Complaint Review: local.com - Internet Internet

I have had nothing but problems with this company!

I signed up for their "exact match" service which included creation of a custom website for my company, a facebook page and promised my company would be listed on the FIRST PAGE of yahoo, google and bing when the exact match words I chose were searched. They explained that they had experts who would help me determine the best words to use to ensure my site would rank. I chose a few different words when I filled out the questionnaire they sent me expecting them to contact me to discuss their recommendation of which words would provide the best results but of course, I never heard from anyone. I was told someone would be in touch with me to build my new website and that I would have complete control over what was on the site, the appearance, etc. and it would not be published without my approval. Again, I was never contacted and when I called to find out why, I was told my site was already live. I never got a chance to review the site before it was published nor was I involved in the creation of the site. By the way, there is no design control over the site. They use a template that is the same for everyone and you cannot adjust anything but the words and pictures. This also was not mentioned when I signed up but instead I was given the impression that my site would be one of a kind and built to my specifications.

I left several messages for the sales rep that misinformed me of the process and the service I was purchasing with no return call. I finally contacted customer service when I wasnt getting a response and found out he was no longer with the company and no one was checking his voicemail or email. Because he was no longer with the company, they told me they couldnt verify whether or not I truly received inaccurate information. They recommended I give them some time to get the site on the first page of the search engines before I cancelled the service and assured me that once the site was ranking I would see a huge return on my money.

After several months, they were not able to get my site ranking anywhere near the first page so they suspended my billing and told me they would continue to try to get my site ranking. After several more months, my site was still not ranking and it didn't look like they haddone anything besides the initial build of the site. Even my Facebook page had hardly been touched.

I was able to get a supervisor to cancel my service and refund a portion of what I had paid. He then signed me up for their "Power Sync" program that lists your company's contact information with TONS of sites and mobile phone applications for free for two months as he was certain I would see better results with this product. After the two months, I cancelled this service as I never received a phone call or anything else resulting from this product not to mention their fee for this service is outrageous!

I attempted to cancel my service in November of 2012 and as of today, February 26th, 2013 my information is still listed on all sites/apps and I am unable to claim my business or edit the contact information listed. I have tried to cancel this service 3 times now and I explained to them my contact information has changed so it is important for me to correct this as soon as possible. They refused to edit or remove the incorrect contact information because "the service was cancelled". I still have no idea why Local.com is having such a hard time truly canceling my service and until this happens, I have no control over the inaccurate contact information listed for my business.

I would never work with this company again nor would I recommend their services to anyone. They overpromise on their abilities and they are not honest when describing their products. Most importantly, they are holding my companys online presence hostage by making it impossible for me to make changes and refusing to do anything on their end to correct or remove the inaccurate information. Everything from start to finish has been a joke. Dont waste your time or money with this
company.