| Mid April, 2011, I was contacted via telephone by a man trying to sell me a listing "membership" for our family owned vacation rental. I told him, no thank you. He called back a few days later, and asked if I would have time to look at a website, so he could show me how they set up their listings. He explained to me that they were a private membership website, catering to law enforcement and military service people. Seeing as I have family who are service members, I relented and agreed to look at what they had to offer. It all seemed good on first glance, but there was no way I was shelling out almost $1000 for a listing. He kept proclaiming that there was a "no questions asked, money back guarantee" but I still wasn't about to incur that kind of charge. Then his "manager" hit the phone, offering me a two year "trial" for $500. I figured what the heck, I pay close to $2000 a year for my regular listings, and it seemed like a good deal, if this worked out and I could drop one of those yearly $600 payments and a listing that frankly, does very little for us, that would be a plus. Within a few days I had artwork and copy, taken from my existing listings, although I did have to go in and fix the pictures. I was supposed to have a "featured" property listing, but since the links they had sent me weren't working properly, and the editing site was quite clunky to get around, and I was short on time, and since I was already solidly booked for the upcoming high season, I let it go and figured I'd check in in a couple of weeks. If only I had then and there taken some time to do the research on this bunch of scammers. This morning, 5/17/11, I decided to go in and check to see what the casual user of the site, looking for a vacation rental, or one of their many offered "discounts" would see when searching for a rental in the town where my rental is located. I went through a few, rather clunky and unintuitive steps to arrive at my location. Once there, I pulled up one listing for the town. It wasn't mine. There were no other listings for that location. So I picked up the phone. Alarm bells started going off the minute I told the young man at the other end of the phone what was happening. At first, he didn't seem to understand the issue. I was put on hold multiple times, for up to five minutes at a time. And after about 20 minutes of this on again off again, he said, "go look at it now!" And lo and behold, suddenly there was my listing. But the other property? Disappeared. Now, I've spent quite a few years in this industry, and even more years on the other end of the ins and outs of website development. I know full well that all it takes is a few minutes and a file name, and a gentle push to a server to change a picture and listing to any site. And apparently, that's just what was done. While I've been on hold, I took some time to go through other portions of this site, to see what else they offer their "membership." It should be no surprise, that they really offer them - well - nothing at all, it seems. You see, nothing seemed to be working. You'd click on a tab across the top and pick something from a drop down list, and end up at a page asking you to "pick a region" but alas - there is no list or map of regions from which to choose. I also googled "Force Group Network reviews" and arrived here, as well as a couple of other sites. That did it, and when the young man, came back on the phone, I simply stated I wanted my listings pulled and my money back, per the guarantee. I was then forced to talk to an arrogant and defensive British woman, let's call her June, who is quite the stroppy cow. She shouted a lot, talked over me quite a bit, and claimed that she gets to hold on to my cash for 12 months (??? first I'd heard that bit of nonsense) before a refund will be issued (and apparently, from reading other reports, they don't even pay you back then.) I've issued a fraud report with my credit card company. So, I'll be credited my $500 on that end, and let the hound dogs from them go after this bunch of criminals. My advice if you've been had by this bunch? Ask your credit card company to do something. The more our credit providers hear of these practices, the more likely something will be done, and Force Group will either go to jail or just shrivel up and go away. I may be calling my lawyer next, just for added fun. In short, if you get a call from a 407 area code, and an earnest fellow who goes by the rather incredible name of Calvin Mercedes wants to sell you this pile of poo, just tell him to never call you again and hang up. |
