MC ripped off my content - Proof
Merchant Circle stole content from a website/business I listed on Merchant Circle in good faith as a way to market my customers small businesses. I had improperly named two businesses and had other typos. MC's listings contain the precisely the same errors.
After being Mayor for 6 month and offering coupons for 2 years, I got ZERO business from them. But they stole what was a 5 - 10k a year earning website and the reason I spent 120 total hours creating it. 1/3 of this time actually walking from business to business talking with each of the owners, shaking their hand, talking to them about increasing their sales, giving them free advice. And also promising them their information would be safe with me, as the website would be properly copyrighted with the symbol, as it was. Since this is in a rural area, this was a real concern for approx half of my clientelle. For instance, many also had the concern that if their business was already listed somewhere else then they might get in trouble. As I said, a rural area where there is a significant over 50 population as well.
Presently, I am out the investment of time and money of a potentially ludcrative website that I spent 2 years building, but this has also damaged my reputation as a local webmaster and graphic designer. So at the end of the day, 70 - 80% of my livelihood, I've worked 3 years total building was stolen in 5 minutes of illegal and immoral copy and pasting by Merchant Circle Employees, Company, Share holders, Board of Directors and Owners.
The thing that really bothers me is that they would have never even known about the website if I had not listed it on Merchant Circle. It was a small community website and was meant to stay that way. And my clients feel violated by these deliberate actions. So I would be lying if I did not feel totally taken advantage of, swooned in by an opportunity of marketing my business services, while having the goods stolen out from under me. Short of being able to afford a lawyer necessary to pursue just action, stay tuned, tune in, tune out, or participate. You know what to do.
If possible I would choose zero, but alas 1 is the lowest allowed. These kind of life lessons I could really do without. Wow, how sad what greed has lead us to. Peace and love to all. May we awake and do better tomorrow.
Posted on 1/31/2013
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Merchant Circle Never Returns Emails and will Double Charge your Credit Card
Horrible Customer Service. They Never return emails. I have emailed them many time about a double charge to my credit card with no reply fro them what so ever.
I am very unhappy with merchant Circle! I will be closing my account with them as soon possible.
Don't give into this scam!
Posted on 8/15/2012
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MERCHANTCIRCLE.COM IS AN EXTORTION COMPANY PHONES SHUT DOWN
The company "merchantcircle.com" portrays itself as a site where consumers can get information on various companies. Unfortunately, the only real purpose they serve is to gouge business owners a fee to correct or investigate an erroneous review. All phone numbers (aside from the 351-900 number) they have listed are disconnected. The owner "Jennifer" has removed her last name from her domain name registry out of shame. She now calls herself Jennifer Jennifer. It's a complete scam of the small business owner and should be shut down.
Posted on 6/15/2012
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Merchant Circle's customer service is non-existent. What does it take for someone to respond to my emails?!?!?
I've sent numerous requests into Merchant Circle asking to gain control of our page - Lieberman Management Services. It shows the wrong address and we'd like access to this page and to be able to change the address. There are also numerous reviews on our page that are false and libelous. Why does it take so long for Merchant Circle to get back to me? Why is there not a customer service phone number we can call? Our company is very close to reporting MC to the Better Business Bureau. Ridiculous.
Posted on 5/8/2012
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Horrible!!!
I opened an account with MerchantCircle last month. I am paying them a monthly fee so I am not just using their free listing. When I google my business name I find two listings that have the incorrect address. I have e-mailed them twice to complain. I am not able to claim those two listings because when I attempt to do so I get an error message saying that the e-mail address is already being used by someone else! I have explained this problem to MerchantCircle in both my e-mails.... Yet they keep sending me responses telling me to "CLAIM THE LISTING". They obviously don't even read the e-mails!!!!
I e-mailed Merchant Circle for a third time. I received a response indicating that the incorrect listings have been removed. I will reserve changing my rating until I am sure it was done correctly.
Posted on 3/1/2012
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Great Free Site to Add your Business
Merchant Circle is a great Free site to add our business and to help create an online presence. I am still debating on taking the plunge and upgrade to the premium service and spend the money. We have connected with three hundred other business and everything that puts you out there is a plus and so many others are on MC so they must feel positive about MC also. Thanks Merchant Circle. wwwjandbusedautopartscom
Posted on 12/23/2011
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Bully
This site writes terrible reviews and will not post anything that contradicts them unless you purchase a membership. They have been reported to the FCC and states attorney generals offices. Example Southpaws Pet Spa in Fairhope, Alabamas reports that are bogus and will not be replaced by others who tell a different story. It now seems to be a trend to use bullying tactics, AKA protection programs that should be and are illegal.
Posted on 12/12/2011
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Merchants Circle is nothing more then a blackmailer who added my business name to their list without my permission and tried to get me to sign up with them to
be able to control my so called reviews by people who I have never even heard of let alone one of my many customers.
One day the court will shut this scam company down or perhaps lawyer file class action suit.
Posted on 11/2/2011
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While a member of MerchantCircle.com, I purchased the PremiumCircle package for $99.00 per month. With this paid product I received 15 internal ads which showed up on merchants pages that I connected with, 7 extra cities, and a SPONSORED AD (Google Adword campaign). The sponsored ad part of the package I believe is run by some 3rd party Neanderthals somewhere in India. When my ad was first published, I would see it within the results of the sponsored ads when I typed in my keywords and GEO tags on Google. After time though, I noticed it wasn't showing up as often and eventually stopped showing up altogether. I approached MerchantCircle, and asked why it wasn't showing up. I was told to edit my keywords, and it would be taken care of. At the time, you could pick something like 7 keywords, and they would use them in your ad campaign. So I re-edited my keywords, and still nothing. They kept telling me it takes time. The funny thing is, at the beginning it was doing great. I saw it all the time. I wondered if my competitors were maybe clicking on it to use up my all my clicks, (which by the way MerchantCircle NEVER tells you how many clicks you're getting, or how much of the package price actually goes to the ad campaign)
I noticed other merchants complaining about the same thing, so I requested, and unbelievably received a report from MerchantCircle detailing my Keywords, Clicks, and Impressions. I was floored when I saw the report. IN MY KEYWORDS was the word MERCHANTCIRCLE. The report showed, that the majority of the clicks I was getting, was for the keyword MerchantCircle. So when someone would do a search for MerchantCircle my sponsored ad would show up. The people that were clicking it weren't looking for glass, but they were looking for MerchantCircle. I was pissed. MerchantCircle was stealing my clicks.They were also doing this to other merchants as well. This was UNETHICAL. I complained and it was fixed. I finally ended up canceling my paid product with MerchantCircle, and ran my own Google Ad Campaign with less money and better results.
Here are some more shady services and products brought to you by Merchant Circle
1. The Leads Program........This is a scam from the word go
2. The Verified Badge........ Do they really verify you? Pay and you are instantly "Verified" or do it the free way, and send MerchantCircle all your private info. I wonder what they do with all the info people send them.
3. The Local Sponsor...... They claim local sponsor will get you featured but I've seen merchants that have paid for local sponsor DEEP within internal search results. That's not very featured.
4. Sponsored ads...... Plastered in all the sweet spots of everyone listing Look at just about anyone's page and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's absurd
5. The Q & A......... Merchants waste time answering questions that will never be seen by the original person asking the question because MerchantCircle has the questions farmed in from great sites like Answerbag.
I could go on and on about the shady business practices of MerchantCircle.
Posted on 7/29/2011
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Dealing with this company has been a nightmare. My personal telephone number and old address was listed for a company that has a very similar name as mine and a negative review (I should say it was more malicious than anything) was left, intended for a different company. I faxed over Merchant Circle's listing removal form and two months later, nothing was done. I spend hours trying to talk to someone on their live chat who said they removed the listing, however, they didn't remove them all. The listing is still be indexed by Google showing in the search engine results a portion of the very negative comments. Back and forth, round and round we go. Merchant Circle says to contact Google, Google says to contact Merchant Circle. The only way Google will remove a cached URL is if the page returns a 404. Merchant Circle refused to do this and the page shows as being live. Why bother removing anything if you're not going to remove the entire page! I will be indexed by Google for years to come unless This company does something. Every email I've sent them I receive an auto response that does not address my email. Every live person I've chatted with has rudely disconnected me. Every fax I've sent mysteriously never gets there. I am convinced that Merchant Circle is systematically and methodically forcing people to pay their $35 fee for the priveledge of speaking with a live person on the telephone. Who ever heard of such a thing? A company can keep your reputation hostage and there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE number and they make it very clear that emails may take weeks to be responded to if you are not a "member". This is the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. If I could give them a zero star rating I would. I am contacting an attorney and filing as many complaints against them as I possibly can.
Posted on 5/27/2011
Business responded on 6/6/2011
Ann:
I just saw your post. I am very sorry that you have had this experience. We definitely appreciate your feedback and want to know that we are working on improving the removal process. I do want to let you know that we take the security of our users data very seriously and therefore, this is why we require a signed confirmation to remove data. I's be happy to provide more information about this process or if you still need further assistance, please feel free to contact me at teresa [AT]merchantcircle.com.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle Community
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Approximately 2 years ago we started getting mail for a company which we will call "pebbles of the night". I will not give the real name of the company as I have not asked the owner's permission to do so. We have been inundated with the unsolicited type of mail, credit card applications, advertising junk etc. The "pebbles" company are in our town, but the owner has never lived at our address. We are the second owners of this house. The first owners built it and do not know of any "pebble" company.
Yesterday I discovered that MerchantCircle have the "Pebbles" company advertised on their site showing our street address and a map to the exact position of our house. We live in a sub division and nowhere near any commercial property. I immediately went tried to contact Merchant circle. According to their website not only should they have been available to answer the phone at that time of the day, but they should have had an online live chat available. There was no live chat available last night or this morning. If you get their phone number through the BBB you only get a recorded message telling you what is available on their website. No real people available.
This morning I went to see the lady that owns the "Pebbles" company she has never advertised with anyone and had never heard of Merchant circle.
The BBB gave Merchant Circle a B+. I wonder why.
How on earth can I get this company to remove my address from this site.
I am about to call the DA in that area as I read that Merchant Circle were fined 900,000 for some mis-deeds.
I have my own company, but I can assure you that if I wanted to advertise these would be the very last people I would go to.
Posted on 5/3/2011
Business responded on 5/3/2011
Susan:
Hello- I want to thank you for your comments. I understand your concern. Data that is incorrect or out-of-date, as is the case there, helps no one. If you can forward the link to the listing on MerchantCircle I'd be happy to remove it. Just to provide a little background on this issue, MerchantCircle, like multiple other online and mobile sites use the same source of Yellow Page data. MerchantCircle allows merchant to register their business information for free and update their information at any time.
I hope this helps clarify your concern.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle Community Team
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A HORRIBLE COMPANY WITH HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICES....I ONCE JOINED THEIR "REFERRAL" GROUP WITH VERY LITTLE RESPOCE AND DECIDED THIS COMPANY WAS JUST WASTING OUR MONEY. THEY CONVENIENTLY AUTOMATICALLY DEDUCTED FUNDS OUT OF OUR ACCOUNT AND IN ONE MONTH THEY ACTUALLY HELPED THEMSELVES TO A DOUBLE PAYMENT. WHEN I ALERTED THE COMPANY TO STOP TAKING MONIES OUT OF MY ACCOUNT THEY CONTINUED FOR THREE MONTHS OF BACK AND FORTH CONVERSATION UNTIL I HAD TO THREATEN THEM WITH A LAWSUIT IF THEY DID NOT COMPLY. THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE METHODS ARE UNORTHODOX, NO FREE PHONE NUMBER TO CALL AND A LENGTHY "FORM" TO FILL OUT TO ASK FOR CANCELLATION...PLEASE KIND SIR WPULD YOU REMOVE MY PAID LISTING? WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT! IT IS A TERRIBLE TERRIBLWE COMPANY THAT SHOULD BE DEALTH WITH THE AUTHORITIES DUE TO THEIR ILLEGAL PRACTICES....I AM STILL TRYING TO GET MY LISTING OFF OF THEIR SITE WHICH NOW DISPLAYS A 619 NUMBER WHICH IS NOT MY PHONE NUMBER CAUSING DAMAGES TO MY COMPANY...THIS IS A HORRIBLE COMPANY THAT SHOULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS
Posted on 3/31/2011
Business responded on 5/3/2011
Nick:
I'm sorry that you have had this experience. We'd be happy to assist you. Please contact on our support page (http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/contact.html) we have several free channels to reach us.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle Community
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I have no idea what this company is and have never heard of it before tonight when I was reviewing my charges on my credit card and there is a charge of $39.95 to a company called Gateway to Branson. When I look that up it brings me to the Merchantcircle website. Not sure what the charge is for but plan on finding out with the number that is provided here for the company. I don't own any business so I'm not sure why I would be needing their services. I don't really take kindly to charges on my credit card that I DID NOT AUTHORIZE, and I do expect it to be refunded. I'm not sure why the BBB gives this company such a good rating from the reviews I have read. I will sure be letting them know my opinion about this company and the way they charge people randomly. I really want to know how they got my card information to make the charge. Hopefully the phone call to them tomorrow with help me to understand and get this straightened out and get my money back!!
Posted on 3/3/2011
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This company is horrible to communicate with and not only that they placed my business on there without authorization from me.
Posted on 2/14/2011
Business responded on 2/14/2011
Jesse:
I just wanted to follow-up with your concern. MerchantCircle is on of the fastest growing networks for local business online. Like most of the online directories, we get our business data forum publicly available sources, like the Yellow Pages. Unlike most other directories, we allow all merchants the ability to control their content and reputation online. And if you don't want your information online, we'll take it of our network- it's your business and we understand that you want to choose how you promote it. I am including a link to a out removal instruction. The instructions are very easy to follow and we can have your information taken down very quickly. (http://bit.ly/eHWMEt).
Please let me know if you need further help. I'd be happy to assist.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle Community Team
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Sorry to hear about some of the negative experiences others have had but I cant disagree more. MerchantCircle has been instrumental in getting my business seen in my local community as well as on Google. They have many features such as newsletters, blogs, unlimited picture upload, coupons, advertisements, etc. that you can use to promote your business. I have also met some great merchants from all around the United States and have used their services and products. It is a wonderful community and the MC staff make great efforts to make MC a place where small business owners can go and promote and market their products and services. They are responsive and request feedback on how they can do things better. I am very pleased with MC and their services and they have helped my business grow threefold.
Posted on 1/19/2011
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Because of MerchantCircle.com's wonderful reviews of Heat USA (HeatUSA.com and HeatingOil.com, same company) I lost over $25,000.00 in Heating Equipment (I didn't need) and damages.
MerchantCircle.com is a Fraudulent Consumer Advocate Company and Website. It lures consumers to their website by locations. You think you are reading these wonderful reviews about businesses and companies in your area when in fact the negative reviews have been removed by the business and company owners and most of the positive reviews are written by employees, business and company owners themselves, family and friends. Consumers are then scammed into doing business with these companies because of their wonderful reviews which are not true. I was scammed into joining "Heat USA" because I read their great reviews, which by doing so I have lost thousands of dollars. My negative review after doing business with Heat USA was removed over 12 times by MerchantCircle. It took over 20 emails going back and forth for them to finally admit that their business and companies who pay them to be on MerchantCircle.com can remove and add whatever they want on MerchantCircle.com. MerchantCircle must be stopped of this fraudulent business practice.
Email I received from MerchantCircle after 20 emails asking them why my negative review on Heat USA was taken off MerchantCircle 12 times:
Subject: [#MGO-788957]: neighbor / listing-remove=Remove listing /
Date: 12/28/2010 2:46:11 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: support@merchantcircle.com
Merchants are allowed to manage their Reviews feature, hence, they can remove individual reviews or the entire feature if they so desire.
The MerchantCircle Team
800 W. El Camino Real, Suite 330
Mountain View, CA 94040
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MerchantCircle
Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: MGO-788957
Department: Neighbors
Priority: Neighbor
Status: Closed
Posted on 12/30/2010
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MerchantCircle has been a great place they have taken my company to be known and trusted by there elite advertising and marketing providing many avenues and ways for customers to reach Apple Tree Lawncare TWO thumbs up for MerchantCircle a place that can be trusted by all Thank you MerchantCircle Sincerely James Morris Of Apple Tree Lawncare
Posted on 12/27/2010
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Very poor customer service. Merchantcircle has consistently ignored many issue's I have submitted to there on site MC link.
1 The first issue I have is that there site is down more than its available. I pay for sponsorship ads but feel its cost is not worth the investment. If I cannot access Merchant Circle, It goes to figure others cannot as well.MC has accnoughladged this and said they added three month sponsorship for free for the inconvenience. The problem with that is that the only way the so called sponsorship shows up in the city they offered is through the link they mailed me. If you go to the actual city and subject from the site, my sponsorship does not exist.
2 second issue is the fact that I have paid for many sponsorship ads. Now when I want to either ad sponsorship in other city's or cancel current sponsorship, the sponsorship link does not work so I am continually being charged for additional sponsorship ads that I have written to Merchant circle and requested for them to not charge my accounts for anything without my verbal acceptance or for me to click on something adding another month or so to my current service. I bought one month sponsorship.
3 there online customer service for me to write and request help for any matter now also does not work. I am not allowed to send mail to Merchant circle to request them to resolve my many issues.
I currently feel they have charged me for services I have not received in excess of $150.00. They have also billed for sponsorship and other services without my authorization in excess of $300.00
When I first set up a Merchant circle account I was pleased with the contacts available. I now would never recomend Merchant circle to even an enemy. Poor,Poor Company!
Posted on 12/14/2010
Business responded on 12/15/2010
Paul:
I will check into your issues immediately, but wanted to follow-up with some of your comments here. Regarding the site issues you mentioned, we were able to identify the issue and quickly worked to stabilize the site. Check out our blog for more details on how our small team worked quickly to get MC back up- http://blog.merchantcircle.com/2010/12/merchantcircle-team-this-is-how-we-roll.html. Regarding your product concerns,our support team credited your account as you have requested. In addition, with Local Sponsor, you are free to cancel at any time through your MerchantCircle account at any time. Please note that all merchants can contact MC at any time through the following link on our contact us page [ click here: http://bit.ly/ffbmuZ]. I'd be happy to address your concerns further.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle Community
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this company has posted a current listing for my company which was closed in 2009 and the 800 phone number now is forwarded to a sex exploit service, no attempts to get them to remove this listing on line has been successful. Mrs. Jeffries from Pastures of God Dahlias
Posted on 12/6/2010
Business responded on 12/6/2010
Merc: MerchantCircle is one of the fastest growing online networks. We do our best to provide the newest and most accurate data. From time-to-time business moves faster than out data. We most certainly understand that, especially in this case. As mentioned below, we provide merchants with several options to modify and correct the data and if they do not choose to modify then they can remove it. Please see this article in our Support Center that details the options to have a listing remove. http://bit.ly/hecy07.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle
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I had never heard about this company until a patient came in and told us that OUR information on the internet was wrong. The site gave a residental address instead of our correct address. We knew is was incorrect because we are very aware what our website says. We googled our business name and there is was right name right phone number but wrong address. I discovered this was listed by Merchant Circle. A company I had never heard of and we had never given permission to advertise for us. On closer inspection I found that this company also claimed they could book appointments for customers something that is a complete lie. When you click on the book an appointment you are told that online booking was not available. I started investigating this Merchant circle smoke screen and of course there is no real phone number just one that will charge you 34.99 to get an answer. I read in other reviews that you have to claim the listing (God only know what they charge for that) in order to correct it. This must be the whole scam they purposely put in incorrect information so you have to change it and them charge you to talk to support and charge you to fix false listings. This company is in for alot of trouble. Our owner is talking lawsuit too. The company probably consists of one guy sitting on a box in the garage at an old computer thinking of ways to scam people. This company should not have any rating for BBB.
Posted on 11/20/2010
Business responded on 11/22/2010
Vicky:
I wanted to assure you that MerchantCircle has multiple FREE channels for individuals, like yourself to contact MerchantCircle. Please see the 'Support' tab located on the bottom of any MerchantCircle page. This link provides a host of FREE support channels to contact MerchantCircle including: Live Chat hours, email support, our live Community Forums and a search-able Support Center[http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/contact.html]. In addition, MerchantCircle allows individuals who own or are an active representative of the business to register the material and update it at anytime for FREE. In this case, I'd be happy to assist you ASAP. Please let me know if you have further questions.
Best,
Teresa
MerchantCircle
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