Underground Elephant Leads

Hi JP,

We appreciate your feedback and we're happy to respond to the issues you have put forward. We take any of our customer’s feedback very seriously and we're here to work with you to ensure that you're successful with our service.

As stated, you are unhappy with our policy regarding your initial deposit. The reason we stick to this policy is because we utilize higher converting sources, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing Search, in conjunction with the marketing technology we build in-house. The initial deposit is non-refundable and we do address this on every sales call. We communicate that we will record the portion of the call where we go over this and we're always happy to share this with any agent who requests this.

We also want to make it clear that we absolutely do not cap your returns. We implement a fairly liberal return policy, more so than other companies in the industry, and justify several reasons for return. Any lead that is deemed “invalid” is eligible for credit. The criteria for lead verification are as follows:

1. Duplicate Lead- A lead for the same prospect with the same email address or phone number delivered to client within 30 days of the first such lead.

2. Bogus Lead- A lead with information that is considered not legitimate.
- Bogus name and address: name and/or address of person specified are nonsensical or are not intelligible. For example, Mickey Mouse, numbers or characters in the place of names and/or addresses.
- Bogus phone number: For example, 999-999-9999, disconnected number, etc.

3. Test leads- Any lead formatted as a test lead. For example, leads sent from an email address with "@UndergroundElephant.com."

4. Incomplete Lead- A Lead that is missing the name, or phone number.

5. Underage- Prospect is less than 16 years old.

6. Citizenship- Prospect is not a US Citizen or permanent resident.

7. False Incentive

In response to your other post on 2.20.14 about us reviewing your account, please email me so I can identify and look further into this issue. My email is [email protected]. We hope that we can work with you to come to a mutually beneficial outcome.

Thanks,

Ian
 
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@Ian Hutchinson

I just heard about your company today from a friend of mine who is currently buying leads from you guys. I'm looking for a new provider and he mentioned something about how Underground Leads will buy out other companies contracts if you switch. I've never heard of this before. Can you confirm this? I'd be interested in exploring this, if it's actually true.
 
@Ian Hutchinson

I just heard about your company today from a friend of mine who is currently buying leads from you guys. I'm looking for a new provider and he mentioned something about how Underground Leads will buy out other companies contracts if you switch. I've never heard of this before. Can you confirm this? I'd be interested in exploring this, if it's actually true.


Insurancebobby,

Yes, please email me for details. We are happy to pay off any non-refundable deposit if you close your account with another provider.

Thanks,

Ian
 
Questions...

5. Underage- Prospect is less than 16 years old.

Since it is illegal to contract below age 18, how could a 16 or 17 year old be a valid prospect?

"1. Duplicate Lead- A lead for the same prospect with the same email address or phone number delivered to client within 30 days of the first such lead"

30 days is extremely short in duration. Why such a short window? How does that benefit the agent who is attempting to contact that prospect?
 
Questions...

5. Underage- Prospect is less than 16 years old.

Since it is illegal to contract below age 18, how could a 16 or 17 year old be a valid prospect?

"1. Duplicate Lead- A lead for the same prospect with the same email address or phone number delivered to client within 30 days of the first such lead"

30 days is extremely short in duration. Why such a short window? How does that benefit the agent who is attempting to contact that prospect?

Ian..
The < 16 does not work. By Contract law, it is illegal to sign a contract until one is 18 or in some states, "emancipated," but that is extremely rare/unusual. Not telling you how to run UE, but that is a bad rule for agents as Larry points out.

FYI: back in the day when I owned a motorcycle dealership in SoCal. I had an "18" year old buy a motorcycle for cash. When he reached his real 18th birthday he took me to small claims court for his $5,000. He won, I lost as he'd used fake ID and that didn't matter according to the judge. So he gave me back my motorcycle that he'd beat up for almost 2 years & I had to give him his money back! You have no idea how mad I was! :mad:

The 30 day rule if I read correctly: you mean if UE delivers the same lead to the agent within 30 days, not if they get the same lead through another vendor....correct?

Larry: On the 30 day rule. HTQ has tried 12-13 months, 6-7 months & >30 days over the years. It is seldom one sees the same lead in less than 6 months. Unless the consumer didn't buy the first time or..someone is playing games. [we have looked into this to find out why:) ] And to clarify, if it came from another source than HTQ, we would not give credit unless we can determine someone is trying to game the system. That is very, very rare. If our system broke & sold you the same lead twice in X days, we'd give you credit too, as would most lead vendors from what I know of the industry.

Good conversation...
 
Hi guys,


Just came across this forum while searching for info on Underground Elephant, a vendor which we recently started using and have unfortunately been having a horrible experience with. Feel free to judge yourselves, but here is our experience:


1. Only one single lead we've received has been good of the first several we've bought. The rest were either unable to speak English, had incorrect information in the lead, or yelled something to the effect of "Not interested!" when we called. If you do a google search on this vendor you will find a complaint with the Better Biz Bureau (BBB), multiple complaints on Yelp, and several other sites who are all claiming that the person who filled out their info were attempting to get a free iPad, something we specifically were told UE never does by the sales rep that started our account.


2. When we complained in our first week we were told we could not receive a refund from our initial commitment. When I asked why they wouldn't simply refund me and let me go on my ay since we hadn't gotten near the quality we expected they said it was just policy.


3. Because we have returns pending on all but one of our leads I'd urge anybody considering using Underground Elephant to think of this: What is your time worth??? If you quote a lead and then call to find out it's worthless you have wasted time. If you then have to log onto their portal to return the lead you have wasted time. And if you keep checking in on the pending returns daily to see the status you are wasting time. DON'T bother wasting your time here.


Again, try googling "Underground Elephant Scam" or "Jason Kulpa CEO Underground Elephant Scam" you will find everything you have to know. I wish I had done this first as I wouldn't be out $500 now. I also notified the ins carrier that allowed them to have a vendor table at our sales kickoff to be sure they wouldn't be welcome back.


You've all been warned, feel free to disregard my experience as unusual or rely on the responses being given by paid staff of UE if you think they're not biased. I have nothing to gain by posting this, and I've already lost $500.
 
UE update. I was able to connect with Ian this afternoon regarding my account. It was a very nice conversation and without even knowing it he submitted to have my the money left in my account returned. We discussed my experience at length. Although I didn't have the best experience with the actual leads I'd received I will give credit when it is due. Ian and the lady who handled my account were very nice to deal with.
 
Questions...

5. Underage- Prospect is less than 16 years old.

Since it is illegal to contract below age 18, how could a 16 or 17 year old be a valid prospect?

"1. Duplicate Lead- A lead for the same prospect with the same email address or phone number delivered to client within 30 days of the first such lead"

30 days is extremely short in duration. Why such a short window? How does that benefit the agent who is attempting to contact that prospect?


Hi LGilmore,

You make a very valid point, we are happy to update our policy on returning leads for age. We can update our policy so that if a lead is under the age of 18, we will deem this a valid reason for credit. I appreciate that feedback!

Our duplicate lead policy means that, if the same consumer fills out a request within 30 days of when we last sent it to you, and we send it to you again, we will credit this lead. We will deem that a duplicate of what you've already received and thus you won't have to pay for the same consumer/lead in a 30 day period.

JP Savage- It was great speaking with you today. Glad I could help.
 
I really think that if it is even 90 days it could be a scam. 30 days is too short in my opinion. I have been doing this long enough, just new on here, that I know folks use affiliates to get volume. The affiliates, FROM TIME TO TIME, recycle leads, buy old leads, telemarket back to old leads to probe for interest and then re-send....
For all of these reasons, 30 days is not long enough. The lead companies I use if I get something twice in 90 days they credit no problem. In the past year this has happened to me about 12 times, and I buy about 2 to 3k worth a month. Its just the principal, look out for the agent.
 
Ian,

Great to connect with you today. I have to say I was a bit skeptical of this promotion initially, but you're a man of your word. I'll let you know how the leads work out for me. Enjoy that California sun!
 
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