ComplaintsforLocalEdge

• Initial Complaint

  10/01/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Horrific! We started our campaign 7 months ago, paying $365 monthly for online SEO, web design, and optimization, and an additional $35 monthly for print media. The salesperson assured us that we would see great results from this campaign, but so far, we haven't received a single lead, email, or call. I had to personally make all the changes to the generic website they put together for us. It was a bland, uninspiring site full of clipart and stock photos that seemed hastily assembled. As for the print advertising, I signed up in March, and the deadline was the end of September to finalize the ad. Fortunately, I reached out to them just two weeks before the final deadline, and they sent me one of the worst ads I’ve ever seen—just some words copied and pasted from the website with no graphics or personalization. It was a joke. So, I created my own ad and sent it to their 'team' to improve and make it more visually appealing. They couldn’t even give me a response! Now, we’re past the deadline, and I'm likely stuck with the subpar ad they put together, which is simply text from the website. This has been, by far, the worst business decision I have made. I highly recommend anyone considering working with them to look elsewhere. Years ago, I had an outstanding sales rep, John M****, who was professional, efficient, and ensured I was satisfied. In contrast, this current sales rep made big promises of great outcomes but failed to deliver on every single one. By the end of this campaign, I will have spent over $4,000, and more than halfway through, I haven't seen any results. It’s so disappointing that businesses like this exist, making grand promises but delivering absolutely nothing in return. I am attaching a copy of the ad they tried using for my leading ad - its a disgrace! I even gave them a copy of the ad I wanted and even that was too hard for them to put together? I'll attach a copy of that too.

  Business response

  10/15/2024

  We are currently working directly with the client to address these concerns and expect to have an amicable resolution in the next few days. 

• Initial Complaint

  07/22/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I hired this business when I first opened my small practice for SEO, website design, and ongoing social media marketing. Unfortunately, the company didn't understand my industry, and I ended up doing most of the work myself. The rates were extremely high, and despite reaching out multiple times about the lack of results, they continuously insisted that it was reaching the target audience. Due to the high rates and no new customers, I couldn't afford the services for several months and eventually discontinued them. However, because I was in a contract, I had to continue paying for the next year while doing the work myself to build my practice. Eventually, I lost my business and could no longer continue paying on the contract, but I had already paid for a full year after discontinuing the services. Now, they continue to email me, threatening to send the remaining balance to a third-party collection agency. This business does not care about the quality of services they provide or their customers, only about squeezing every penny out of small businesses.

  Business response

  08/07/2024

  We are sorry you were unsatisfied with your experience. Looking over the history of the account, it appears we attempted to work with you several ways during and after the course of the contract, including changing/reducing services roughly 3 months into the contract, reducing the monthly rate by roughly 50%, and later offering a settlement of the outstanding balance reducing the amount owed by an additional 50%. This offer also included a payment plan that was agreed to by both parties and followed for some months before payments ended without explanation February of this year. A month later we were told new partners would be handling accounts receivables and Ms. ****** would not be making the remaining payments on the agreement. 

  We have attempted to reach Ms. ****** at the number provided here to attempt to find a resolution, but our call is disconnected without being able to leave a message. 

   

• Initial Complaint

  05/11/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Very unhappy experience. I paid thousands of dollars over the course of 12 months (about $10,000) and didn’t get ONE lead. I feel scammed.

  Business response

  05/30/2024

  We have made contact with the client and are working directly with him to find resolution to this complaint. 

• Initial Complaint

  12/31/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I am writing to express my extreme dissatisfaction with the services provided by LocalEdge Advertising Company, with whom our business, ************ ******** ********, ***., entered into a contract in February of 2023. Regrettably, despite the significant financial investment we have made with LocalEdge, we have witnessed a stark decline in our business performance. In comparison to 2022, where our expenditure on marketing and advertising was significantly lower, we are now facing a troubling situation: we have spent three times the amount in 2023 and yet experienced a 20% decrease in revenue. This alarming result is in direct contradiction to the expected outcomes of a professional marketing and advertising campaign. Furthermore, we have identified several key performance metrics where LocalEdge has underperformed, sometimes by as much as ten times the industry standard. Such a substantial discrepancy is not only unacceptable but also raises serious concerns about the effectiveness and competence of the services provided. We entered into this partnership with the expectation of seeing positive results and a return on our investment, but the current situation is far from satisfactory. Equally disheartening has been the lack of effective communication and support from LocalEdge's customer service representatives. In our monthly phone calls seeking clarification on the performance issues, we have consistently been met with the same request to allow time for the new marketing to work. The recurring response that "it takes time for this marketing to work" is insufficient and fails to address the significant disparity between our expectations and the actual outcomes.

  Business response

  01/03/2024

  We are sorry that Mr. ********** is unhappy with his service. During the course of this campaign, it has been a recurring theme that the client has been influenced by competing marketing companies, including the company he was working with prior to signing with Localedge. As far back as July 2023, the client's previous company told him that they were doing SEO work on the site, despite the fact that we had built a new site that was hosted on servers to which the previous company did not have access. More recently a representative for a competing marketing company has been present during reporting calls with the client. We strongly disagree with the claims made in this complaint, and are confident in our product performance and customer service. As the contract extends through the next month, we will continue to provide the services through that time. At that point we will transfer service to the provider of Mr. ************ choosing in as seamless and professional a manner as possible. 

  Customer response

  01/04/2024

   The business in question did not offer anything to resolve this matter.  They continue to state that they feel they have provided accurate service.  However, I strongly disagree.  I paid over 3x's the amount in the marketing with this company alone than I did in all of 2022, yet I saw a big decline in calls received from potential customers, a decline in appearance on online searches.  My business went from being found on page 1 in numerous city/town searches for ******** ********, to being listed on pages 4, 5, 6+.  The few calls that I did receive from customers that can be attributed to this company were majority small repairs or outside of our typical service area.  We requested for certain areas to be targeted, yet it seems like their results were targeting the furthest area in our range.  Most of our business for 2023 came from repeat customers and referrals from past customers.  Every month these issues were brought up in our monthly meetings, and every month I was told "it just takes more time", but in my initial meeting to set all of this up I was told that it would like 3-6 months for the long term results to show but if I paid extra for this additional service that would give me immediate results.  They did not explain to me at that time that accepting this additional service for an additional fee was also resulting in me re-signing a contract for another 12 month term starting from that date essentially cancelling my original contract.  This is another sly maneuver they use to keep businesses stuck under their contract paying exorbitant fees for less than average results.  And still nothing produced results.  I am paying on average $100+ (on the lesser side) per contact received through the marketing efforts of this company, and 75% of those contacts are spam forms submitted on the website or calls/contacts that do not even result in a consultation.  That is absurd to pay that kind of money for no results.  The few paying jobs that are coming in from their marketing efforts are barely, if even, covering the monthly fee we pay to them leaving no amount remaining amount to cover the labor paid out to workers nor profit to be had.   Regards,  ***** **********

  Business response

  01/12/2024

  I believe we have found an amicable solution and are working directly with the client to resolve the issue.

• Initial Complaint

  12/12/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We entered into an agreement for this company to build a website and promote our business. Their website they created for me is less than professional. Throughout multiple attempts to communicate through email and phone to improve the website minimal effort was made and requested changes were never completed. After repeated attempts to cancel, the company stretched along and convinced me to pay additional months of service. After giving them the benifit of the doubt, I did formally request to cancel however the company continued to ignore my request and charged my credit card to monthly service. They refuse to honor their contract by giving me what was promised and drag out resonses or ignore calls. Absolute worst experience to date dealing with a company. I am writing this complaint for 2 reasons. 1) I want out and to be done with any and all servies or lack their of with no further charges. 2) I hope my complaint reaches others before they get involved and taken advantage of by the same sorry scam.

  Business response

  01/12/2024

  We are sorry to hear Mr ******* is unhappy. In summer of 2023 Mr ******* entered into a 12 month agreement with Localedge for services including a website, display advertising, and search engine optimization. Since that time Localedge has upheld it's side of the contract and in deed gone beyond to upgrade the client's products at no additional charge on 2 separate occasions in attempt to satisfy Mr ********* requests. After making multiple website edits, we rebuilt his site  and upgraded it to allow additional monthly time to work directly with our web team. It should be noted that this rebuild process was given "white glove" treatment, and handled by a management team member of the web team, to ensure quality of work. Later, we added call tracking and recording  at no additional charge to provide data on amount of calls being generated. Despite these efforts, Mr ******* has stopped making payment for services and refuses to speak with his account manager. Unfortunately, that leaves us few options to move forward.

• Initial Complaint

  11/11/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I wish I had read the reviews on BBB first. I hired localedge to build a website help with reputation management, and social media marketing on ******** and *********. I was fine with the website they built but they never created an ********* page and never helped with reputation management. They created a ******** page in addition to the page that we already had, creating an issue with ********. ******** restricted my account and we were not able to run any promotions. I tried reaching out several times and no one would respond. When they finally did respond I asked them to cancel running ads because they weren't working and were causing issues with our pages. I eventually had to delete their ******** page, my ******** page which had a decent amount of followers built up over a long period of time and start from scratch. They are still charging us the full price each month even though we are not using any of their services, other than the website domain. I have called to try to cancel my contract and get the website back and I am still having problems. I cancelled the ads on 10/5 and no one reached out to try to fix my billing issues, and although the social team reached out could not fix any issues that they created and did not respond when I followed up. We had an well liked employee leave, because we could generate enough traffic for him, due to all my accounts being locked because of their mishandling of ********. They have been an anchor around the neck of my business and it seems their intention to just milk me for another several months until the contract runs out. Not only have they not delivered on what they said they would do but they have in fact harmed my business further and seem intent on doing so for several more months.

  Business response

  11/29/2022

  We have reviewed the situation, and are working out the resolution directly with the client. 

  Customer response

  12/01/2022

  Better Business Bureau:  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.  Regards,  ******* ******

• Initial Complaint

  06/19/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Since working with Local Edge, the ONLY thing that has been done over the last 6-8 months is produce a sub par website with far too many misspellings and grammar mistakes. Most of the info on there is also inaccurate. After SEVERAL attempts to come to a resolution and get these simple issues corrected, NOTHING has been done. They have no problem taking your money every month but provide next to nothing in service. They do not honor their contracts or their word.

  Business response

  09/29/2022

  We have worked to correct the website issues and have been working with the client regularly on this and other products. I believe the matter to be resolved.
  

  
  

  Customer response

  09/29/2022

  Better Business Bureau: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Thank you for quickly rectifying the issues once presented.  Regards, ******* ********

• Initial Complaint

  01/22/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Unresolved

  More info

  i have been under an agreement since the end of july 2021 and have absolutely no results from the website or any campaigns after 6 months. i have also saved any written communication on the matter. i need my agreement evaluated for immediate termination. i was called by a local edge rep weeks ago who said this review process exists to honor my desire to terminate the agreement based on lack of performance from local edge. recently, my rep "got approval" to launch a pay per click ad campaign and he "thinks" it is live. i helped decide search terms and geo fencing areas around wilmington NC. i have repeatedly performed google searches to test the system and STILL my site never shows up. im done wrestling this company into getting any results that they promised and sold me. i emailed rep and asked who do i talk to higher in the company to get this resolved and still do not have an answer. i need to discuss this with someone of a higher level than sales rep or customer service rep. this has been the absolutely worst and useless waste of money. i have not seen any results for the >$2500 spent and have had no calls, weborders, special requests via website. lastly, i need direction on how to prevent this agreement from auto renewing since i will never use such a useless service again. i would appreciate any help from bbb to get this useless agreement terminated.

  Business response

  02/10/2022

  We have had a manager work directly with the client to make changes to the active products. There will be no auto-renew at the end of the contract. 

  Customer response

  02/11/2022

  Better Business Bureau: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below. Although the gesture of program changes is greatly appreciated, i requested a cancelation of this agreement as i have lost all confidence in the company and my customer experience throughout trying to resolve was simply the worst. Regards, ***** *******

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩