I receive emails on a weekly basis regarding the Matchmaker Marketing scam (aka Apex Media, Storm Media,  Zenith Marketing).  I received the couple of emails below recently and thought I would publish them in full as Laura has described precisely how easily it is to be tricked by them.

Dear Sian,

We took out a one-month trial with Matchmaker Marketing last summer and had a terrible experience which we still haven’t had resolved. It started first with ‘We are calling from Google’, then ‘On behalf of Google’ and then they assured us that they were authorised Google Adwords Resellers (which is not true as only BT Business, Yell, Infoserve, Portfolio Europe and ReachLocal are in the UK); so completely mis-selling their service. Some may say that this was our fault for not making the necessary checks, but it is not always easy for small ‘hands-on’ businesses to do so (a hard way to learn a lesson). The trial itself was unsuccessful and so we wrote to Matchmaker stating that we were cancelling our campaign with them. Taking into account a 30 days notice period, since what should have been our last bill they made a further 4 unauthorised debit card transactions. It is easy to say that this should have been picked up on the 1st unauthorised transaction, but I reiterate my point above; it is not easy to keep track of every transaction and is yet another lesson hard learned. When we contacted them they admitted to having our letter of cancellation and that these payments should not have been taken. However, we are still to receive our monies back and are still waiting for contact from anyone in a position of authority within the Matchmaker Marketing organisation. We have had to block our debit card and our Bank has now taken over in recovering the monies. Under no circumstances should anybody have any dealings with Matchmaker Marketing – they are nothing but debit/credit card thieving scammers in my opinion.

…….

Dear Sian,

Thank you for your email.  By all means; you are welcome to publish my email on your forum and blog.  We have an update with regard to our battle with Matchmaker, which I have detailed below.

I had a phone call an hour ago from a Customer Service Assistant Manager at Matchmaker in response to my letter demanding these monies be returned. They were prepared to all but one of the unauthorised payments (the one being a ‘grey’ area concerning notice timing), and admitted that it was an ‘administrative error’ of Matchmakers. 

I said that I was prepared to accept a cheque for this amount but insisted that the matter be investigated further by Matchmaker as they had caused a considerable amount of disruption to our business and that there may be grounds for compensation.  The gentleman said that they could take it further but would not be able to issue the cheque in that case, and that in his opinion; we would not get any compensation whatsoever.  This puts us in a catch 22 situation and seems like an easy way for Matchmaker to ensure that they never have to investigate any problems.  He half-heartedly agreed to discuss it with his manager, and after I insisted that we received a written apology from either an MD or someone in a similar position, he said that we could have one but it would be in his name……  Basically the big bosses, owners, shareholders and directors couldn’t care less. 

I insisted that they look into a few more points of complaint.  When I asked if Matchmaker were aware of a large number of Matchmaker Complaint Forums; he said yes they are.  I asked if they were also aware of their telesales staff making claims that they were ‘calling from Google’, ‘on behalf of Google’ and that Matchmaker were ‘authorised Google Adword Resellers’.  And yes they were aware; and staff who were found to be making these claims were sacked.  He said that staff sometimes say things like that because they are under pressure to meet targets. All very well, but it doesn’t help the small businesses who have been conned by them.  I also asked him if they had permission to use the Google logo on their press packs and marketing brochures (I have theirs in front of me with a nice big ‘Google’ logo on the front of the folder).  He said that they were not made to stop using the logo, but took the initiative to stop doing so, and that ours was sent out before they stopped this practice.  When asked exactly when they stopped using the Google logo the answer was ‘possibly 5 months ago’ (our pack was sent out in August).

I asked if he was aware that they were mis-selling their service and riding on the back of a trusted company to get sales, and there wasn’t really an answer to that.  I said that it was unfair using the Google brand to trick customers into thinking they were dealing with a trustworthy company.  Again; there was no response to this other than they do have a lot of happy customers. 

There was of course the issue of making numerous debit card transactions without consent or notice and they believe that they are acting lawfully in doing so.  He did explain the process to me but it sounded like a dodgy loophole.  They now set up direct debits… What a surprise!

Our bank has advised us that it would be in our interest to reclaim the monies ourselves and so we have agreed to accept a cheque from matchmaker.

It is disgusting that they continue to trade and operate in such an awful manner…. basically scaring the hell out of telesales labour with the threat of not meeting targets and then firing them when complaints come in.  Both the telesales advisor who signed us up and our account handler have both been fired.   What a disgrace!

Thank you for setting up such an informative forum and for your dedication to getting cowboys like Matchmaker out of the market.

Please feel free to distribute my comments and you have my permission to include contact details.

Best Regards,

Laura Smith

The Cleaning Services Group Ltd.

Company Number:  6500345

P:  08443 940025

E: laura@thecleaningservicesgroup.co.uk

W: www.thecleaningservicesgroup.co.uk

………

I think the above says it all. Please warn friends, family and colleagues who may not be reading this.

Thank you

Sian