Complaint Review: Nichebot

Since I posted this report I received a threatening email from John Gibbons of NicheBot.He has vowed to build a case against me with fake backlinks so that my name will appear in Ripoff Report.

I am the President/CEO of FTEI and Founder of NicheBOT.com and this reubttal is being written and submitted this 29th day of January, 2011.

NicheBOT has been in business since April 28, 2004 as shown here http://whois.domaintools.com/nichebot.com and is coming up on its 7th year anniversary. As of January 26, 2011, NicheBOT and the parent company have never had one single ripoff report filed against them, let alone any other consumer protection agency. As of January 26, 2011, we have a flawless record -- and this rebuttal will show exactly why it's been that way for nearly 7 years.

Furthermore, the screenshots provided in this will also show that NicheBOT, and the parent company, have completed 62,182 transactions without incident and has a PayPal seller reputation of 3,820 (three thousand, eight hundred twenty) -- meaning that 3,820 people have been referred to PayPal through us.

In simple terms, NicheBOT's policies are so transparent, we have constantly refined them over the years to the point that we leave several indicators along the way when potential customers take our trial offer. Contrary to what is stated in this complaint, the guarantee is quite large. In fact, why don't we just get that out of the way now and show you right here:

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/14-day-guarantee.jpg

The screenshot above was taken directly from the front page offer of the NicheBOT.com site. Then, as you attempt to "Add to Cart" one of the three different level of subscriptions, you find right near the "Add to Cart" buttons something that says "There is absolutely no Fine Print." There is no fine print and the font is the same size as the letters that show the price and the length of the subscription. And there are three separate and distinct large boxes on the same page at NicheBOT.com just like this:

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/no-fine-print.jpg

I'm dumbfounded how someone can miss the words "There are No Refunds" with "No Refunds" having a hyperlink to the super clear No Refunds Page here: http://www.nichebot.com/blog/no-refunds/ -- And this was clearly and cordially pointed out to Mr. Trio and he ignored all this while still making the claims he did in this alleged complaint.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lewis Trio's claim in its entirey will fall flat on its face about deceptive advertising because (1) the screenshot that was provided above and (2) other screenshots that will be provided in this rebuttal below already show there is no "four point type" being used or some so-call "secret policy." The only way Mr. Trio may have missed the guarantee and the clear writing that says "There are No Refunds" after the trial is by looking away and arbitrarily clicking an "Add to Cart" button (or going through the process blind-folded).

Mr. Trio then goes on to state in his own words "researching next by I googled their guarantee policy and pulled out a page which indicated that customers had one full year to make their decision on the service. If in that time they were dissatisfied they would receive a complete refund payments made."

Isn't it interesting that Mr. Trio not only does not tell us the URL of that page, he doesn't even include a screenshot of the so called one year guarantee. However, when we go and research this in Google and search both ways -- let's see what we come up with.

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/no-one-year-guarantee.jpg

Hmmmmmmm, no 365-day guarantee here, but it does show that the data NicheBOT provides goes back 365 days. Perhaps he interpreted that as a one year guarantee. But this next screenshot is quite telling.

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/hot-trends-one-year-guarantee.jpg

Aha - the smoking gun! Mr. Trio decides to extract a guarantee on a product we sell called "Hot Trends Report" that is (1) $17 (2) does not have a trial offer and (3) is not connected with any keyword research services offered on the page from which he purchased. Had Mr. Trio purchased the $17 report and asked for a refund within one year from the date of purchase, he would have received a prompt and courteous refund. However, Mr. Trio did not purchase that report - he purchased access to the keyword research platform.

So let's detail exactly what Mr. Trio did do so we can see his clear methodical path since he says that "After working and going to the training two times I threw my hands up in frustration and and decided this program wasn't for me."

Mr. Trio first signed up on January 3, 2011, and from the sounds of it, it wasn't long after that he threw his hands up in frustration. But when we look at his usage of his account, up until January 26, 2011, the day before this complaint was file, he had been using his account to the very last day (for 23 days):

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/still-using-account.jpg

Mr. Trio's 14 day trial was not even on the cusp of just renewing, but he was still using his account 9 days later after his account billed.

Given Mr. Trio's frustration and throwing his hands up in the air, we went to go look at how he had faired with NicheBOT and it seems he was doing quite well with his keyword research and was quite well adept at saving, searching and even merging keyword lists as can be seen from inside his account here:

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/lewis-saved-searches.jpg

What's truly interesting is how Mr. Trio began his refund request. It was almost as if it was expected just because he canceled his subscription. Because of the unusual nature of Mr. Trio's support ticket, I checked all the voice mail lines and all the various email addresses he could have emailed someone. Nothing! I even check his previous support ticket history and whether he filed any additional support tickets due to the fact that he is complaining that certain things didn't work. Still nothing! I mean, when something doesn't work at a service, you usually ask a question and try to find out if the company can get it working. So let's take a look at Mr. Trio's first and ONLY support ticket and the first person who answered the call -- Mr. John Gibbons:

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/first-support-ticket.jpg

As you can clearly see, Mr. Trio asks in an assumptive manner "What is the status my refund in accordance to your guarantee?" our CST Mr. Gibbons, who was first on the scene, was a little baffled by the question since Mr. Trio never emailed us or submitted a single support ticket during his 23 day use of NicheBOT. Mr. Gibbons then referred Mr. Trio in no such arrogant manner to the policy which runs through everything I have (above) and which is right here:

http://www.nichebot.com/blog/no-refunds/

There is a link from each of the 3 large ordering boxes that says "No Fine Print" which is right near the "Add to Cart" buttons (see no-fine-print.jpg image above).

Well, Mr. Trio was not going to have any of this -- so this is where he begins to lay into our staff immediately and for no good reason because no one being arrogant to him at all. And please note that Mary hasn't even entered the dialogue yet and this is Mr. Trio's first response when he is shown the exact path he took and all the things he seems to just ignore:

http://lewistrio.s3.amazonaws.com/first-response-back.jpg

Without even a single attempt at understanding his own potential mistake -- he begins with immediate threats: "Deceptive advertising is illegal. You can read my response on ripoffreport.com. And I'll be sure that San Kumar (articlevideorobot.com) knows he is an affiliate of a company who does not stand behind their product. It would harm his core business to know he is referring business to nefarious operation."

So a company that stands behind their policies does not stand behind their product? Interesting.

Mr. Lewis Trio clearly evidences signs of what business owners call "habitual and incessant refund practitioners" that leverage threats to ripoffreport.com in order to extort a refund from vendors. I can only imagine how many other businesses Mr. Trio has done this to. It's one thing when it's just a few hours after someone's account has billed, but we do not allow ourselves as an organization to be bullied by such patrons who have a blatant disregard for contracts they enter into. This is not even about the measly $17.50 at issue here, but principle, as I personally charge $500 per hour for my services and have easily burned $1200 - $1500 with just this response.

Not only was Mr. Trio way beyond the "clear as day" 14-day guarantee, he seems to have made up stuff about a one year guarantee that belongs to a "report" at a cost of $17.00 that has NO TRIAL OFFER -- and has nothing to do with keyword research services.

In fact, this complaint only makes Mr. Lewis Trio look even worse in the eyes of the public with all the undeniable proof that has been presented here and we have no shame in writing to Mr. Sam Kumar about Mr. Trio's attempts at extortion, which actually IS illegal.

If there is clear deceptive advertising practices here, I am failing to see exactly where they are since Mr. Trio has only provided words with absolutely zero URLs to reference and no screenshots whatsoever.

And after NicheBOT conducting 62,182 actual transactions as of this date and millions of dollars in revenue, I fail to see how Mr. Trio's $17.50 (seventeen fifty) is going to make a huge difference in the company's bottom line. This is a matter of principle and a person attempting to take advantage of company's that offer a guarantee.

Sure, we could have simply given into Mr. Trio's bullying tactics and his threats right out of the gate, but this is a gentleman with zero disregard for any company's policies and believes he can use services with guarantees and pull made-up guarantees out of thin air that have nothing to do with the product he actually purchased.

As for Mr. Trio's account -- anyone looking at this rebuttal can login right now only to see that they can gain access to his account and do conduct keyword searches. We did, however, lock down his account so we could take screenshots in case Mr. Trio decided to go inside his account to delete his data and all his saved searches that we use as evidence in fraud cases such as this one. Mr. Trio seems to have elevated himself to committing fraud by the very nature of this complaint together with lies he has seem to have perpetrated.

I believe the evidence and screenshots clearly speak for themselves.