Watch Out For Google Re-Sell!

Here’s a quick post which i felt was nessecary. The post relates to a company called Google-Resell and an expose published on the Mirror website this week. I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the important bits below:

If a sales rep from an outfit called Google Re-sell calls and offers to improve your website’s Google traffic, you’d be forgiven for thinking the caller might actually be from Google.

You’d be wrong. Google Re-sell is a name used by a firm called Sphere Marketing run by habitual conman Graeme Ross.

He first featured in this column in 2001 with an advertising scam that preyed on hard-working firms. Now he’s got a team of coldcallers who spout a line about how they can help more clients find your business website.

Some of their clients had this to say:

“They said that we would be listed at the top of page one on Google initially and then be guaranteed a place on the first page for the next three months,”

“I was contacted by someone who implied she worked for Google,” said Park Hall’s Trish Ford. “She explained this offer was only available to the first three companies that signed up for each specific key phrase being offered by Google.”

“I was contacted by a man who introduced himself as from the Google marketing team.”

“We paid £940 in 2008 for a Google AdWords campaign, and paid by telephone quoting our company credit card. It did sound too good to be true, but we thought they had a special relationship with Google. Imagine the shock to have another 7 transactions totalling £9,450 taken in January 2009 without authorisation, it was quite sickening.”

“We too were taken in, are now in the process of taking legal action against these people, and have reported them to Trading Standars. I have contacted some of the people mentioned in the article, and compared notes. I don’t know how this mob sleep at night – I wish them all a very pleasant stay at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in the very near future.”

Google Re-Sell didnt have much to say on that matter and responded with:

“There is a lot more to the situation than you are being told. It is very easy to blame Sphere Marketing for the problems. We are, however, looking into the situation.”

And Google, the all mighty one said:

“Our lawyers will investigate.”

Exciting stuff as ever from the big man! Google Re-Sell are very local to me and they are conning small business owners out of their hard earned and conducting themselves in a way that is completeley illegal. This really aggrevates me for two reasons. One, it makes it harder for genuine SEOs and Online Marketers to pick up new work and two, it makes it harder to keep hold of existing clients. I’ve had to deal with a few clients recently who have been contacted by bogus seo firms offering to sell them dirt cheap SEO packages that guarantee top page rankings. It’s difficult to field these sort of questions at the best of times but in the current economic climates business owners are watching every penny and these sort of deals look all the more attractive to them.

Educate your clients and you’ll avoid this situation most of the time. But my advice would be to send them the article link, or the link to this post ! That way you get in first!