From what I can gather RedZee should change their mascot to an animal more identified with shiftiness than a cute Zebra. Ever since I wrote “Seeing Red – Search Engine RedZee Reviewed” I have lost count how many people have either thanked me for saving them from spending money fruitlessly at RedZee or have told me they wished they saw my article before they paid for advertising there. But what brings me to mention RedZee today is an email I received from “Abe” (his name has been changed to protect his identity), a RedZee victim who is asking me to help him recoup nearly $1500 USD he spent on the search engine. Interesting, well let’s dig deeper here:

Abe, why are you trying to recoup your spend?

“After a week and several hundred “hits” I realized the service was a scam because I had no conversions and my tracking software showed that all my the “visitors” from RedZee landed on the same page and stayed less than 1 second.”

And what can I do to help?

“I was wondering if you can help me by providing your expert opinion to my credit card company regarding RedZee’s Referral Spam practices that have resulted in my receiving thousands of ‘hits’ but no conversions over the past 6 weeks.”

My heart goes out to Abe because I believe he is likely correct in his concerns judging from the bad reputation RedZee seems to have; see “RedZee Scam“. Unfortunately, in order to help him with this I would have to:

  • Have Abe sign a contract protecting me should this issue escalate and RedZee take this to court.
  • Thoroughly examine his web site analytics data to ensure his findings were properly referenced.
  • Review his web site to make sure nothing could have gone wrong to impede the data.
  • Examine the data that RedZee provided and compare it with his analytics data.
  • Prepare my findings for his credit card company along with fulfilling the other requirements of my expert testimony. This includes explaining that RedZee has misrepresented itself.

What does Abe’s credit card company need to follow through in a chargeback to RedZee at this point?

“A second opinion from a qualified expert. This should be on the expert’s letterhead, it should be dated, it should state the expert’s years of experience in their field, and it should bear their signature and explain the manner in which the service is deficient or not-as-described. Also, please have the expert provide copies of their credentials (For example, a copy of the expert’s license in the field). The second opinion must support your dispute about the level of quality or misrepresentation of the service that was received.”

I hate to say this but I honestly do not think this process would be financially worthwhile for Abe considering he is only out of pocket $1500. That said, I do believe we need more awareness in the form of blog postings from other people who have been wronged by RedZee… in the long run that will have a far greater effect. The more people that get insight into RedZee’s questionable business practices the less business they will receive.

To end this posting I have two questions for our readers:

  1. If you could pick an appropriate mascot for RedZee what would it be?
  2. How do you feel about RedZee? Share your story in our comments section!

Please post your answers in our comments and we will post them ASAP!

Lastly, help us get the word out and save other people a lot of headaches by linking to this article “RedZee Complaints Pile Up – Read this Before Using RedZee!” or republishing it elsewhere (with link credit back to this original posting please).

Oh and of course once again I welcome any official reply from RedZee on their complaints. I know from past experience they never reply but the door is always open.

Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Here are some other great resources on RedZee:

  • Quote from RedZee Search Engine: The Top 3 Scam: “A quick search for RedZee, even from the RedZee site itself, returned plenty of results with people complaining of low or non-existent conversion rates and traffic that behaved more like a bot than a human visitor. It would appear that people who have used the RedZee Top3 Search Results service in hopes of paying next to nothing for visitors have gotten exactly nothing in return.”
  • Quote from RedZee Scam and Unprofessionalism:
    I was ripped off by RedZee also. I spent $900 for targeted traffic from RedZee. I got some traffic but it all appeared to be from BOTS since I got no subscribers for my FREE newsletter that normally converts at 29%. When I asked for a refund, John Kelly asked for my traffic stats, which I sent. They offered to give me more traffic which they did, but I still got no conversions for a FREE offer despite their “sending over 7000 click visitors.” I again asked for a refund and said I would file a claim with the credit card company. He then said, “we have never lost a charge back claim.”