up. Good luck with your credit card. (I think unscrupulous companies advertise in many good places, its part of their disguise).