We manufacture unique assisted living devices that assist mobility challenged people to pull on and take off their footwear with no reaching or bending required and you can use it standing or sitting down. I contacted Vocus.com in May of 2014 about their press release services which they highly tout and promote. I was also interested in the fact, they represented, that the press releases would enhance our rankings on Google and other major search engines. Since my product is very unique and nothing else provides its service and utility, increasing my exposure was paramount to me and press releases were the way I wanted to go. We are manufacturers only and were seeking out corporate clients, not consumer trade.
Vocus.com owns PR Web and they claimed to have approximately a million visits a month and that my press releases would go out to 3000 media types for each press release and I could send out 3 releases per month. They stated they provided analytics for every press release showing who read and picked up each release. We are a one product company and it was understood we would be targeting a different market each press release (example: arthritis, orthopedic surgeries, obesity, heart conditions, diabetes, etc, etc). We agreed to proceed and I paid them a onetime fee of $8,100 for 36 press releases and being an entrepreneur had to dig deep and even go in hock to come up with that kind of money. Our product provides a service 40 million Americans alone needed and this would give us the exposure we needed.
My first release went out in May 2014 and my last was on August 26, 2014- 9 releases. When I tried to send out my release on September 8, 2014 I was informed that my release had to have some new news or announcement to be approved for submittal. I told PR Web the conditions I agreed upon and signed up for and they told me to contact my Vocus account manager. They basically told me to lie about something knew we had going to get approved. I smelled a rat and started investigating Vocus.com and talked to some other people in the business and found out that Vocus.com and had been having problems for some time and had been on a downward spiral since January of 2014. Google verified that fact:
“On May 27th, PRWeb.com lost more than half of their traffic overnight. They dropped out of the first 20 Google results for more than 8000 keywords. According to SEMrush data, these ranking losses have cost prweb.com nearly a half-million daily sessions.”
“According to SEMRush, PRWeb has lost over 930,000 estimated visits since January 2014. The largest loss occurred between May and June when traffic fell from 760,000 estimated organic visitors to 40,000 estimated organic visitors.”
I wrote a letter and sent a certified copy to their CEO Peter Granat explaining my situation. I sent that letter to my account manager, Monica Coleman, via email and she forwarded it her supervisors Michael Newsome and Liam Newsome. I asked for a refund prorated on the press releases I had sent out (9) versus the 36 promised and they refused (don’t give refunds) but that I could use their other services with their “NEW COMPANY” Outmarket.com which offers no press release or search engine enhancement services. I did not receive one contact of interest from the first 9 releases and now I understand why. Their services may have worked at one time but the media and search engines shut off the hydrant fir them and they just kept on misrepresenting themselves, their clout and their services to profit from unsuspecting clients.
I, then, checked into them further:
· This man filed a rip off report for the exact same reason January 28, 2013- http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Vocuscom/Beltsville-Maryland-/Vocuscom-PRWebcom-Liars-Frauds-Dishonest-Misrepresentation-Beltsville-Maryland-1004921
· This rip off report for the same reason was filed May 18, 2012-
These fraudulent and misrepresentations were going on for at least 2 years when I signed up. They spent large to build a website and put in fake analytics, etc to draw entrepreneurial suckers in, like me, who were just trying to enhance their business exposure. I could go under because of this. These people are parasites of the worst kind and they need to be stopped and forced to reimburse their victims or be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Their lies and actions are malicious and premeditated for their benefit. They know they cannot deliver what they state and still take your money. When you pay for 36 press releases, only get 9, they won't reimburse you for the 27 you didn't get, and do it on a repetitive basis, that is fraud!
Vocus.com Reviews
We manufacture unique assisted living devices that assist mobility challenged people to pull on and take off their footwear with no reaching or bending required and you can use it standing or sitting down. I contacted Vocus.com in May of 2014 about their press release services which they highly tout and promote. I was also interested in the fact, they represented, that the press releases would enhance our rankings on Google and other major search engines. Since my product is very unique and nothing else provides its service and utility, increasing my exposure was paramount to me and press releases were the way I wanted to go. We are manufacturers only and were seeking out corporate clients, not consumer trade.
Vocus.com owns PR Web and they claimed to have approximately a million visits a month and that my press releases would go out to 3000 media types for each press release and I could send out 3 releases per month. They stated they provided analytics for every press release showing who read and picked up each release. We are a one product company and it was understood we would be targeting a different market each press release (example: arthritis, orthopedic surgeries, obesity, heart conditions, diabetes, etc, etc). We agreed to proceed and I paid them a onetime fee of $8,100 for 36 press releases and being an entrepreneur had to dig deep and even go in hock to come up with that kind of money. Our product provides a service 40 million Americans alone needed and this would give us the exposure we needed.
My first release went out in May 2014 and my last was on August 26, 2014- 9 releases. When I tried to send out my release on September 8, 2014 I was informed that my release had to have some new news or announcement to be approved for submittal. I told PR Web the conditions I agreed upon and signed up for and they told me to contact my Vocus account manager. They basically told me to lie about something knew we had going to get approved. I smelled a rat and started investigating Vocus.com and talked to some other people in the business and found out that Vocus.com and had been having problems for some time and had been on a downward spiral since January of 2014. Google verified that fact:
“On May 27th, PRWeb.com lost more than half of their traffic overnight. They dropped out of the first 20 Google results for more than 8000 keywords. According to SEMrush data, these ranking losses have cost prweb.com nearly a half-million daily sessions.”
“According to SEMRush, PRWeb has lost over 930,000 estimated visits since January 2014. The largest loss occurred between May and June when traffic fell from 760,000 estimated organic visitors to 40,000 estimated organic visitors.”
I wrote a letter and sent a certified copy to their CEO Peter Granat explaining my situation. I sent that letter to my account manager, Monica Coleman, via email and she forwarded it her supervisors Michael Newsome and Liam Newsome. I asked for a refund prorated on the press releases I had sent out (9) versus the 36 promised and they refused (don’t give refunds) but that I could use their other services with their “NEW COMPANY” Outmarket.com which offers no press release or search engine enhancement services. I did not receive one contact of interest from the first 9 releases and now I understand why. Their services may have worked at one time but the media and search engines shut off the hydrant fir them and they just kept on misrepresenting themselves, their clout and their services to profit from unsuspecting clients.
I, then, checked into them further:
· This man filed a rip off report for the exact same reason January 28, 2013- http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Vocuscom/Beltsville-Maryland-/Vocuscom-PRWebcom-Liars-Frauds-Dishonest-Misrepresentation-Beltsville-Maryland-1004921
· This rip off report for the same reason was filed May 18, 2012-
http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Vocus-Inc/Beltsville-Maryland-20705/Vocus-Inc-PR-Web-bait-and-switch-misrepresentation-failure-to-perform-breach-of-contr-884808.
These fraudulent and misrepresentations were going on for at least 2 years when I signed up. They spent large to build a website and put in fake analytics, etc to draw entrepreneurial suckers in, like me, who were just trying to enhance their business exposure. I could go under because of this. These people are parasites of the worst kind and they need to be stopped and forced to reimburse their victims or be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Their lies and actions are malicious and premeditated for their benefit. They know they cannot deliver what they state and still take your money. When you pay for 36 press releases, only get 9, they won't reimburse you for the 27 you didn't get, and do it on a repetitive basis, that is fraud!