Complaint Review: Valpak Of Austin

I have air duct cleaning company. I advertised my services with Valpak of Austin. Initially, Morgan (Salesperson from Valpak) said that there was only 3 companies advertising air duct cleaning services. So on 3/30/2012, I came to Valpak office and she said that I need to try them at least for 4 months to get the best results, but she convinced me that from the first day coupons hit the houses there will be a lot of phone calls. Morgan said that each zone has 10000 households (h/h) with annual income of at least $50000 and up. So I figured if I advertise my services to 100 000 households (10 zones x 10000 h/h) I should be receiving enough phone calls to run my business. So we chose 10 different zones from her list and paid her $2500 for the 1st months. The coupons were mailed on 4/19/2012 as scheduled. We received first call on 4/26/2012 but that week we received only 2 phone calls. I thought that maybe its because not all the coupons were mailed out so when all the coupons will be mailed phone calls will increase. But I was surprised why we were not receiving many calls since then. Its obvious that out of 100K households we should have seen some increase in business. So I asked Morgan to show me the sample envelopes with coupons assigned for each zone. She gave me envelopes of only 4 envelopes out of 10, saying that the rest of envelopes were already taken by other customers. First of all, when I opened the envelopes, I found out that there were actually 7 companies advertising air duct cleaning, so I asked her why there are 7 of them instead of 4, she started looking for excuses saying that those were not "exactly" air duct cleaning companies, their main business was carpet cleaning but they offered air duct cleaning also. But before signing an agreement I asked her specifically how many air duct cleaning services were advertised in their coupons, which she told me I would be the 4th one.
So then I asked about company who worked with them before and had same problem of not getting enough phone calls in Austin area. But she argued that this company never placed ad with them. Later after I asked this company itself, she e-mailed to me acknowledging that they actually did run their ad and told me she was misinformed. So I think I was purposefully misinform about results of advertising with them just to sign me up with a expensive contract.

As a result, our ad supposedly was mailed to 100 000 households but still we barely received 3 phone calls a week so I decided to cancel the contract for the next month. They said it was non-cancelable and I have to stay with them for 4 months and pay them $2500 each months. She told me it was written on the back of agreement, but I never was told about these kind of existing terms and conditions. But she said that I signed it and thats all what matters. Indeed, those terms and conditions turn out to be printed on the back of agreement but she never mentioned about such terms.

This being said I also have doubts that they provided me with the true information about mailing our coupons to 100K household. I don't know if it is possible to investigate whether of not our coupons were mailed out to 100000 households, but there is something wrong and they practice absolutely wrong business of not telling people that they won't be able to cancel the agreement or not telling that such a term exists at all. 
Before we could even receive any business from the first month ad, Morgan emails me and pushes me to approve the layout of next month ad by next day. I tried to lower the number of zones to reduce my expenses on this ad or cancel it. She ignored my request and my disprove of next month ad saying that they gonna run it anyway and I will owe them money no matter what. I tried to explain to Morgan that I cant afford to pay this much money for such inefficient and costly ad if it does not bring me enough business.

She just didn't want to cooperate. I asked to talk to a manager or supervisor, she refused it. I left their office. Later I received a call from Bobby Adkins (Valpak owner) who advised me to lower the price or match it with other companies' and we should receive much more jobs after that. He said to try Valpak one more month and if we don't get sufficient jobs he will let me out of contract. So I agreed and asked to change to layout of coupon and he agreed.

When I provided them my version of layout, Morgan said it was too late to change the layout. All she could change was the prices. She also suggested to put new phone number from their system so they can track how many phone calls I will receive. I had no choice but to agree. 100 000 envelopes with coupons were mailed and I still was not receiving sufficient phone calls or potential customers. There were only 3 serious customers who scheduled appointment in two weeks. And Morgan emails me saying that I received 10 phone calls and thats a pretty good number. I told her that 10 calls is not a big number considering 100 000 households seeing our ad. We had same people calling from different phone numbers asking same questions and just hanging up saying they just wanted to take a quote. Some people just asked where we were located or what language we speak and simply hanging up. That does not mean we received appointments from them. Morgan just kept arguing that this is a big number of phone calls and that we are doing pretty good. Having 3 jobs out of 10 phone calls is nothing compared to what we pay for this ad ($2500). So no matter what I do or say, she said that tomorrow is a deadline for the next month ad and we need to approve the layout. I talked to Bobby. He said that 10 phone calls is a good number and its our fault that we could not make a sale out of them. I mentioned that some callers were saying that our already low prices (average $100-150) were too high for them, which it didn't look like they had income of $50000 and up. He ignored it.

I don't know how they advertise for other companies but for us it does not work. I spent so much time explaining to this company that their advertising practice is not working for me but they just ignored me. I will keep trying to cancel this agreement but even if I will be able to cancel it, there will be still so much complains and questions not answered.
Long story short, my complain is as follows:

1) The salesperson (Morgan Uriarte) did not tell me about agreement being non-cancelable and did not showed me where and what the terms and conditions were before I signed it;
2) She was giving me false information about how many air duct cleaning services they were advertising in their area and misinforming about other businesses just to get me into that agreement;
3) They cant proof that they really mailed my ad to 100 000 households with annual income of $50000 and up;
4) Even the deadline was not that close they were rushing me to approve immediately the ad that was not working out for my business not giving me enough time to change it or see the results of the efficiency of the ad.
5) After I told them that ad was not working for me and I needed to cancel it because my business would be broke and I can't pay them that much money they ignore this fact and threaten me with legal actions.

After I was telling them that I will not be able to pay for this ad anymore because the business is loosing money and not making any profit at all they finally agreed to let me out of the contract. But it was a very bad experience for me and pushed me go out of this business.