I gave Precise Leads a try, starting in December 2014.
At first, everything seemed to be going OK. Then I noticed that I really had no control of how many leads I would receive per day. Seems that they required you to have at least one of your lead types generating all the time. The minimum leads that you could set is five per day. This can be a little much if you have a small staff. You can't "pause" your account without having to call in to Precise Leads and ask for it to be put on vacation mode. This is not very handy when you’re not on vacation and just want to pause all leads due to work load/staffing that day. Plus, the delay in getting someone to call you back can be very lengthy.
About a week into using the service I started to get leads where the lead actually told us that they were just filling out surveys online in order to get a free gift card or tablet. They had no idea that it had anything to do with insurance quotes. I’d say that is a little deceptive. This seemed to be the norm for about 95% of the leads coming in. I had also set myself up to receive "exclusive" home leads that supposedly only came to my Agency. This was not the case as we discovered that the same lead was sent to another lead service we were using, which they in turn, distributed to eight others agents.
I had made a few calls into my account manager Bo Stenger, who was assigned to us at Precise Leads. I told him that I wasn't happy with the quality of leads that we were receiving. I also asked that I not be charged again until everything was adjusted. Well, I came in the next day and my credit card was charged again! Bo played around with the filters on his end to tweak the quality and promised a bunch of credits to me for the trouble I was going through, which would be used for next batch of leads that I received. He also mentioned that I couldn't get these credits unless I funded my account again. I reluctantly funded it. I then started to notice that they were only sending me leads and deducting from my new funded balance, not the credits. What he didn't tell me was that they dumped all of the "credits" into the slowest lead type that we had. What a complete bait and hook! Yes, I left a few comments on some denied return lead requests. Be aware, they also have a limit on how many leads you can request to be refunded, no matter what the reason.
I called Bo a day a later and told him flat out that I wanted to cancel my account, remove my credit cards so I couldn't get charged again and just use the remaining balance I had on the account. All he wanted to do was talk over me and keep telling me that I wasn't giving him a valid reason for cancelling my account. After he started to laugh at me and ask the same questions over and over, I finally had to tell him that if he'd shut his mouth long enough, I could tell him again! He then got very angry and told me "I'll send my grandmother to your place and have her knock the spinach off your spatula!" Now I grew up in the south and have heard a plethora of good sayings, but even I haven't even heard that one before. I had to laugh. But I'm pretty sure that it was a threat. And to send your grandmother? Wouldn't that be something that you'd want to handle yourself?
I asked him to let me speak to his supervisor, which he said was conducting an interview at that moment. Who knows, maybe it was an interview for his replacement? I've asked three separate times of their customer service department to have his manager or anyone with authority, to give me a call. To this date, no one has called. And my credit cards are still attached to the account!
I doubt that I will ever get a call.
My advice...stay clear of this lead service and watch your spatula!
Matt1Colorado
Alabama,#2Author of original report
Tue, February 10, 2015
I finally got to speak with a manager at Precise leads and for the most part, got everything resolved: