Complaint Review: Outbound Engine - Nationwide

Signed up with this company in June of 2016 on their Value Plan to help with social media marketing for my mortgage business. The initial calls were great as they were trying to have me buy their product, but as soon as I signed up it was all downhill after that.

First, I waited almost two weeks to have my initial "setup" call so I can finally start using the service I had been paying for. When I finally received that call, it was less of a "setup" call and more of a sales call to try and have me upgrade to their Premium plan which includes reviews. The caller started off being nice, but when she asked me to upgrade I politely said I wanted to try the service as it was before upgrading to anything else, her tone completely changed, rushed through the rest of the call and couldn't wait to get off the phone with me, meanwhile I still had questions on how to fully set up my account... of course never heard from her again. I played around with the system enough and figured out how to use it myself, tried the service for two months, and realized that the content they were sending out was not relevant.

I called back to cancel in August, and their main response was that I signed up for a 12 month contract... mind you, never during any of our conversations was there any talk about being locked into any type of contract, let alone for 12 months. I was led to believe this was a month to month service that just required a 30 day cancellation notice. I would have never signed up for a 12 month contract for a service that I had no way of knowing if it would work or not. All they ever said during the initial sales calls was that they prefer you stay with them for at least 12 months to get the full benefits, but that's it, nothing about a contract! But apparently it's hidden somewhere in fine print, so you have to analyze one of the many documents they send you line by line so you can find it, and with that their claim is that "well, you signed the contract". Very unethical to say the least.

Even with all that aside, one of their reps said maybe the problem was that the campaign they had me on (Real Estate) wasn't as fitting for my business, and that maybe the Financial Adviser campaign would be more relevant. At this point I still wanted to cancel, and even though I hated the way they went about it, I was willing to pay the cancellation fee to be done with them. The guy said that it's worth a shot to at least try and match the campaigns with more relevant content, and that if it still wasn't relevant I could cancel, with no other fees involved. I decided to give it a shot, and after another 6 months, content still was not relevant and I was not getting any type of results that I was looking for.

I called to cancel it again in February, and of course they went back to the same story of "you signed a 12 month contract". I told them what happened back in August and how I had experienced problems before and was told if I didn't like it I could cancel at any time, but the only thing their rep knew to do is keep referring to a sales script that more or less said "you signed the contract, so you're screwed". I asked them to go back and check the call recordings so they can see what the previous rep said, and they got back to me saying that it wasn't true and of course that "you sighed the contract". I asked to get a copy of the call recordings and of course they said they are not able to provide me with the call recordings, so it's basically their word against mine.

So after 8 months of paying for a service that did not benefit me, they still had me pay a cancellation fee equal to 50% of the remaining term. This isn't about the money for me, I'm happy to pay the cancellation fee to finally be done with them. It's about the principal of how they choose to do business. This company has questionable morals and unethical sales tactics, and their service does not do what they promise it does. The only customers that were responding to their ads and emails were customers that I was already in the process of working with and thought I was sending them notices that had to do with their file currently in progress. I did not receive even one additional deal from any of their efforts!

Do yourself a favor and do not give this company your time or your money, as they will waste both!