Nice Little Gem from Hometown Quotes

[YouGotMyMoney]

Although there are exceptions to the rule, unless your listed on Rip Off Report, there is very rarely a thing such as bad press. This is good for HTQ, you have a few agent (shills or not) standing up for them.

Though from an agent POV, the timer on the lead pause is stupid. As is having to call in to make any changes.

 

[shepnerd]

I do want to reiterate, that while I'm still frustrated at the situation, the way they handled things compared to the other two lead vendors I have come into contact with was downright amazing.

The support they are getting from everybody on this thread is well earned.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Shep...Although I can't help you with the HTQ mess, I can assure you that Groats Disease will be eradicated before the Cubs win the World Series.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I do want to reiterate, that while I'm still frustrated at the situation, the way they handled things compared to the other two lead vendors I have come into contact with was downright amazing.

The support they are getting from everybody on this thread is well earned.

There's a system I've been using for a few years that's proven to be of value at least six times.

I have a debit card that I use for anything I buy online. It has to be a debit card, not credit and it cannot be attached a business account. Make sure you've opted out of overdraft.

Per the new law, a transaction cannot be processed unless funds are available. I move money onto the card to to make a purchase, then leave a balance of $10. If someone tries to run it for $11, it's declined.

 

[shepnerd]

There's a system I've been using for a few years that's proven to be of value at least six times.

I have a debit card that I use for anything I buy online. It has to be a debit card, not credit and it cannot be attached a business account. Make sure you've opted out of overdraft.

Per the new law, a transaction cannot be processed unless funds are available. I move money onto the card to to make a purchase, then leave a balance of $10. If someone tries to run it for $11, it's declined.

I do the exact same thing, for some unknown reason I gave them my regular check card for this, though, which was contributing to this being a big deal.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

It just saved my butt a few months ago. My bank called - someone apparently cloned my card and tried to use it for three large purchases. All declined. They shipped me another debit card in 2 days.

Had that have been my credit card, it would have sucked. All would have been approved and I'd have been filling out paperwork for three weeks.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

Actually, that did happen to me (sort of). A few months ago, someone used our Discover card number and bought an Apple computer, roses and joined a dating club (in the same afternoon).

Discover called us on the phone since I guess none of those purchases were in our past purchase list. Discover never charged us anything for them and set up a fraud unit investigation.

We got new cards and only had to give a brief 90 second statement.

Here's an odd thing I just remembered. We had never purchased an Apple product until a few weeks ago when we were in Tucson. My niece works for Apple and we got a discount on an IPAD. So I guess now we do have an Apple product. And yes...we used our Discover Card. They didn't call, which surprised me.

 

[BenS]

I had pretty much the same exact experience as the OP w/ Hometown Quotes. I just shut down my CC and let it go, didn't feel like arguing with them. Lesson learned.

The thing that I thought was so strange was that just like the OP, they said they averaged about 80 leads per month in my area. Once the leads were turned on, they were coming in at about 5-10 per hour. Of course all were bogus.

When it turned back on automatically in the middle of the night, I got flooded with around 15 "leads" within a few hours. Amazing how many people are shopping for life insurance quotes at 2am! Obviously as some of the other posters mentioned, I should have had a daily limit set. But again, when my account rep says only 80 are coming in per month, there didn't seem to be a reason for that.

End of story, my account is closed. No hard feelings with HQ, I consider it a lesson learned and haven't bought an internet lead since. Hopefully one day I'll learn enough seo to get a decent flow of leads through my website.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

These were some of the issue I had before I turned off various vendors a few years back.

For example, I'd paused leads after 7pm and was taking, say, 15 per day. With certain vendors, I'd turn the leads back on at 8am and get 15 within 2 minutes. But wait...they're supposed to be in real time.

 

[Bob Klee]

Hello Folks.

Sorry for not being active lately but I've had to deal with a really bad cough that would not go away for weeks now which has caused me to miss way too much work & then moving this month:( Thankfully, we've got a good team at HometownQuotes that know how to take care of our customers.

There have been many excellent responses so far but let me add my 2 cents. First though I'd like to say thank you to those of you that have defended HTQ....your check is in the mail.... seriously though...it is a very good feeling as a small business owner to find those that appreciate what we do and the way we do it.

1] in regards to knowing how many leads we are going to get for X Agent. We do look back on the last 30 days to give an agent an idea of volume. Our own marketing is driven by whether we can make a profit of course. We also buy leads from affiliates based on an RPL & signing up a new agent increases the $$ we have to buy with in a certain area. + lead volume is always up/down depending on time of the year/month/day. So it is not an exact science as the target is always moving.

2] We normally have an email go out to agents 48 hours before their pause time goes off. We investigated after hearing about this & guess what?....the link is broke! Of course we hope agents also set a calendar reminder for themselves too. There have been several good suggestions in this post on how to manage this.

The mention of automatically charging a credit card came up. We find that most agents prefer this method vs. getting a monthly bill & being automatically charged. Why? Because we send out an email reminder when one's account is at 30% of their balance reminding them at <=15% we will automatically charge their account back up. We find these reminders better than being hit with a surprise bill every 2-4 weeks. Typically folks overspend when they don't know how much they are spending so we adapted this method a long time ago.

I'd like to thank all of you for giving us a chance to earn your business. We aren't perfect but we continue to try to get smarter & better at what we do. I do appreciate the opportunity to participate in this Forum as well. Ultimately we all are trying to do the same thing: Make an honest living by helping others.

Please call or email me if I can assist you in any way.