Overture charging without your consent!

[metavisia]

I've been advertising in Overture (Yahoo Search Marketing) for long time, more than a year. Due to the lousy traffic, I brought my listings offline in October 2005. I received my e-mail confirmation, that my balance is zero, and my account says (since then) I'll get not clicks until I bring my account online. Good.

However, checking my own site stats in December 2005, I found many visits of people coming from my Overture campaign. I logged in to my account and found that my account is offline, that I will recieve not clicks, and then a report of dozens clicks a day, and a balance of minus $526.85. Obviously, my ads were running without my consent!
By the way, the traffic was even lousier and I got no sale, but it's not the point. The point is I was charged for something I didn't want to buy. They just sold me something without my consent!

Needless to say, I would have to pay this money sooner or later.
I contacted their support and my account was brought back to zero. Stupid issue, but was resolved. Good.

Now, learning my lesson, I keep checking my account. Just to discover that my ads started running again, again without my consent! This time I reacted fast and the charges were only $7.72. I contacted their support, again, but this time I was told that

"We are unable to credit your account as it has received qualified traffic. "

Well, I don't mind donating $7 to Overture, it's not that much. But the next time it could be $7,000, right? The point is it's not fair to charge you for something you don't want to buy, something you didn't even know you were buying...

[Thoma]

Try one of these numbers:

Yahoo! sales representatives in Holland are Bas van Bossum and Erwin
Bakker, with the office situated at Minervalaan 11 HS, 1077 NJ
Amsterdam, phone: +31 (0)20 5707800, fax: +31 (0)20 5707810. The Yahoo!
sales manager in Switzerland is Thomas Hanan and the office is situated
at Wildbachstrasse 17, CH-8008 Zurich phone: +41 1 387 5200 fax: + 41 1
387 5219.

[dburdon]

Overture - I guess like many businesses - does have problems with its billing systems. I operate accounts for a number of clients. Often, when the account is switched off occasional clicks - and charges - do sneak through.

[metavisia]

dburdon, I understand your balance may get a little below zero when your funds get depleted, however the problem I described happens 3 months after. And the previous month the negative was more than $500. I think it's a pretty serious mistake for such an important functionality as billing.

And finally, if it's an error, they should apologize and restore the expenses, right? Instead they're telling me I've got a qualified traffic. If you order a TV and I bring you 200 by mistake, is it fair to make you pay for them because they are "qualified" TVs? :)

Thoma, thanks for the phone numbers. I may contact them, I'll see. I'd rather close my account and go away. What they do is simply not fair.

[texxs]

It doesn't sound like a mistake to me . . .

[nerdbyte]

Try changing your information if you're sure you're not going to use it again, then they can't charge you anymore.

[p5gal5]

dburdon, I understand your balance may get a little below zero when your funds get depleted, however the problem I described happens 3 months after. And the previous month the negative was more than $500. I think it's a pretty serious mistake for such an important functionality as billing.

And finally, if it's an error, they should apologize and restore the expenses, right? Instead they're telling me I've got a qualified traffic. If you order a TV and I bring you 200 by mistake, is it fair to make you pay for them because they are "qualified" TVs? :)

Thoma, thanks for the phone numbers. I may contact them, I'll see. I'd rather close my account and go away. What they do is simply not fair.

I would recommend calling/emailing them again. I have never worked for a search engine; however, I did work in customer service for a large corporation for several years. We were required to follow very strict guidelines the *first* time a credit was requested. Upon subsequent credit requests, these guidelines could be relaxed. Most people get discouraged the first time and do not try again.

My best recommendations: 1. be polite/keep control and 2. provide documentation/emails that state that you were explicitly told that you would not incur further charges until the account was reactivated.

[dburdon]

From my experience you have to be very careful in monitoring Overture. Make a daily check at least checking the source "keywords" that actually deliver traffic.

[Inter]

I did publish post (viewtopic.php?t=59233) before I found this one. I still surprised that so reputable company would use so unethical (in my opinion) practice, and have practically one department handle cases of unqualified clicks and complain about their decision - Executive Services.
To me it seems “Yahoo!” enjoy profit from fraudulent activity at “Yahoo! Search Marketing/ Overture” service and don’t mind collect obviously unfair charges.
I found misleading statements in there add pages for Yahoo! Search Marketing compare to guidelines for their campaign budget.
All I can think at this time is file complain with BBB.

[dburdon]

There always inherent risks in a pay per click programme. You can never be sure of the bona fides of the person clicking. Its just about cutting down the risks.

One of Overture's risks is that it has some small - so called - search engines as part of its networks. Outwardly these engines look legitimate. But they seem to generate clicks that exclusively come to my sites from the Middle East and Asia.