Add people.co.uk

[Ipwn 4]

Hey everyone,

Just thought I'd post a little heads up to the community, I was contacted by this company yesterday and was offered quite an epic SEO package. The price seemed to fit the work they offer but there are a few things that seem quite out of place with this company :

1) the insist on you singing up with them immediately as they claim to stop calling all other websites within your industry for 24hrs. Seems a bit pushy.

2) the offer a third party payment portal so we don't have to pay high bank charges to move money from SA but here's the beauty( devs should agree ) they have fields on their portal to primary accept cards from the UK, but we can "simply leave those fields blank. A payment portal without form validation:wtf:? Hosted on their site....

3) found this post : http://addpeople-scam.blogspot.com/2011/03/addpeoplecouk-scam.html

I'm not one to slate companies in the public but these pommies deserve it.

 

[rorz0r]

Sounded like a scam from your first 2 posts. Most of the time when I hear "SEO" I'm verrrrrry wary of what exactly they are offering. The SEO field seems like about 5% know what they are doing, 45% trying to make a quick buck and 50% just scams. Before the term SEO came about there were always those sites that will submit your website to 10000 search engines for $50 etc.

 

[Ipwn 4]

Sounded like a scam from your first 2 posts. Most of the time when I hear "SEO" I'm verrrrrry wary of what exactly they are offering. The SEO field seems like about 5% know what they are doing, 45% trying to make a quick buck and 50% just scams. Before the term SEO came about there were always those sites that will submit your website to 10000 search engines for $50 etc.

Yeah pretty much, another thing that bothered me was their reaction when I told them I need more time as I need to consult with my investors/lawyers. Seems like they are looking for one man start ups who will enjoy the interest of such a big company. Also thought I'd point out that they've phoned me like 6 times today but since sending them the link I posed I haven't heard a single thing from them.

Must say well done to them though, using such a common name ensures people are going to battle to find this post or any other complaints.

 

[Add People]

My name is Lee and I’d like to reply on behalf of Add People.

We currently have over 3000 clients based around the world. We are a very successful organisation, and have achieved excellent results for our customers.

Our SEO strategies are based around completing work manually by our SEO specialists, which means we do not operate with bulk bought in links or automated systems. The only area of our business that is automated is a selection of reports.

Add People believe in working as transparently as possible, so that our clients understand the work undertaken and can see the results themselves. This is why we aim to install Google Analytics as part of our service. It allows our clients to actually see how their campaign is performing, and allows us to identify how customers are using our clients websites to help improve conversions.

In relation to our payment process, Add People do not store any payment information, in accordance to the data protection guidelines and PCI compliance standards. The online portal that we use, unfortunately does not provide online validation. All of the validation is completed by our online merchant (HSBC Bank) based on risk factors and HSBC make sure the details entered match the registered users real details.

If you would like any further information, I’d be more than happy to speak with you directly.

Kind regards
Lee

 

[mernst]

I must say, I get pestered incessantly by rude and pushy sales people from Add People continually.

It's come to the point that I don't even answer calls from the UK anymore.

 

[smallearth]

Scamdog Millionaire

Yep, we got scammed by these people as well. First part of their 'on-site' SEO was writing this cheesy 'SEO friendly' copy for the frontpage of the website which made our site read like a Chinese-to-English google translation.

Second part was linking our website to all these automative industry seeming websites. Our business has nothing to do with the automative industry, funnily enough...

Third part was billing us R2000 a month for 9 months to watch our page go up to first page on google for a brief period (imagine our joy at that point) and then inexplicably down to 28th page over a period of months.

Every time I phoned them I was told "well, you have to write more blog entries", or "it will come back up again", and "it's just one of those things you know, its a competitive industry". As they built more and more spammy links.

Well, when all is said and done, it was a good lesson, albeit an unpleasant one.

Hats off to their smooth consultants though, they always managed to leave me feeling like it was somehow my fault...

 

[Ollie AP]

Hi Mernst, Hi Smallearth,

Thanks for your comments.

Mernest, I’m really sorry that you were not happy with the call you received. If you would like to contact me via direct message with your phone number I’ll make sure that you are not called again.

Smallearth, I’m disappointed to hear your experience with us was not a positive one. As I don’t know more details about you I can’t comment on the specifics of your service, but given Google’s algorithm updates is the likeliest cause of such a big change in ranking positions it is possible that your drop happened for reasons beyond our control.

As a gesture of goodwill, I would like the opportunity to help you. Please send me a direct message and I will gladly arrange for an SEO analyst to take a look at your website and give you a call to offer some practical advice, free of charge.

We take complaints like this very seriously, and would like to ensure that you don’t leave us under a cloud. Hopefully I’ll hear from you soon.

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[jeinnor30]

Dont trust Addp[eople.co.uk

I too have been screwed by these conn artists, promised the world and dont deliver, I however am lucky as I have only been with them for 2.5 months, I started to become suspicious because they never return calls until i threaten to cancel. Nothing has happend with my site, they tell me they have made some minor tweaks etc! They were supposed to put in a blog but NOTHING, they told me they had made adjustments to my google+ stuff, NOTHING....

Never ever use them, run away as far as you can!

Hi Mernst, Hi Smallearth,

Thanks for your comments.

Mernest, I’m really sorry that you were not happy with the call you received. If you would like to contact me via direct message with your phone number I’ll make sure that you are not called again.

Smallearth, I’m disappointed to hear your experience with us was not a positive one. As I don’t know more details about you I can’t comment on the specifics of your service, but given Google’s algorithm updates is the likeliest cause of such a big change in ranking positions it is possible that your drop happened for reasons beyond our control.

As a gesture of goodwill, I would like the opportunity to help you. Please send me a direct message and I will gladly arrange for an SEO analyst to take a look at your website and give you a call to offer some practical advice, free of charge.

We take complaints like this very seriously, and would like to ensure that you don’t leave us under a cloud. Hopefully I’ll hear from you soon.

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[roguemat]

To @Add People and @Ollie AP, you're doing yourself more harm than good here.

Also, guys, it appears we are SEO experts. Googling for "Add people seo" shows this thread as the second result. Need to do some more SEO, and maybe it will get to 1st

add people, seo, scam, bad, fraud

EDIT: It's actually result 6 on .com and lower on co.uk. All still P1 though.

 

[Ipwn 4]

To @Add People and @Ollie AP, you're doing yourself more harm than good here.

Also, guys, it appears we are SEO experts. Googling for "Add people seo" shows this thread as the second result. Need to do some more SEO, and maybe it will get to 1st

add people, seo, scam, bad, fraud

EDIT: It's actually result 6 on .com and lower on co.uk. All still P1 though.

Trolol no more scamming south Africans after this keyword rich thread on one of the biggest sites in SA add people. Good luck fake SEO scams addpeople.co.uk

 

[koeksGHT]

Just some more keywords to get to P1

Addpeople.co.uk are scammers scam fraud lie deception fake liars double scam

Never use addpeople scammers SEO scam

Edit: anchors help too

addpeople.co.uk SEO SCAMMERS

They are a google "partner" someone please report them to google!

 

[zippy]

Search engines can change their algorithms, impacting a website's placement, possibly resulting in a serious loss of traffic. According to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day.[47] It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.[48]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

 

[Seriously]

My name is Lee and I’d like to reply on behalf of Add People.

We currently have over 3000 clients based around the world. We are a very successful organisation, and have achieved excellent results for our customers.

Our SEO strategies are based around completing work manually by our SEO specialists, which means we do not operate with bulk bought in links or automated systems. The only area of our business that is automated is a selection of reports.

Add People believe in working as transparently as possible, so that our clients understand the work undertaken and can see the results themselves. This is why we aim to install Google Analytics as part of our service. It allows our clients to actually see how their campaign is performing, and allows us to identify how customers are using our clients websites to help improve conversions.

In relation to our payment process, Add People do not store any payment information, in accordance to the data protection guidelines and PCI compliance standards. The online portal that we use, unfortunately does not provide online validation. All of the validation is completed by our online merchant (HSBC Bank) based on risk factors and HSBC make sure the details entered match the registered users real details.

If you would like any further information, I’d be more than happy to speak with you directly.

Kind regards
Lee

All con artists and their professional scamming companies claim the same name to fame! It's a new world disease!

 

[Ollie AP]

Hi,

To jeinnor30; We’re sorry that our service didn’t initially meet your expectations, but I think it is important readers are aware of the full story here.

You started your service with us in early October and we communicated recommendations to address some broken links and post more content on your website. SEO is a collaborative process and part of the service we offer is practical advice on things you can do to help yourself.

During the first two months we had in fact been working on your off-page SEO but were awaiting receipt of your admin access details necessary to complete on-page optimisation. I gather there was some confusion here for which I can only apologise unreservedly once again.

Once we received these details in December we prioritised and completed the first trench of on-page SEO work for you the same day and I gather that my colleague Matt has arranged to ensure you have regular contact and updates moving forward.

We understand that you have previously worked with other agencies and didn’t have a good experience with them. I sincerely hope that you are satisfied with the actions we have taken and see that we’re working with the best intentions to help you achieve your goals over the coming months.

Readers should be aware that according to our database neither “roguemat”, “koeksGHT” or the original poster have ever been a customer of ours. In fact we have no record of any direct contact with the former two people.

To address these posters directly, the accusations you have published here are categorically false. We provide web design, PPC and SEO services to thousands of customers in the UK, South Africa and Ireland and do our level best to provide a great service to all of them.

We are always happy to respond to genuine customers and resolve any issues they may have but we cannot offer any further response to members of this forum who have commented on our services without any actual experience of working with us.

Wishing you all the very best for 2014.

Ollie

 

[jeinnor30]

http://www.addpeople.co.uk are untrustworthy!

Hi,

To jeinnor30; We’re sorry that our service didn’t initially meet your expectations, but I think it is important readers are aware of the full story here.

You started your service with us in early October and we communicated recommendations to address some broken links and post more content on your website. SEO is a collaborative process and part of the service we offer is practical advice on things you can do to help yourself.

During the first two months we had in fact been working on your off-page SEO but were awaiting receipt of your admin access details necessary to complete on-page optimisation. I gather there was some confusion here for which I can only apologise unreservedly once again.

Once we received these details in December we prioritised and completed the first trench of on-page SEO work for you the same day and I gather that my colleague Matt has arranged to ensure you have regular contact and updates moving forward.

We understand that you have previously worked with other agencies and didn’t have a good experience with them. I sincerely hope that you are satisfied with the actions we have taken and see that we’re working with the best intentions to help you achieve your goals over the coming months.

Readers should be aware that according to our database neither “roguemat”, “koeksGHT” or the original poster have ever been a customer of ours. In fact we have no record of any direct contact with the former two people.

To address these posters directly, the accusations you have published here are categorically false. We provide web design, PPC and SEO services to thousands of customers in the UK, South Africa and Ireland and do our level best to provide a great service to all of them.

We are always happy to respond to genuine customers and resolve any issues they may have but we cannot offer any further response to members of this forum who have commented on our services without any actual experience of working with us.

Wishing you all the very best for 2014.

Ollie

Dear http://www.addpeople.co.uk it is unprofressional for you guys to try put the blame back onto me! Prior to December you guys had received these details which you guys confirmed in your email to me on 11 December! My previous problems with previous SEO companies has nothing to do with the disatisfaction that I have with http://www.addpeople.co.uk!

I feel you are untrustworthy because:

1. It took 3 months to get my blog implemented onto the site and even then, it looks ***** I am sure the other users from this site will agree!

http://www.mousehouse.co.za/APBlog/

2. You guys sent me a list of a backlinks and as I said to Matthew on Tuesday 14 Jan 2014, I tested the first 5 and not 1 of the links in question showed or had anything referring to my business!

3. Matthew told me he would get back to me ASAP with 2 questions I asked him to respond to and well, 48 hours later still not response from Matthew!

4. http://www.addpeople.co.uk!told me that I should start seeing results within 3 months, well, ALL of the campaigns you guys claim are doing SEO work for have dropped!

5. You guys told me that you guys had fixed ALL of my 404 errors and had cleared the googlewebmaster tool, well as I explained to Matthew they are all starting to creep back which leads me to believe that all you guys did was to reset the tool to say that all had been fixed and did nothing!

We fellow South Africans are tired of being screwed over by companies like yourselves, there is enough criminal activity in our country as it is without outside influences of the likes of http://www.addpeople.co.uk! jumping onto the bandwagon. For those of you that think I am jumping up and down for nothing, check out this link-

http://addpeople-scam.blogspot.com/2011/03/addpeoplecouk-scam.html

 

[Neil AP]

To Jeinnor30

Hi, I’m the Marketing Manager at Add People.

I have personally investigated your service history, gone through your recorded call history, email trail and database notes. I’m not satisfied with the service you have received to date and can only repeat Ollie’s earlier sincere apology on behalf of the business.

I’ve discovered there was a clerical error at our end and your admin details were collected but not logged correctly on our system. This has clearly caused confusion internally and meant your work wasn’t done on time.

By way of apology, I would like to reimburse you in full for the two month delay to your service.

Unfortunately we (or any other agency) can do nothing to speed up how quickly the optimisation work we do is recognised in search engines, but as Ollie correctly stated we did expedite the on-page SEO and blog installation for you back in mid December once we’d corrected the mistake.

We don’t have the budget to provide a fully branded blog for you but it fulfills a purpose by adding a regular flow of fresh, relevant content that search engines are looking for.

You mention you received info on some back links that are not visible. I don’t have specific details but it’s quite possible you may need to verify these submissions in order for them to be published. Matt will be able to help you on this.

According to our records, we addressed your 404 errors by installing permanent 301 redirects on 28 old (erroneous) URLs to their nearest up-to-date equivalent on your website. We did this as a gesture of good will to fix a problem you had before you began your service with us. While it will improve your users’ experience, Google themselves state this shouldn’t materially affect your Google ranks... http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/do-404s-hurt-my-site.html

We would like to check why you are still getting 404 errors, but you changed your Google password on Jan 2nd so we are unable to investigate further.

We absolutely want to make things right and improve your internet marketing results, although I notice you’re already looking for another agency on this forum.

Having listened to some call recordings it’s clear you have concerns that you are not converting your web traffic into enquiries, which I believe are well founded.

As a gesture of goodwill I’d be more than happy to speak with you personally and provide impartial advice on how you can improve your website conversion rates.

Please drop me a line at marketing@addpeople.co.uk to set up a chat.

 

[oonie]

Hi Guys, we are a small SEO business and this industry is hectic. It is extremely competitive and it takes a minimum of 3 months (hopefully less but you can't promise more) to reap the rewards of good SEO tactics. Website have been badly penalised for previous SEO strategies that are now frowned upon. Anyone who promises Google #1 ranking is nuts! Anyhoo, we are starting out and these kinds of posts are very good to read and i'm curious what came of it? Thanks

 

[Baxteen]

holy two year Necro batman