Nice Little Gem from Hometown Quotes

[shepnerd]

So I've only tried internet leads three times and the first two were total disasters. The third time's looking to be the same thanks to Hometown...

I decided to give Hometown a whirl because people weren't rolling them under the bus as bad as the others and Bob impressed me with coming on here and seemed like he was trying to help and I was slow and wanted to generate some activity.

So anyway, they are shaping up to be like the rest. I was told they got 40 or so leads in my area for the month, I turned on the leads and got like 20 the first day- a ton of them were fake. They did a good job of crediting my account for the bad ones, but it was still a lot of work for nothing so I paused my account. No biggy, I did a test, and was going to go back and give it another whirl with the money in my account when I got slow again. BUT, I wasn't paying attention to the TIMER they put on your ability to pause your account.

I was up on the lake enjoying my weekend and wasn't checking email. Apparently my pause timer ran out on Saturday morning (Friday just after midnight). I checked my email this morning and got this gem timed from 12:22 am yesterday:

Hi Darrell:
This is an automatic message to notify you that you have used the allotted pause time and your leads have been reactivated. We will resume delivering leads to your HometownQuotes account.
Should you need more time to pause your leads, please contact Agent Services at 1-800-820-2981 ext. 292, Monday - Friday. Thank you for choosing us to help you grow your insurance business.
Your friends at HometownQuotes
"We empower people to grow."
This is an automatically generated email. Any responses to this message will not be received. Should you have any questions, feedback or need assistance, please contact Agent Services at 1-800-820-2981 ext. 292 or [email protected]. Have a great day!
____

So they unpause my account at 12:22 on Friday night, run enough leads through my account to charge my credit card on Saturday, and I can't call until MONDAY to turn it off. There is no ability on the website to pause the account (because my time is up), or to cancel. I'm going to have to cancel my card in order to not get charged again today. Seriously, how can they think that this would be an OK business practice? Hell, even if I was checking my emails instead of drinking beer and working on my tan yesterday I wouldn't have been able to do anything about them sending me leads I dont want. That's just crazy to me.

I'll come back to post what they do, but damn, this kind of situation shouldn't happen. I'll even shoulder some of the blame for not watching the stupid timer, but how the hell do you have a system (that automatically charges you) that can START on a weekend, but there is no way to STOP it on a weekend?

They've been good to work with so far, so I'm not going to roll them under the bus just yet, but damn. We'll see what they do, but I just had to vent some at this situation...EESH.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Just a quick question...If they project 40 per month...why did they send 20 the first day? Presumably, many of those were older leads, which seems a bit curious.

Not picking on HT ...just the system itself.

 

[shepnerd]

Yep, that's why I mentioned it. Same thing happened the other two times I tried lead vendors. They tell you a number of what they supposedly get in a month, then send you WAY more than that right out of the gate. I assume they are buying them from other sources.

I talked to them about the fake ones, and they were good about acknowledging the problem on the first go-round, which is more than I can say for the other guys.

I honestly don't remember if there is a limit per day you could have with them and I just didn't bother because it was only going to be 40/mo anyway. If they do that, that would have slowed the bleeding yesterday to have a daily cap, which I dont think I do.

The other day when I started with them (the only other day I got leads) I got bombarded as soon as it started. Yesterday's flow wasn't quite as bad, but I still got 10 before I saw it was happening. 10 in a day, on a weekend, when lead count was supposedly 40 or so for the month.

 

[bullis33]

While I feel some of your pain OP, it is your job as a business owner to manage your account/pause time and make sure you have enough to make it through a weekend, etc....HQ also lets you set up what days/hours you want leads so you NEVER get them on weekends if that is what you want...when I was with them I got leads from 9-5 M-F and almost never had to use my pause time....and I am no HQ sunshine pumper as I am not with them anymore, but they are as fair and lenient with their pause time, hours you will accept leads, and returns as anyone....also it sounds like you only dabble in I-leads, which is never going to work...with lead quality as bad as it is in the industry as a whole these days, you really have to be "all in" or "all out" on i-leads and buy in great volume, have great follow up processes in place, and be persistent to get the ROI you want....

 

[LGilmore]

first it helps to tell what leads are you buying? Life, health, Di, auto?

Second, avoid the 20 lead pile up by setting a daily limit. That way the worst that could happen to you is a handful of leads.

Internet leads have flipped in quality over the past 5 years or so. What used to be 75% good to 25% bad are now flipped around the other way.

I find HTQ pretty good to work with. Bob is a good guy. They do work hard on blocking bad leads. This frustrates some agents because they want volume over quality. Can't understand that myself as very lead takes time to discover if it's good or bad. I appreaciate HTQ blocking the vendors who flood my emails with fake leads. It saves me time.

If you go over those fake leads with HTQs, if you find they come from the same vendor, they can block that ip from your account.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

I have always felt that the "daily limit" is your most friendly setting. I always had it set to 1-7, depending on the vendor. VIMO allowed me to turn it on and off at will which was ideal if there was a weekend and I wanted to email leads before others contacted them.

If a lead provider does not give you 100% control where you can turn them on and off any time, go elsewhere. Again, not picking on HTQ in particular.

 

[shepnerd]

Yeah, they were good to work with on the obvious fake leads I was getting, as I stated. I'm not completely bashing them here, I'm just more than a little frustrated that they turn this thing on Midnight on a Friday and I can't turn it off until they get there Monday morning. They aren't having any trouble charging my card (for 8 times the lead flow they told me to expect), though.

I get that I need to manage my lead flow, but this is my first go-round with them so I didnt know how the pause thing works. And I'm sorry, its pretty piss poor that they dont have a way to shut leads off on a weekend, especially if they have automation that turns it on when I had it turned off.

 

[Josh]

I'm going to go out of my way to say that you're most likely overreacting, and here's why:

HQ at this point hasn't had a chance to respond to anything. Bob has been very fair with me and many others and I wouldn't be surprised if he credited you back on the leads you didn't think you were going to get. Maybe you will, maybe you want, it's his business and I surely don't know what he'll do, but there is *no* lead vendor more committed to providing a quality experience than Hometown Quotes.

I'm a huge fan of giving a company the chance to make a situation right before airing my grievances on a place as public as this forum, but that's just me.

 

[shepnerd]

I'm going to go out of my way to say that you're most likely overreacting, and here's why:

HQ at this point hasn't had a chance to respond to anything. Bob has been very fair with me and many others and I wouldn't be surprised if he credited you back on the leads you didn't think you were going to get. Maybe you will, maybe you want, it's his business and I surely don't know what he'll do, but there is *no* lead vendor more committed to providing a quality experience than Hometown Quotes.

I'm a huge fan of giving a company the chance to make a situation right before airing my grievances on a place as public as this forum, but that's just me.

Hopefully thats the case. Again, they were good to work with before, and I gave them the try because Bob seemed like a fair guy on here.

I still have a lot of trouble with a system where THEY turn on the lead flow and I can't turn it off for two days when they automatically charge my card for the leads, no matter how many they send.

If the lead flow had been the same as it was the day I started with all the fake leads I'd have been out several hundred dollars before I noticed. Right now its only one hundy since I had a decent credit balance when they started, but I'm stuck with the only option not to get charged again (and one more lead does it) is to cancel my card and get a new one, which is a pain the arse.

Its just an inconvenience and bad way to do things. This is their SYSTEM, I dont think its wrong to air that out here considering the whole reason I'm upset is because I can't air it out with them. This is not a he said/she said thing, this is exactly what happened based on how they are set up. Hopefully it comes to a good resolution and I'll be here praising Hometown, but I still think this is valuable info for someone looking to use them in the future so they dont get caught in the same situation.

Even if they credit them back (and all the way to the card, not just credit my account), I've got the leads and can work them, how is that fair to them? It just shouldn't happen where they automatically turn on the lead flow and I'm powerless to stop them for 2 days. I can't be the first person to expire their "pause time" on a weekend, either.

I'm not exactly here going "Hometown Quotes suck balls!" here. I'm just saying that they turned on my lead flow automatically on a Friday at midnight and I cant turn it off until Monday and meanwhile, I'm getting charges on my card for leads I dont want. That aint cool.

 

[Mattschmidt]

Hopefully thats the case. Again, they were good to work with before, and I gave them the try because Bob seemed like a fair guy on here.

I still have a lot of trouble with a system where THEY turn on the lead flow and I can't turn it off for two days when they automatically charge my card for the leads, no matter how many they send.

If the lead flow had been the same as it was the day I started with all the fake leads I'd have been out several hundred dollars before I noticed. Right now its only one hundy since I had a decent credit balance when they started, but I'm stuck with the only option not to get charged again (and one more lead does it) is to cancel my card and get a new one, which is a pain the arse.

Its just an inconvenience and bad way to do things. This is their SYSTEM, I dont think its wrong to air that out here considering the whole reason I'm upset is because I can't air it out with them. This is not a he said/she said thing, this is exactly what happened based on how they are set up. Hopefully it comes to a good resolution and I'll be here praising Hometown, but I still think this is valuable info for someone looking to use them in the future so they dont get caught in the same situation.

Even if they credit them back (and all the way to the card, not just credit my account), I've got the leads and can work them, how is that fair to them? It just shouldn't happen where they automatically turn on the lead flow and I'm powerless to stop them for 2 days. I can't be the first person to expire their "pause time" on a weekend, either.

I'm not exactly here going "Hometown Quotes suck balls!" here. I'm just saying that they turned on my lead flow automatically on a Friday at midnight and I cant turn it off until Monday and meanwhile, I'm getting charges on my card for leads I dont want. That aint cool.

i agree that your situation is extremely frustrating...But I have confidence that Bob will be able to fix all this for you..Give them a quick call Monday, and they will get this mess cleaned up