Complaint Review: DMN Media - Dallas Texas

I have never in my life felt the need to post on RipOffReport but DMN Media / 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW (owned by Dallas Morning News) have caused me to lose sleep and over $3000 in fees in 30 days and I have received Zero Leads, or anything of value from them. They made mistakes on all 3 of our accounts, took 3 times longer to set up them promised, agreed to a refund and 3 weeks later they went back on their word. They will lock you into a 6 month to 1 year agreement keep your money, and then charge you 25% of total amount if you try to cancel. You Should not trust any online marketing business or company and especially DMN Media / 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW if they force you to stay with them or pay fees to cancel your account. I was suckered in my trying to help out a personal referral Whitney Farmer and it cost me over $3000.

I was referred to a Sales Agent "Whitney Farmer" with DMN Media which is a subsidiary company of the Dallas Morning News. This company partnered with another organization called 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW. These companies offer online marketing services such as Pay Per Click (PPC) management and Social Media Services to local businesses in the Dallas Fort Worth Area. I agreed to sign up 3 of my businesses to use their pay per click management services after being sold how amazing their back end reporting and information was. I told them that I was experienced with Google Adwords and simply needed someone to manage the program and processes for me. My wife and I signed up for packages that would total nearly $2400 a month including their $240 per account management fee and the rest was going towards actual adwords. Let’s get into where the issues / problems began with DMN Media & 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW.

I signed up my 1^st account with DMN Media / 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW on August 8^th, 2013 with Whitney Farmer as my sales agent and paid $700. I was not contacted again to do my setup for the account which I was told would happen in one week until August 29, 2013 (3 weeks later). On that set-up call I was completely underwhelmed when I saw the ridiculous landing page they had created for my business. It was a basic one page site and had absolutely nothing that was appealing, or would make anybody register or sign up for my real estate company information.

I had concerns that this type of setup would not work with a local real estate company but I was ensured they knew what they were doing. Long story short 1 week later I was billed again for $700, $995 for my 2^nd account and $700 total for my wife’s accounts for $3100 total in the 1^st 30 days. They made videos for our businesses that stated services we did not even offer, and had no desire of offering. I was never provided a log in to view the actual details of PPC campaign until I actually asked for it.

Actually after being able to login I was shocked to see up to that point I had given DMN Media / 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW $3100 and they had actually only spent less than $700 total on our adwords campaigns and were essentially just storing our money. On 09/14 after being $3100 in the hole, having a useless basic landing pages, videos produced that we had to ask them to delete because they had inaccurate information, ads that were not generating any leads, social media pages we had to take down and nothing of value being provided I ask to cancel accounts immediately and explained and detailed the mistakes that were made, lack of communication and the fact our budget was not being effectively used and no leads (NOT 1) had actually came in.

On 09/18 I was relieved when Whitney Farmer sent to me in writing my accounts were cancelled, cancellation fee waived and I would be refunded the $1700+ in unused adwords spend. I waited 2 weeks and did not receive any refund, I called Whitney Farmer back and she pawned me off to her boss Whitney Cummings at DMN Media / 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW. Whitney Cummings gave me the runaround for 3 days and came back and said “Sorry you were given wrong information, NO REFUND will be issues”. I asked to speak to her manager Brian Ritenour and he told me he would look into it and get back with me. He kept his word, and got back with me the next day. The problem was now that my $1700+ refund had dwindled down to only less than $500.

I asked why, and I was told that my account was never stopped or cancelled on 09/18 as promised in writing, and they ended up spending another $1200 (which produced Zero Business or leads for any of my businesses) and there was nothing they can do. So basically the company has stolen $2600 from my wife and I, guaranteed a refund, went back on their word, made really bad adwords, generate zero leads, created a useless landing page and told me to smile and take it.

Whatever you do, DO NOT USE DMN Media / 508 Digital / FindItNowDFW they prey on small to medium size business owners in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I should have known better but was referred to Whitney Farmer by a personal friend and went against my better judgment. Look for better local or online companies that don’t have long term contracts, outrageous cancellation fees, and ask to log in to their back office before you buy from anyone. This company pays big commissions to sales people like Whitney Farmer, and rip off small business owners locked in to their binding terms and agreements.

DMN Media: http://dmnmedia.com/

508 Digital / FindItNowDFW: http://508digital.com/

Dallas Morning News