01619242190

I received a call from Ian Rose on Thursday, 8th Jan. 2008 offering me to advertise on the Google first Page under Tutors Suffolk for one month for £ 99.00.  I was very hesitant, especially as I was in bed with the flu and my head was not v. clear.  He did not seem too concerned and said he would ring me back tom. Friday, p.m.

I received a number of calls from Ian Rose from Lavora Marketing at the beginning of January 09. He was very polite and appeared very helpful and sold me a month’s trial on the front page of Google for £99+vat together with a £199+vat website joint package. I only agreed to proceed because he said that the Website would be mine for life and offered me a full refund if I did not like the website. It turns out that this would not be the case.

Ian Rose applied pressure to complete the deal by telling me he only had 2 slots, had sold one of them and could sell the other very easily. I gave him my credit card details at 5pm on 8th Jan 09 and told him to do nothing until Monday to give me time to plan out the site details.

By Monday morning other Lavora staff were claiming their salesman would not have made these promises; basically calling me a liar and refused to refund us. Lavora's phone system states that calls may be recorded etc.. so
I asked them to produce the taped conversations - they don't have them.
Since handing over the money I have had to endure lengthy conversations with a Mathew, Sarah Collinge the customer support manager, and a one and a half hour conversation with Alex Crabb the web manager, trying to talk me round. Note Ian Bisset, Lavora's UK sales manager posted on this site on 4th July 08 about other allegations of incorrect/misleading information offered up by their telesales staff.

So, Lavora Marketing has done absolutely nothing for me except waste my time and cause me stress. They cannot supply the website as verbally contractually agreed and therefore cannot market it. They also took an additional £20.00+vat "activation fee" off my credit card without any discussion or permission. Alex Crabb admitted that this had happened before.

Trading standards have been notified. We are also looking at having legislation regarding telephone sales tightened up to include compulsory taping of all sales conversations in light of this case. Suffice to say if a full refund is not made within the next 7 days Lavora Marketing is going to court.

I received a call from Stewart saying he is calling from "GOOGLE" Asking if i wanted to be at the top of page 1 of Google on left hand side "CONSTANTLY" in the "yellowish area" for only 99 for "1 MONTH"  i agreed to this for 1 month only! he said "that is fine, it will be automatically cancelled by himself"! i received my first invoice that same day only to find that i had been charged £20 for activation which after a lenghy phonecall which a rude patronising girl called Sarah collinge who told me she was the manager of customer support refunded the activation fee, a couple of days later i received another call from a girl also called Sarah wanting to finalise the account in which i stated im only having it for 1 month, she then read out all the terms and sneakily tried to sell me Google Mobile for a 1 off payment and i will be advertised FOR LIFE even though i cancelled i will remain on it, so i did!   through the month i found that i was rarely on the front page let alone at the top! i then received an email with a "PIE CHART" i then called up and spoke to Victoria who didnt seem to know what she was doing, i then got passed to another colleague who i never got his name, then told me it was a standard email that is sent before the next payment is due, i then said it should automatically be cancelled, he said there is no record of this but went on to say that my account is doing well and i have been at the top of page 1 through all the month, which i know is Bull s**t!  i then called his bluff in which he changed his atitude and went on to say they guarantee first page but not where on the page,  i then said just cancel it!  he then said he will pass my details onto the relevant dept, a few days later i noticed my advert was not there  so i checked my blackberry to see if my Google Mobile i paid for, "for Life" was ok,  and guess what im not there!! i then called up to find out why and was told onced i had cancelled, my Google Mobile would be aswell, everything this company does is A CON!!!! i asked for a recording of the sales call and the phonecall from Sarah who sold the google mobile in which to this day i havent received any recording! WHY???????

I hope you have better luck at stopping them taking your money than I did as they say'you have to do it in writting'despite what it says in the contract.
Dont forget to report them to trading standards and your card provider.
There are other forums to give them the bad press they deserve.

Do not use Lavora Marketing. I like Alliance Glass have paid around £500 with no results. The customer service is inept.I canceled  by email after phoning saying I wanted to cancel.At no time did anyone mention  that it should be in writing/letter. ( yes it does say in their conditions it has to be in writing)or say something like " ok you want to cancel but you must first put it in writing".  Only weeks later did they mention this, and then got very confrontational.
They insist on the client putting it in writing/letter but when requested never do so themselves. All communication is unsigned.When the cancelation letter was  sent I did get an unsigned letter saying acknowledging the cancelation. BUT they are still invoicing me.

I signed up to lavora and they are a rip off, they do not take care of their clients and every time we checked we were not on the first page. we eventually cancelled after a lot of effort. BEWARE-they do not listen when you say you want to cancel. We are now on google with a different company and they have not let us down yet. There is value in what they are offering but there are so may companies who offer the service and keep their promises. So my advice is NOT to sign up with Lavora, there are other companies who do it better and who dont rip you off.

(Without predjudice)
This company has persistantly used pressurised selling techniques with me over the last 3 months. You cannot speak with a director, they hide behind a sales team who claim to be from Google.
Do not use this company, they do not fulfill the terms of the contract, they do not respond to emails or letters of complaint and are totally untrustworthy.
I have tried to speak with their MD and a director by the name of N Wheeldon, they haven't even got the good manners to deal with complaints themselves.
I am now in the process of reporting them to Trading Standards, they are a complete sham. The message lower down on this page from a representative of LAVORA MARKETING called IAN just makes me laugh, LAVORA hide behind a web of lies.

A lady Jenifer White called me saying they ar from google and will give a one month free trail. Took my credit card details saying they are securing 1st page . they said they are not charging anything for the first month. But didnt told me they are charging anything. however they charged £136 without even informing me. When I asked for refund they refused. Last option with me will be go through a legal case through credit card agency.

My wife has just become of victim of their marketing. They said that they will give her a trial for a month and would charge her credit card after a month. But they charged her right away (they had not even told her on the phone how much they would charge). My wife called them the next day after receiving an invoice for a refund but they refused.

We are contacting Trading Standards and disputing the charge with our credit card company.

Ben you need to write a letter to by recorded post canceling the contract else they will charge the amount from ur account every month.

REPORT THEM TO TRADING STANDARDS, YOUR CARD PROVIDER AND BBC-WATCHDOG IF ENOUGH PEOPLE COMPLAIN LAVORAMARKETING MIGHT GO ON A CUSTOMER RELATIONS CORSE OR EVEN SAY SORRY AND GIVE BACK THE MONEY THEY'VE TAKEN!
NOBODY LIKES BAD PUBLICITY.
REMEMBER THE LAW IS ON OUR SIDE.

We are Internet Marketing specialists and were advised by a client today that they had received a call from "Google Regional" who were offering 1st page placement on the natural (free) listings for a competitive search term in their industry for less than £200 per month.  The client asked us to evaluate.

This was obvious misrepresentation by Lavara Marketing and on our calling them to evaluate what they were offering they could not wait to get off the phone and insisted they never pass off as Google.

Please, please do not fall for this caper, and please do not link to their site (it only benefits them) we will be reporting to Google, the trading standards and watchdog.  If you get approached why not take a moment to do the same.

Lavora Marketing do not sell seach engine placement within the natural or free listing. As it states on our website we specialise in low cost Google PPC marketing for sme's looking for local leads. As an internet marketing specialist robert I presume you are aware of difference between paid search and organic listings??. Our low cost, flexible option is assisting 1000's of businesses to generate a significant return on investment. As I'm sure you aware with marketing there are no guarantees however are success rate is very high. Although you are more than entitled to your own opinion I believe the above comment fits in to 'get your facts straight' box. Lavora Marketing will continue to be the envy of almost every other internet marketing company in the UK.

Hi I recently had a call from them. Which as a complete coincidence came the same day I agreed to use another company that markets on google. I do think it was a coincidence I wasn't being ironic!. As the 2 companies were totally different, in the method of marketing and their sales approach. The company I used is called page1ongoogle  try typing that into google and see what happens. If they can do that for themselves I guess they dont need to harass people by phone. Maybe lavora should take a leaf out of their book.!!!

I think that many people are being 'ripped off' as they really don't understand the logic of the internet. All of these big 'we will get you on page so and so' companies can hide behind terms and conditions. What you should be seriously doing is building seo into your site. What these companies do is say we can get so many people coming to your site, but the massive majority of these 'new' visitors will have no interest in your site at all so sales won't increase. Yet if you put the hours in to seo yourself you can attract real visitors and if you have the product they want you will stand a better chance of real sales.

Almost identical experiences here.
In my opinion they misrepresent in that: they give you the impression they are calling from Google; they don't mention anything about regional restrictions on the deal until after taking your card details; they don't mention anything at the beginning about recording calls (though I'm quite comfortable with it happening generally as it backs the truth up), and when you find all this out (or if you just change your mind), then it is apparently a problem for them (even when asked politely) to stop the payment, or credit it back. They quite obviously don't care about the ongoing business - the important thing is to get the £119 + VAT.

NOTE: Distance Selling Regulations don't apply as in our case it's "business to business", and DSR only applies to private consumers.

Steer well clear. I am passing all info I can over to our card issuer and I'm also off to find other references on the web.

I can see some of Lavora agents contribute to these forums. One of their agents even contributed claiming someone complaining about Lavora was a competitor "sticking" it to them. Let me assure you this is not the case with me.

Just so's everybody's aware - they're obviously experienced in brassing it out with resisting cancellation once your card details are passed over. They do not record conversations - they are bluffing.

They also seemed to take pride in pointing out their Co reg number on their site - however they have only been going under that guise for a year.

They will absolutely not accept cancellations at all unless you threaten - and commence - action in some way against them.

All these practices buy them time to raise enough funds, decamp, and do all again probably.

GET YOUR ACTION COMPLAINING TO GOOGLE, TRADING STANDARDS, OU CREDIT CARD ISSUER, YOUR SOLICITOR,STARTED QUICK.

Further to above - see

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/show ... t=lavora&page=5

and

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=41368

MIKE of Lavora Marketing has hot contested any of the complaints about taking money after contracts terminated or the other FACTS brought up on this site and others. Also "the envy of almost every other internet marketing company in the uk" THATS HIS OPINION for what its worth, like his companys service NOT ALOT!
Unlike the opinions of dissatified customers which must be costing lavora marketing a packet in lost trade HA HA!
PAY UP AND LOOK BIG.
REPORT TO TRADING STANDARDS,BBC WATCHDOG,GOOGLE AND ANYONE ELSE WHO COMES TO MIND.

Just had these guys on the phone. It sounded very fishy from the first word. Twice in the conversaion I asked the guy, Steven Murtagh, if he was from Google and he confirmed he was. Asked him to email me confirmation of the offer which he did, but only then did I find out they were Lavora. I knew it stunk and soon found you poor soles. He has no chance! THis is his  email (for wahtever its worth):

Many thanks for your time when I called today about marketing your business using Google. As promised, here is a summary of what We can provide for you over the next month advertising on the front page of Google UK.

1st page positions for your own website in www.google.co.uk within 48 working hours GUARANTEED

5 key phrases (you can additional local key phrases from as little as £7.50 per phrase)

Monthly position tech report

No fixed contract (month-by-month agreement)

Price freeze guarantee

Prices from as little as £99 plus vat – Please note all campaigns are subject to a one off £20 activation fee

Peace of mind that you are dealing with a Google qualified company – Please visit our website for details of our company’s credentials www.lavoramarketing.com

Yes be very careful of this company LAVORA MARKETING, they are hard sell telesales, I joined them for a while, they will threaten you with legal action and tell you you have to continue paying even though they stop with the Google adverting immediately.
The are sharks, on a hard sell and they don't like to let you off the hook if you decide to stop advertising.

STAY CLEAR OF LAVORA MARKETING !!!