My company paid $975.00 for a list of the most current email address for the industry we advertise in. We olny advertise to companies with 200 or more employees. Linda Serpico was my initial contact. she said she could not give me a sample of the list because they had a 100% money back guarntee,(first red flag) so we told them we wanted a list of 5700 emails from companies in the 100 to 200 employee range. She sent me a list that said we would receive 5738 emails in the 76 - 200 employee range. So we agreed and paid. We where told it would take 2 business days to procuce the list. I asume to make sure the funds clear.(second red flag) 3 days later we received the list. the actual number of companies in the 76 - 200 range was way off. the actual count was 1065 thats 3482 less than what was promised. I called Linda and told her the list was not going to work for us and that the numbers were to far off and she agreed and told me the estimated numbers were off of a much older report.
At that point she asked me if we would be interested in a mailing list to compensate for the email shortcoming. She told me to look at the list to see what i could use and she would contact DM Database to see what we could work out. I sent out a test email to see if the list was even worth keeping so i sent 1000 emails out of the 5900 they actually sent us and 300+ of the emails were bounced, and DM Database has a 90% bounce rate gaurntee. I sent Linda an email letting her know that the list was to old and would not work for us and a Ken Newton responded with this response, and remember i have never even heard of him at this point.
"Darrin,
Sales Director here. First, we can’t provide a refund since you’ve already used the list … as indicated in your below email.Secondly, I can guarantee that you did NOT receive a 30% “hard bounce” rate. There’s a huge difference between hard and soft bounces. I Suggest you do some reading about email marketing. And if you did receive more than 10% in “hard” bounces … then yes will abide to the refund terms outlined on the invoice. Lastly, reminder about the terms that were clearly stated on the invoice: **Except in cases relating to above quality refund guarantee terms, there are no cancellations, refunds, order specification changes once invoice payment is submitted.
Rude yes, so at this point i decided to call the company and let them know how rude their "sales director" was, but guess what when you call the 800 # you ge an answering machine and the promise that someone will call you back in 15 minutes or less. That didn't happen either, so i sent him the list of the 300+ rejected emails out of the 1000 i sent and he responded ans said that it was 10% for the entire list. . I go back and explained to Ken Newton that i did not want to sent an email to customers that i can not do business with. but he said that was the rules. So i broke down and sent a test email to the entire 5900 emails, and I got close to 700 of them rejected. I sent Ken Newton a copy of all of the rejected emails and 6 hours later he said i have to send them in a Exel format so i copied and paisted all of the to exel and sent them again. then he said it had to be the emails only in Exel format. I told him that i did not know how to do that and he said sorry we have to have it in that format to be able to verify, but i told him that i had forwarded all of the rejections to him and all he had to do is reply to them. I really got scammed here i hade heard of these companies who keep these old lists and sell them to dopes like me that are trying to impress you boss and make some sales. what ever you do do not do business with this ripp off company DM Database
Dirmark Media, Inc. Reviews
DM DataBase is a Scam!!
My company paid $975.00 for a list of the most current email address for the industry we advertise in. We olny advertise to companies with 200 or more employees. Linda Serpico was my initial contact. she said she could not give me a sample of the list because they had a 100% money back guarntee,(first red flag) so we told them we wanted a list of 5700 emails from companies in the 100 to 200 employee range. She sent me a list that said we would receive 5738 emails in the 76 - 200 employee range. So we agreed and paid. We where told it would take 2 business days to procuce the list. I asume to make sure the funds clear.(second red flag) 3 days later we received the list. the actual number of companies in the 76 - 200 range was way off. the actual count was 1065 thats 3482 less than what was promised. I called Linda and told her the list was not going to work for us and that the numbers were to far off and she agreed and told me the estimated numbers were off of a much older report.
At that point she asked me if we would be interested in a mailing list to compensate for the email shortcoming. She told me to look at the list to see what i could use and she would contact DM Database to see what we could work out. I sent out a test email to see if the list was even worth keeping so i sent 1000 emails out of the 5900 they actually sent us and 300+ of the emails were bounced, and DM Database has a 90% bounce rate gaurntee. I sent Linda an email letting her know that the list was to old and would not work for us and a Ken Newton responded with this response, and remember i have never even heard of him at this point.
"Darrin,
Sales Director here. First, we can’t provide a refund since you’ve already used the list … as indicated in your below email.Secondly, I can guarantee that you did NOT receive a 30% “hard bounce” rate. There’s a huge difference between hard and soft bounces. I Suggest you do some reading about email marketing. And if you did receive more than 10% in “hard” bounces … then yes will abide to the refund terms outlined on the invoice. Lastly, reminder about the terms that were clearly stated on the invoice: **Except in cases relating to above quality refund guarantee terms, there are no cancellations, refunds, order specification changes once invoice payment is submitted.
Regards,
Ken Newton / Sales Director
[email protected]
Rude yes, so at this point i decided to call the company and let them know how rude their "sales director" was, but guess what when you call the 800 # you ge an answering machine and the promise that someone will call you back in 15 minutes or less. That didn't happen either, so i sent him the list of the 300+ rejected emails out of the 1000 i sent and he responded ans said that it was 10% for the entire list. . I go back and explained to Ken Newton that i did not want to sent an email to customers that i can not do business with. but he said that was the rules. So i broke down and sent a test email to the entire 5900 emails, and I got close to 700 of them rejected. I sent Ken Newton a copy of all of the rejected emails and 6 hours later he said i have to send them in a Exel format so i copied and paisted all of the to exel and sent them again. then he said it had to be the emails only in Exel format. I told him that i did not know how to do that and he said sorry we have to have it in that format to be able to verify, but i told him that i had forwarded all of the rejections to him and all he had to do is reply to them. I really got scammed here i hade heard of these companies who keep these old lists and sell them to dopes like me that are trying to impress you boss and make some sales. what ever you do do not do business with this ripp off company DM Database