Complaint Review: Homes.com Agent Advantage - SanDiego California

March 2011 - Agent Advantage got me for a whopping $4,000!!!  I was promissed that with all their expertise and SEO knowledge, my site would be on the first page of Google in no time. Well, it took over three months just to get the site launched. The content was so poorly written that I had to edit every single page. The grammar and misspelling were too embarrasing to appear with my name on it.

Then I complained that the Search function wasn't working - instead of IDX, it was only showing listings from the Homes.com site. In desperation, I finally asked them to use the Search function from my company website. However, that was a disaster too. They set up a page that sent the viewer to my old company site, leaving my expensive $4,000 Agent nAdvantage site entirely. Why pay for a new site to have it direct them to the old one?

It soon became obvious that Agent Advantage is not interested in building a truely customized site... although that is definitely what they are charging for. Instead they are a mass production of canned pages. When I asked about inserting content from some of my blogs instead of their pre-written pages, they said it couldn't be done. So I had to settle for a couple of hyperlinks. Not exactly custom content.

The final straw was when I changed my personal photo. I sent it to them twice asking that they update my site. They updated the front page only - all other pages still retained the old picture. Such lazy, sloppy work. Also, those last six weeks I only had one lead. I complained and got no response. Apparently my account manager was too busy trying to sucker her latest victim. I finally gave up. Wrote off over $4,000 and told them to stuff it.

It seems the sales representative is taking all of the heat for something the company failed to execute on the back-end.  I am very familiar with this industry and have worked as an online Real Estate Marketing Consultant for several years.  I am also very familiar with homes.com and Agent Advantage.  Once a product is sold, the task is out of the salesperson's hands.  That seems clear to the client filing this report, but what is not clear is how detrimental this can be on a salesman's name.  This report has almost certainly ended the salesperson's success with homes.com and maybe in the entire industry.  Although this report clearly states that it was the web design team and the retention department that failed, the salesperson's name blankets the report.  It is a shame to see in such a job market. 

I also have had a poor experience with Homes.com Agent Advantage. The contract says they have 4 months, I think. The problem with that is it takes away the 90 day time period to challenge the charge on your credit card.

I paid $3000 for what was represented as a web site that would optimize home buyers and home sellers searching and bring some leads on my site. What was represented and what I got do not mesh. It turns out, what I paid for was  "3 module" site with optimization of one area. The 3 modules have to do with personal, community, and school info. I was told all the "research" that was done. I provided community info and school info and links to the designers. The biography is poorly written and verbose. I need to redo it. I am having trouble accessing my site to make changes. It took 2 months to get my listings downloaded. Now I have no leads (no hits) in 2 months. Now I am being told if I am not paying for placement and with only 1 SEO area, it may take 3 months to start getting hits!!! If I want a better chance to get hits, them I have to pay an additional $1200 (and was represented as a BIG discount). On my old site, I got 300-400 hits a month, but it was not "sticky" and what I was paying for was something that was going to get hits and be sticky. It will cost even more to pay for placement on the search engines.

As far as I am concerned, I am still a "secret agent" and have wasted a bucket load of money. My advice - look elsewhere for your webiste design and maintenance.