Lead Vendor Scumbag Liars

[MikeLentini]

I read all the contracts. They say exclusive leads and the legal term for exclusive is
Not divided or shared with others: exclusive publishing rights

My lawyer said they may be able to argue that they didn't specifically grant "exclusive rights" but he said if a jury got ahold of this, it would be lights out for them.

He did say that they were committing fraud by advertising them as "exclusive" and there is no defense to that.

You do realize that most of these companies have bullet proof contracts, right? If you're that serious about it you should start a thread rallying other agents. My guess, any credible attorney is going to review what you signed and realize you don't have a case. Unless you can prove they are doing this intentionally you're probably better off letting it go. Do you have any evidence of this? If not, I'm sure there are plenty of attorney's willing to take your money. My guess is the reason the other agents backed out was because they needed to throw some chips in the game and they didn't have any, but I could be wrong about that.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

But Mike, you're right. If you sued you'd only be able to recover your damages. It would take years and cost countless thousands.

Class action is a pipe dream. I'm a huge fan and believer of Karma and if you're screwing people it does indeed come around and go around.

 

[scagnt83]

But Mike, you're right. If you sued you'd only be able to recover your damages. It would take years and cost countless thousands.

Class action is a pipe dream. I'm a huge fan and believer of Karma and if you're screwing people it does indeed come around and go around.

I would agree. The lawyers will end up with everything in the class action anyways.
And after the lead vendors are out of business they will just start different companies under different names and go right back to ripping people off again.

If agents just didnt buy from corrupt lead vendors they would all go out of business.
But there will always be agents desperate enough to be the 6th person calling the poor chump that filled out the info and just wanted an online quote, not a call from an agent!

 

[jamesflou]

Those lead vendors are laughing all the way to the bank!

 

[aprilg]

Yes, please post the names of the companies..if nothing else help your fellow agents know who they are..send them a thank you note for letting you know who not to do business with..let them know that word has spread

 

[Justin Bilyj]

I wouldn't do it for the money, just to see the fuckers taken down...

 

[xrac]

Are there any really reliable honest lead vendors????

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

First of all, no one would be "taken down." The worst case scenario for the vendors is they'd settle and readjust their TOS agreements.

If agents "won" against the vendors, they'd lose in the end. Maybe they's all require $1,000 down, implement 6 month contracts, all stop the ability to pause accounts, require high weekly minimums, stop all lead filtering, etc...

They'd concentrate on their large accounts and if some random independent agent wanted a shared lead - fine - it's $15 per lead, shared with 8 agents, no returns, no filters and you get them when you get them - 11am and 3am.

There's no "winning."

Does anyone really think they can get a solid lead, only shared with 2 other agents from a prospect who actually wants to buy health insurance - lead only comes in between 9am to 5pm, no weekends, health filtered, etc...for $8? Lol. Ok.

 

[Josh]

I read all the contracts. They say exclusive leads and the legal term for exclusive is
Not divided or shared with others: exclusive publishing rights

My lawyer said they may be able to argue that they didn't specifically grant "exclusive rights" but he said if a jury got ahold of this, it would be lights out for them.

He did say that they were committing fraud by advertising them as "exclusive" and there is no defense to that.

Watch this boys and girls, here is this amazing defense your attorney doesn't realize they can use and I'm sure plenty on here could be called as "expert" witnesses. "When XYZ internet lead vendor sells leads, they're exclusive within their organization. They can't control whether the people go looking for health insurance elsewhere". Here's another defense "Oops, we've been having some problems with our system, we'll gladly credit them back to resolve the situation." Looking for another defense? Try this one, "We do our very best to filter out duplicate leads, but sometimes people will fill out more than one request in our site because the agent hasn't contacted them yet hoping someone will follow-up with them if they put in another request."

The bottom line is that this would be an easy case for them to defend. Let's say this does get in front of a jury, they're going to think that you're just looking for some money and it's going to be very easy for any lead company to defend themselves against that. Not for nothing, but we do telemarketed leads and even then there is no guarantee the folks aren't already shopping around or that after us talking to them they won't go online and start looking. When a lead company says exclusive, it means they're only selling it to one person. Whether or not the even come good on that is suspect, but if you're planning on getting anywhere with this you're likely to be disappointed. If an attorney is not willing to take this on a contingency basis that's usually a sign they don't think it's a strong enough case. As soon as you file, the lead vendors attorney will file a motion for summary judgment and this would probably get knocked down there and it's going to cost you thousands of dollars to even get it to that point.
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If agents "won" against the vendors, they'd lose in the end. Maybe they's all require $1,000 down, implement 6 month contracts, all stop the ability to pause accounts, require high weekly minimums, stop all lead filtering, etc...

They'd concentrate on their large accounts and if some random independent agent wanted a shared lead - fine - it's $15 per lead, shared with 8 agents, no returns, no filters and you get them when you get them - 11am and 3am.

There's no "winning."

Does anyone really think they can get a solid lead, only shared with 2 other agents from a prospect who actually wants to buy health insurance - lead only comes in between 9am to 5pm, no weekends, health filtered, etc...for $8? Lol. Ok.

I have to completely and totally agree with you, especially about the last paragraph. Generating a quality lead actually costs some serious money. Let me share a little story with everyone here (which will also explain the links in my signature a bit). Once upon a time I had a friend running a call center who wanted to generate leads for me and my agents. I insisted that I liked him as a friend and if he did leads for me it's unlikely we'd still be friends after that because I had yet to meet a lead vendor I didn't want to shoot in the face. Eventually he does generate leads for me and things actually go alright, not life changing amazing, but they're good leads at a fair price. He ends up doing a good enough job where I actually start helping him sell his leads and make some websites for him to get new customers. Not two months go by after I've been getting him some business and the leads he gets me end up turning to junk ("I'm here about the insurance, what's that, oh, no, I'm not here to sign you up for a free cruise", etc), and the results are the same for some other folks. I stop helping him sell his "leads" (admittedly after I had help him get some customers, I believe empty eternity being one of them) because the quality of his leads fell through the floor. About a month goes by and I put 2 and 2 together and realize that if he could actually generate quality leads (like he did in the beginning) then surely I could. Well, fast forward a bit and guess what, I actually can. What does this after to do with anything? The cost of a lead is a lot more than what my friend was willing to believe. You can't sell preset appointments at a fixed cost (ok, well maybe $1k/each) and actually guarantee a quality lead. If you're calling in the wrong area with a product you might not be able to generate anything. I do run my own call center now and when we generate leads we do a good job of not pushing garbage through. That being said, I charge differently. My friend would sell you leads at $15/lead or $20/lead but his actual cost could have been as much as $30 on a legit lead so he'd push junk through, lose money, or both. I charge for time dialed and don't guarantee the results because there is no way of judging the cost of a lead until you've actually called through the campaign, just like direct mail. No one is selling direct mail leads on a "per card basis" (accept NAA), because they can't guarantee the response rate.

Bottom line, anyone that says they can sell you a legit lead for under $20 and guarantee it can't usually make good on that promise because it costs more to generate a good lead than most agents realize. If I'm ever talking to someone about doing lead generation I usually talk them out of doing business with me because I won't guarantee a response rate and I charge more, but when folks do business with me they know exactly what to expect.

*Note: I don't refer ANYONE to my "friend" anymore.

 

[MikeLentini]

I couldn't agree more with both of you.

I started this business 5 years ago buying leads for $30 per lead. (health leads)

They were great, and I sold 1 out of 4. I was buying about 30 per week.

As the years went on, they got cheaper and cheaper.

A year ago I was buying them for $4 per lead. I was buying over 100 per week and selling 3 out of 100.

Now I pay over $40 per lead and i couldn't be happier. (Life Insurance only)

I don't hunt for a 10x ROI. It is not possible in the long run. Sure, any agent could get lucky and have a 10X ROI month, quarter, but it's like drawing to an inside straight. Most of the time you will never hit your card and you will eventually go broke.


For every agent that gets smart and stops using a bogus lead vendor, there are 10 more suckers waiting to pay for those leads and all the vendors know it.

I said a long time ago that you don't get rich selling insurance, you get rich selling crap to insurance agents.