I am writing this to you after reading your ripoff report about
the Zaken Corp., dated Feb. 17, 2013. In that report, you asked for
comments about recent experiences with the Zaken Corp. I would like
to share mine with you.
I started my association with the Zaken Corp. following receipt of a
mailing about their Quicksell program. At that point, I joined with
as an associate. I ordered blank post cards
to send out and begin marketing my business. Then, based on another
contact from the company, I upgraded to a website and lifetime directories, to enhance my marketing efforts.
I was contacted or received another mailing (not sure which) regarding
another upgrade, and spoke with a sales person at Zaken. They assured
me that the website I had purchased was not a full website, and that I
needed to upgrade to yet another website that would be built for me,
in order to achieve any type of success. I questioned this at length,
but ultimately agreed to upgrade as my goal was to be successful. The
cost for the upgrade was $2995.00. As part of this package, I would receive a full website, built by Zaken, Lifetime Directories with pre-addressed mailing labels and postage cards with my website and information imprinted on them.
The next interaction I had was with a sales person offering me an SEOprogram with Google, which he stated would make my business take off. Knowing the power of Google searches, I agreed to this program that would put my website on the 1st page in any Google search. I was told that the process would take 6-8 weeks for the Google SEO to take effect. The cost was $4,400.00. Also, when I asked about competition from other Zaken associates using the SEO product, I was told that they only sold it to one person at a time per Zaken business type. I have recently found another Zaken associate website on page one of Google. And, even further, I was told that the bill would be paid directly to Google. That did not happen. The bill was paid directly to Zaken.
When I started looking for my website, in Feb. 2013, I found another website with a
domain name that was practically identical to mine, and Zaken did
agreeably change the name of my website and promised to send me
another shipment of imprinted postcards. I verified the date that the
new website was started on the SEO process with the IT dept. at Zaken.
It was on Feb. 26, 2013.
I continued to receive many mailings from Zaken, and called on a
particular mailing about the ZLC and becoming a seller as well as
finding liquidation items. The sales person convinced me that it was
a very good idea to invest in the other side of the liquidation
process, so with a great deal of trepidation, given that I was still
waiting on my marketing materials from the liquidation site and unable
to market via mail as I had planned to do, or bring in revenue to cover expense, I agreed to do this.
I was given a "deal" of my own site for $1995.00, and assured I would
get the imprinted postcards for this site as well.
I waited patiently to receive the promised postcards, and after a
month had gone by, I called Zaken and was assured I would be receiving
them shortly. I made many calls, usually every other week to check on the process and still did not receive the postcards.
I ordered 200 post card stamps, in anticipation of getting started on
the mailing as soon as I received the postcards, in March.
As of June 2, I still had not received the postcards, for either
site, in spite of numerous phone calls to the company. Two weeks ago,
I checked the liquidation website to see if the Google search function
that I had paid $4400 for was working. My site did not come up at all when I entered
key words, such as liquidation! The SEO Program was not even in
place!
I called the Zaken Corp. to talk with someone about the
problem and could not get anyone to talk to me. At that point, i started calling 3-4 times daily for well over a two
week period and was unable to talk to a human being, other than the
operator two times. The operator, on these two occasions, transferred
me to another line and no one answered. I have left many messages and
requested call backs and still got no return call. My frustration at
my inability to talk with someone at the company has reached It's limit.
Finally, after sending an email to help@zakencorp, a person in Customer Relations did call me. She initially offered to correct the situation by getting postcards out to me immediately, and running the SEO program on my website for an additional six months. I declined this offer and requested a refund, because I do not wish to continue my association with the Zaken Corp given my experience of the way associates/customers are treated. She stated that she would review my case and get back to me.
She did get back to me, with an offer of $2000 refund. I declined this because of the almost $10,000 I have paid. I then got an email stating that she had sent it to "legal" per upper management's directive. This was on June 13th, and I still have not heard from them, again in spite of numerous calls and emails.
I did not receive the services and marketing materials that were promised to me, my site was never on the first page of the Google site that the SEO program, at a cost of $4,400, was guaranteed to do, and finally, I was unable to speak with anyone at Zaken to ask for help. Whenever I called about my postcards, I was just put off and never received them.
Initially, I paid $363 for the Quicksell program and landing page, then upgraded for $2995, then paid $4,400 for the SEO program, and finally paid $1995 for the ZLC program. That is a total of $9,763.
I have found another Zaken associate web site that is on the first page of Google, yet mine still is not there. Additionally, all of the text on that website is identical to the site Zaken "built" for me, just formatted a little differently.
Because of these reasons, i beleive that my case is valid, and very reasonable, and I see on your site that Mr. Zaken has promised to make things right. At this point, I believe that the Zaken Corp. has failed on all p romised actions that I have paid a considerable amount of money to participate in. I believe that my case is valid and very reasonable. I am requesting a refund of all monies paid to them and wish to discontinue my position as an associate with the Zaken Corp once I have received the refund. I am more than happy to return the two training manuals that were sent to me.
Sent from my iPad