01619764745

oh tim im so sorry but we dont use the top spot name anymore, we changed to getsmarta, we still work from the same office thouigh, lovely building too, beautiful infact:

http://www.getsmarta.co.uk/

do you like the website? very corporate dont you agree? your obviously very busy tim and you think these blogs affect us hahahahha, wrong and your 2 steps behind at all times, cant help but giv eyou a hand so you stop embarrassing yourself

I'm not a lawyer, so the information below does not constitute official legal counsel. Follow at your own risk. Do your own research.

If you are not happy with the vendor's service, ask for a refund. If the vendor refuses to do so, call your credit card company and ask them to process a refund. Your credit card company, and to a smaller extent, your bank, will fight on your behalf, as long as you have a good reason. Do not embarrass them. Once your money is back in your account there is not much the vendor can do over a couple of hundred dollars. Their only option is to go to a small claims court or a collection agency. The WORST case scenario for a customer is paying the price of the product or service in full, plus the fee of collection, which from what I know, is 50% of the debt itself AT MOST.

The vendor has more to lose in this scenario than the customer, as they could end up providing the product or service, lose the revenue, incur expenses from performing the service or producing the product, waste time and energy in chasing the money, incur extra fees from the credit card company's forced refund, and even if the vendor wins, it will be months before they see any of their money back, if any. Such is the reality facing online merchants of all industries. Online transactions always favour the buyers, not the sellers.  

Also, a company with a poor reputation will have a hard time getting a collection agency to work with them or selling the debt to anybody.

Again, if you are not happy with a vendor's service, get your money back with zeal.

WWW.PGSPRODUCTS.CO.UK

OR WE COULD JUST RIP YOUR SITE DOWN AND BLOG ABOUT YOU ONLINE AND ADVISE ANYBODY WHO FINDS YOU ONLINE THAT YOUR A THIEF

WE SELL OUR DEBTS ON IN FULL, OUR COLLECTORS ARE VERY CONFIDENT, WHEN THYE FINALLY KNOWK ON YOUR DOOR, YOUR PAYING, END OF

A few hundred dollars is not a lot of money, but if a lot of disgruntled customers call their banks and credit card company and demand a forced refund on all their purchases, it can lead to dire financial troubles for the vendor. I might be mistaken, but I believe you can go back to question a transaction taken place several years ago and demand a refund. Give your bank or credit card company a call to find out how far back you can go.

This is why running a good honest business is so important. Disgruntled customers can bankrupt a dishonest merchant overnight.

I really think that a customer should give the vendor a chance to make amends. However, if that fails, the customer should go to their bank or credit card company immediately. Like I said, in online transactions, the merchant takes all the risks.

If you are not happy with your vendor's service, get your money back with zeal.

Got a story? E-MAIL: scoop@the-sun.co.uk - TEXT: 07717 990775 - CALL: 0141 420 5200

I truly hope that all involved in your sorry little scams get what's most surely coming to them.  You are council house parasites that feed off honest business..........judgement day is coming.

Please be aware that Digital Solutions is only the IT support for this company.  There are a totally separate company.

I would like to say that even though I don't work for either company I have axe to grind other than Digital Solutions are an ethical outsourced IT support company.

Management of Adword campaigns is a viable business if done properly.  I am sure that there are companies doing it properly as well.

What they are all attempting to do is charge for a service to manage another businesses PPC advertising.  Getting a high position on any PPC engine depends on what the advertiser is willing to pay per click and on, what is referred to as, the click through rate.

This is how many clicks an advert gets in ratio to the number of impressions it makes.  The better the click through rate (CTR) the cheaper the amount per click and the advert remains in a good position.

Most of these companies do the adverts on a regional basis which in the majority of cases is fine as most will operate in a set area.  Also keeps the clicks at a cheaper price.

I know this as I use PPC myself and manage a campaign is not easy as there are lots of factors not mentioned to take into account as well.  Hence the reason these companies were born.

Yet I do agree a lot of them need to get their act together in regards to sales tactics and customer service.

Hope this helps?  More details contact me iandavid09@googlemail.com

So what's your business then Ian?

Deano do you have any more sample websites like the PGS Products one to show us?

Curious. The ONLY customer testimonial is from...

http://digitalsolutions.uk.com/index.php/About-Your-Company.html

Customer feedback

" We have used digital solutions for our network and computer support for 14 months now. Their prices are second to none and response time extremely fast. Whenever we have a problem the guys at digital solutions are always on hand to fix it. They have been a great asset to our business in terms of growing and preparing for the future and I would happily recommend them to anybody. Give them a call and get the team working for you because you won’t find a more reliable I.T management service in Manchester. "

Jamie MacDougall, MD
Dot Com chrome

Someone must have ghost written this reference from the little cretin as there are no spelling mistakes.

actually i spelt my name wrong hahahahahaha cretin that i am lol too busy spending your money :)

To the ostler , if the company is a scam, and your int he right then why did they take you to court for missed payments? and why did they win? hahahahahahahahaahha AMAZING what a quick credit reference check can do for you, ut oh, another fool woops

Need to know any more about me? It's all here:

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2011 ... ses-not-to.html

People should protect their facebook profiles so people who wish to do harm would not so easily gain access to someone's pictures and other info.

bet you 2 grand??? you are a couple of smalltime pricks armed with playground threats...do you seriouslty think that anyone takes you and your boyfriend Zac seriously??

Hi all,
I truly appreciate all your negative feedbacks. However, would like to add that they are not only unethical to customers saying all false commitments, they are unethical employers too for those needy people looking for jobs as they are commanded to lie to the customers and if not, they are made to feel that they are not getting to the rythm and asked to leave., leaving them in full disgrace, literally no where to go as by that time they must have left their previous job or job offers (if any).

There needs to be some controlling authority who looks into this because

Just call your credit card company, your bank or go to court and get your money back.

Fixed Fee Google Adwords & Facebook Advertising Schemes

—Avoid SEO companies offing fixed-fee advertising schemes that end up costing you dear
Jenny Marsh — first posted 08/2010 (updated 6 Aug 2011)
Fixed Fee Google Adwords and Facebook Advertising schemes are aggressively being marketed by a slew of companies that can end up costing a lot more money and agro than if you simply opened your own Google Adwords or Facebook advertising account.

EDITOR'S UPDATE (6 Aug 2011) The Mirror British newspaper reported on 2 Feb 2011 that: "…Dotcom Chrome and [its] boss … have agreed in the High Court not to pass themselves off as Google or claim they can guarantee search positions. They have also agreed to pay Google £30,000 in costs." http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2011 ... ses-not-to.html

Please note: The Chrome Marketing / Chrome Media / Dotcom Chrome have changed some of their terms and conditions since this review was first written a year ago. They claim to now accept email cancellations of contract and put more emphasis on their independence from Google — certainly a step in the right direction. That said, the guys behind this string of small companies continue to market their services so aggressively and nastily that they continue to generate an astonishing proportion of intensely negative online reviews (example - 20 pages) — this probably representing just the tip of the iceberg.

It is entirely possible for an individual or an organization to run a managed Adwords scheme as genuine service for individuals who are unwilling or unable to manage their own Google Adwords. But a fixed-fee scheme with guaranteed and consistent positioning just does not add up as a business model, and what invariably happens is that popular keywords that cost more money disappear long before the month is up, or are deliberately not applied for in the first place. After all, it is in the interest of those offering Fixed Fee Adwords to keep the Adword costs as low as possible in order to maximize profit. So there is a major conflict of interest, and this is the reason that internet searches on companies offering Fixed-Fee Adword schemes throw up so many negative reviews. It just is not worth the hassle or the waste of money. Remember, the professionals offering fixed-fee Adwords pay exactly the same costs per click as you do, and so their profit is always directly as your expense.

Some people go for fixed-fee Adword schemes as they are under the false impression that doing Adwords directly with Google will rack up high monthly costs because there are no limiting factors. But this is a fallacy as it is very easy to put a cap on what you are willing to spend in a month, so that when your budget limit is reached your ads are simply no longer displayed.

So we advise you to take the time to doing it yourself, or get a work collegue, family member or friend to do it for you. This way you will end up having a more successful, less costly and hassle-free Adwords campaign. To sign up to Google Adwords just visit adwords.google.com and follow the instructions and guides.

The direction of these sorts of schemes seems to now be spreading into advertising on social networking sites such as Facebook, promising access to millions of customers. Again, we advise that you do it yourself at http://www.facebook.com/advertising/ rather than give a third party permission to use your credit card. The feedback we have seen online is far from positive.

If you must use an adword or facebook ad management service, and we have received a few emails from such individuals complaining that they are being tarred with the same brush, we STRONGLY advise that you check them out online BEFORE agreeing to their services. Any legitimate company will understand that, but illegitimate companies will be pushing for immediate agreements because they know that as soon as you see other customer reviews, they will never be able to sign you up.


THE CALL COMES IN from a fast-talking young sales person offering to give you a top place "allocation" in Google for a fixed cost of just $200. When you ask for more information they tell you to visit their website in the following way:

"Type 'Google Experts' into the google search engine."

When you do that, you end up with the following page:



"See .Com Chrome at the top of the page? Click it and you will go through to our website."

By going through this spiel they impress in you that:

They are Google experts. You may even think they work for Google or have some sort of special association, especially as "Chrome" is the name of Google's browser and OS.

They are at the top of the Google search engine for this phrase and so must know what they are doing — must really be Google experts. And again, by going through Google in this way, they associate themselves with Google.
But there is a "c" as well. By not telling you the .Com Chrome name straight off, you are less likely to have typed it into a search engine and come up with extremely negative reviews — some of which are included later in this article. And by using ".Com Chrome" as the name which combines two very generic terms, you are unlikely to find these negative reviews on the first page of your search. This is all deliberately done to con you into signing up to a nightmare service.

This article is primarily about the activities of .Com Chrome Ltd., DotCom Chrome Ltd. and Chrome Media and Chrome Marketing (various names and company fronts for the same organisation) which are based in Manchester, United Kingdom, and which seem to have the same individuals behind them. But these types of fixed-cost adwords scams/schemes are growing very fast, and companies are starting to spring up everywhere. They are also starting to move into adverts on social networking sites like Facebook. Not all will be scamming organisations: some offer legitimate adwords management services, but at a cost. But judging by customer feedback on the internet, there is a lot of scamming going on as well. This article concentrates on the activity of one particular set of individuals running fixed fee Google adwords to give an illustration of the trouble you can get yourself into by contracting into these sorts of services.

As you will see, due to the bad-will that accumulates from the activities of one company, the individuals running this scheme soon move on to new names and new companies, so that they are always one step ahead of the online testimonies. Please be aware of this. DotCom Chrome morphed into .Com Chrome which now appears to be moving towards Chrome Media and Chrome Marketing. Tomorrow, new names will appear. But what they all have in common is that they are running a fixed-fee Google adwords schemes and fixed-fee Facebook advertising schemes.


*                    *                    *


.Com Chrome Ltd. and its sister company DotCom Chrome Ltd are English SEO companies based in Manchester, England. Here is the site you end up going to when you click that top link you end up on www.chrome-media.eu which looks like this:



The salesman will then tell you to click your country and read what they offer there. The country buttons lead the the following websites:

UK - www.chrome-media-uk.com/
Australia - www.chrome-media-aus.com/
Canada - www.chrome-media-ca.com/
USA - www.chrome-media-us.com/
New Zealand - www.chrome-media.nz.com/
South Africa - www.chrome-media-za.com/
Dubai - www.chrome-media-ae.com/ (not functional yet)
All links end up on small mirror websites with different currency prices. They may look international but their worldwide addresses are actually virtual offices.

What they are focused on selling you is "Fixed Fee Links" at the top of Google search results. They say this is a new scheme and imply that it is the next step on from adwords, and you are left with the distinct impression that it is cheaper than Adwords because it is "fixed fee". (If you know about computers, you may even feel a bit stupid not knowing the latest advertising systems around!)

The truth is, however, that "Fixed Fee Links" is just plain old adwords dressed up in expensive clothes to look sexy, and in the process cost you a lot more than if you did the Adwords yourself.

DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) sell it to you as a top position "allocation" in the search engine, and sometimes use the line that they are looking for one company per market sector to offer this to. If you ask them straight out if this is just Google adwords, they deny it and say that it is different, that this one is "fixed cost" and that they will expertly monitor it for you. (If they were honest on the phone and said they were basically offering a managed Google adwords service, much fewer would sign up.)

What DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) actually offer is five key phrases for $200, which works out to $40 a month for each key phrase. And although they tell you on the sales call that they guarantee a top position for the sponsored Adwords link, if you read the FAQ on their website you will see the following:

While no company including Google can guarantee that your site will appear on Google's' front page 24/7, we do guarantee that your listing will be listed every day within the sponsored links. We aim to have your ads showing to at least 60% of the users that have typed in your phrases. Where on the sponsored links… appear? Either the top 3 boxes (shaded on the left) or any of the links down the right of the page. The important point is that your ads will be on the sponsored links every day, the position makes little or no difference to the chances of success… WE CANNOT GUARANTEE AN EXACT POSITION The positions that are allocated on the sponsored links is derived from many different factors and while you may appear at the top in the morning, you may have shifted to position 3 in the afternoon. What we guarantee is a sponsored link. Nothing more and nothing less.

In other words, what DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) are actually offering you is a sponsored link, period. And they are wrong saying that "the position makes little or no difference to the chances of success…" Actually, on sponsored links the position makes all the difference which is why a higher position is more expensive! So this is misleading. (Elsewhere on their site they say they will get you a 1st page position, which is pretty easy to do anyway, but they don't tell you whether they give no guarantees to maintain that position. By stating that the ad will show to "at least 60% of the users that have typed in your phrases" implies that there is a 40% chance it is on the next sponsored link page.)

If you did check the FAQ on their website, all would become clear with the "Fixed Fee Link" Scheme they are offering:
DotCom Chrome's scheme is therefore to get a fast-talking salesman or woman (invariably quite young) to ring you up and present something that sounds wonderful — a guaranteed top "allocation" in the google search engine. He or she will push you to sign up then and there and hand over your credit card or bank details, actively discouraging you to go away and think about it. (With more time, you might actually read the FAQ and Terms on their website, or find out with a Google search that their reputation is less than desired, although it has to be said that they have so many satellite websites that you probably won't find anything objective on the first page of results.) They are so convincing, with their Google-speak and Google-name, that a significant percentage of these cold calls must result in signups as most businesses are not particularly internet savy.

Then, when/if you start complaining that you are not getting the service you thought you would be getting — the service you were sold — DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) will point you to their FAQ and Terms & Conditions, and tell you that they have a recording of the phone call in which you entered the verbal agreement. And as you are very unlikely to have recorded the initial phone conversation yourself — after all, it comes out of the blue — you will be stuck in a legal contract. If you are not very technical, you may even think the high costs are just the cost of online marketing and take a "leave-it-to-the-experts" attitude without realizing that they may be ripping you off. And as DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) insist on automatic or rolling credit card payments each month, until you cancel specifically with a recorded-delivery letter, the whole scheme could end up being very costly.

So how do you get out of it if you have unfortunately entered a contractual agreement with them? There is a 7-day statutory cooling-off period, by UK distance-selling law, they have to offer. Within the first month of your contract, they insist on 3-days written notice, and thereafter a 30-day written notice. And you must send it recorded delivery because unrecorded letters seem to regularly get lost according to reports from ex-customers. Why can't you cancel by email or fax? This is what DotCom Chrome's FAQ says about that:

You should never feel the need to cancel our services but if you do then we cannot accept emails, we operate thousands of email addresses through the company, they can easily be lost, deleted or blocked by our networks. We do not use fax machines at Dotcom Chrome. A written letter in the post is required.

Amusingly when you see their response to "Why do I have to email technical support?":

We work so much quicker by email and we are constantly monitoring the inbox to ensure the response times.

What DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) do not tell you, however, is whether they refund part of your fixed-fee payment if you do cancel.

And if you find your credit card charges spiraling out of control and you refuse to pay?

We must advise that Consumers who charge-back can be reported to all major credit bureaus as a delinquent collection account. Even after the consumer pays, the consumer will still have a "paid" collection account on their credit report for the next 5 years. This will affect your current and future credit facilities Note that our terms of service are confirmed on a call recorded line, as legally binding as a signature.

You have been warned! If you don't pay then these guys will play rough to get their money. And notice they have recorded the initial sales conversation as a "legally binding".

But if you look deeper into their Full Terms and Conditions, things start to get even more worrying with regards to the price that Dotcom Chrome charge:

In addition the Supplier [DotCom Chrome] shall be entitled to recover from the Client his reasonable incidental expenses or materials used and for third party goods and services supplied in connection with the provision of the Services.

The Client [you] will pay the Supplier [DotCom Chrome] for any additional services provided by the Supplier that are not specified the Online Agreement in accordance with the Supplier's then current, applicable daily rate in effect at the time of the performance or such other rate as may be agreed. Any charge for additional services will be supplemental to the amounts that may be due for the Expenses.

What are these statements saying? They seem to be saying that DotCom Chrome can charge whatever it likes, even if it is not specified on the Online Agreement!? This sounds like a clause for highway robbery! With this provision for extra charges their service no longer sounds very "fixed fee".

But this contradicts their FAQ which states, "You will never be charged anything on top of your agreed amount." Looking at the negative testimonials on the internet, it would appear that getting charged for amounts on top of what customers think they have agreed seems to be the main gripe.

And if you don't pay on time, DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) will add interest to your bill:

If the Client fails to make any payment on the due date in respect of the price or any other sum due under these terms and conditions then the Supplier shall, without prejudice to any right which the Supplier may have pursuant to any statutory provision in force from time to time, have the right to charge the Client interest on a daily basis at an annual rate equal to the aggregate of 1 per cent and the base rate of The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc from time to time on any sum due and not paid on the due date. Such interest shall be calculated cumulatively on a daily basis and shall run from day to day and accrue after as well as before any judgment.

The sales people are very friendly at first (all of them are) but can turn very nasty if you try to leave. For example, here is a threatening email DotCom Chrome allegedly sent to one customer (see first link below), who signed up but then asked for his money back 7 hours later:

Is this the same [full name of customer] that was sued for touching my friends aunties child at a party? I think I may need to post something online just incase it is and get the post on page 1 of Google under your company name. Better safe than sorry and all that

The style, including grammatical errors, is similar to that of the person who wrote their website, which makes us think that this is probably one of the founders, implying that DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) is a much smaller organisation than most people think.

This gentleman then reported the following:

Their latest tactic today is to click on all my regular google ads and use up my quota at the start of each day.

After more abuse, this ex-customer mused:

They must divide their time equally between signing up new customers and abusing those who choose to leave.

Here is another testimony allegedly from a customer in Ireland:

well im from ireland and im getteng lots of bother from dot com chrome and wondering anyone else from ireland having bother from them and do anyone know who i can get professional advice from as they telling me they want more money and will send guys to my house to get it one way or another really.. anyone can help???

And here is another with regards to them recording the initial sales signup conversation:

When i phoned them to complain they were very aggressive so i asked for the recording of the original phone call. when they sent it to me it was the last 50 seconds of the call they had cut out the rest of the conversation with the lady saying that she would phone me after 1 month.

These are not isolated cases: judging from the negative feedback accumulating online, there are an escalating number of clients of DotCom Chrome (.Com Chrome) who feel they have been cheated by this company. You will also see a scattering of positive testimonies which are very obviously contrived! In fact, one of the forums mentions that they have deleted a lot of them because they all originated at the same computer IP address.

Check out some of the following links:

http://www.geniimagazine.com/forums/ubbthreads.php? ubb=showflat&Number=208568

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=122934

http://www.conman.com.au/internet/DotCom-chrome/

https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/01619764745

http://dot-com-chrome.pissedconsumer.com/dot-com-chrome-terrible-customer-service-20091104161087.html

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-240325.html

http://whocalledme.info/phone/01619764745

http://www.callid.org/01619764745/

http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.dotcomchrome.com

Whilst we cannot comment on these individuals experiences or the veracity of any single testimonial, there are too many negative ones to ignore. If you disregard the obvious fakes, there seems to be a huge problem with the individuals behind these organizations, with some clients even reporting them to the police. And remember, these companies are relatively new and so it is quite a feat to have already accumulated this much bad-will.

Things appear to have reached a bit of a negative crescendo with the original DotCom Chrome Ltd campaign in the latter part of 2009, as the scheme shifted to a new private limited company called Dotcom Chrome in 2010. It is likely that this may have had something to do with very negative online publicity, Google suspensing them from Adwords — see their old account — and possibly pressure from Trading Standards. (The original dotcomchrome web addresses now have "Under Construction" notices on them.)

So as this scheme accumulates bad press, links on scam sites and Google Adword account suspensions, it is probably advantageous for the operators of this scheme to change to a fresh company in order to free themselves from the accumulated badwill. So right now they are using "chrome-media" domains and running under the company Dotcom Chrome Ltd, and also Chrome Marketing.

The next incarnation of this scheme may in fact already be in production as a new company called G Media Marketing Solutions Ltd., also based in Manchester, seems to be in the process of starting up running the same scheme on the following web addresses:

www.g-media-marketing.com
www.gmedia-sa.com
www.gmedia-uk.com
www.gmedia-aus.com
www.gmedia-can.com
www.gmedia-eu.com

The domains, which are not fully functional yet, are owned by a company called Digital Solutions (Manchester) Ltd. (reg: 5996806 / www.digitalsolutions.uk.com)

G Media Marketing Solutions Ltd. trades under the name GMedia or GMedia Marketing on their website. Both Digital Solutions (Manchester) Ltd. and G Media Marketing Solutions Ltd. have different company appointments to DotCom Chrome and to Dotcom Chrome Ltd., and yet, they all seem to be connected in the "fixed fee links" scheme that is being run. There is also a testimonial on the Digital Solutions Manchester Ltd. website from one of the directors of DotCom Chrome extolling Digital Solutions' virtues, so they most certainly are connected in some way.

You just have to compare the websites to confirm this connection. For example, here are the two UK sites www.chrome-media-uk.com and www.gmedia-uk.com side by side:



Everything is identical except for the some of the graphics.The wording throughtout the sites is also identical except that "GMedia" or "GMedia Marketing" has been substituted for ".Com Chrome". Even the server and IP address of the sites, at time of writing, is identical — Uh Hosting in Leeds, England, and both sites have the identical IP address 213.230.203.86.

By using 'GMedia', G Media Marketing Solutions Ltd. give the impression (maybe inadvertently) that GMedia Marketing is connected to Google, just as DotCom Chrome's use of the word "chrome" and its "google experts" adwords also give the impression of a connection to Google., something that is central to DotCom Chrome's cold-call sales campaign. Of course, to cover themselves (you don't want to annoy a massive organisation like Google), both companies have in identical small print at the bottom of their index page:

"… we are not Google, we are not agents of, endorsed by, a subsidiary of or a marketing arm of Google."

It remains to be seen whether GMedia Marketing act in the same way as DotChom Chrome and Dotcom Chrome did, but the fact that everything except brand name and graphics is identical implies that the same people are most likely behind it. Although Dotcom Chrome and GMedia Marketing could have been set up to run concurrently, what is more probable is that, as mentioned above, this scheme needs to work through a rapid succession of companies for it to be most profitable:

DotCom Chrome Ltd - reg: 06705547 - dotcomchrome domains - 2009

.Com Chrome Ltd - reg: 07162523 - chrome-media domains - 2010

G Media Marketing Solutions Ltd - reg: 07140507 - gmedia domains - 2010/11?

Apart from one director who moved from DotCom Chrome to Dotcom Chrome, company directorships for GMedia are different. However, because the company sites and operations are related in so many ways, this is likely to be just more obsuration.