The week’s buzz is rising on MerchantCircle, a local search play with a twist. I spoke to CEO Ben Smith this week, and he got me smart on the idea behind it. In short, MerchantCircle is trying to get local merchants to play the search game on their own terms, and I like that idea.
SiliconBeat has some good thoughts on it:
…MerchantCircle has pre-populated its database with generic business listings. Business owners can then sign in to claim their profile pages.
…Smith doesn’t view MerchantCircle as a destination site for users. Most people won’t go here looking for a local bike shop, although you could. Instead, they’ll find MerchantCircle profiles when they’re Googling for Palo Alto bike shops, for example.
The “circle” in the company’s name comes from the idea that merchants will create networks of affiliated businesses by adding their names to their profile pages and swapping ads with each other. The idea is to give merchants an incentive to invite other merchants into MerchantCircle. Indeed, Smith is relying on this type of viral marketing to build his business because he doesn’t have a cadre of salespeople to recruit business owners.
Garrett French has more on MerchantCircle here, as does Greg Sterling.
A quick follow-up….This morning I got an email from Merchantcircle advising that someone had rated my company, clicked the link to see the rating, no rating, no review. I have demanded that my listing be removed and that I receive no further emails with the exception of one confirming that my listing has been removed. I have saved the recorded voicemail, the email received and those I’ve sent. I’m careful to document all of this. I will call the numbers provided above, thank you for providing them. I will call my AG again and will continue to follow this thread. Merchantcircle and Ben Smith have gotten under my skin. Anyone who knows me, knows that was the wrong thing to do……..
John Kenny
Receivables Management
Mohawk, NY 13407
Add me to the list: I also got the “negative rating” phone call, thought it was a scam but felt obliged to check it out. Cost me time, and therefore money, and considerable aggravation. Unbelievably shoddy business practice, and I am insulted by Ben Smith’s, um, response in his post above. I hope his “little company” finds itself in a world of trouble. He has certainly generated plenty of ill will, and needs to learn something about business ethics. I will NEVER do business with Merchantcircle and will do my best to spread the word about their slimeyness here in my state.
Thanks John for this blog.
I got a positive rating around June and did nothing because I expect that. I guess this little criminal ben decided to send me a negative rating on the Sept. 27th. I am best friends with all my customers and knew this was a scam. I read all the blogs and you are all going about it wrong. Little ben is not afraid of your calls. Benny is scared you will think like him ( a criminal ). This is what you need to do with these worms. The scam works because of the all companies that advertise on there site. They get these companies because of how many hits they get from there scam. Mr. Battelle should go on there site daily so the rest of us don’t have to ( only one hit ). Mr. Battelle then puts on his blog all the advertisers name and any info. The rest of us then check this blog when ever we can so John gets tons of hits and then we all e-mail, call, snail mail, etc the companies that support these rats. This will really work if we tell 10 people and they tell ten people. Eventually merchantcircle will not be able to pay anyone to put an ad on the that web page. Power in numbers. BOYCOTT BOYCOTT
Thanks JEH
I too got the bogus negative review message in Washington State. I’m planning to call my attorney general. Thanks for the phone numbers.
I got the negative review call a couple of days ago. I was dubious, went to the site and found no reviews at all. I did find out you can “rate” yourself, so I did multiple times. Woo-hoo! I also wrote three “reviews”, one of them advising any actual searchers who found the site to ask a local service professional for a referal if they needed one, and not to rely on bunk sites like Merchantcircle. Not surprisingly, my listing is gone today.
my husband recieved this voicemail too, and was worried about who could have given his small business a negative rating. I would like to follow up on this to make sure this phone harrassment is not happening. He was seriously stressed about this.
When i got the “unfavorable review” call a few days ago, i resolved to google this merchantcircle. On my drive home from work, i was rolodexing in my mind what client would have had reason to do such a thing. I then proceeded to forget about it entirely until I googled the name just now and found this blog. Glad i didnt make the call nor go to their site. How idiotic of them to entice people that way.
As I mentioned in my 9/27 post here, Merchant Circle had posted my street address. I give out only my PO Box. Today I see that another web biz, Tyloon, has posted it too. Is Tyloon connected to Merchant Circle?
I got a FAX from 866-849-3243 for a typical pump-and-dump stock (IDGJ, or ID Global).
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.!!! A joyous Thanksgiving dinner at my home and no I didn’t have time to go to Orchestra Hall and listen to “Broadway Hits.” I wanted to go..
Go…and play the Steinway piano…but I made homemade pumpkin pies, cherry & cherries jello lemon yogurt salad, creamed onions, homemade bread stuffing, real mashed potatoes, yams with orange and marshmallows, green bean casserole, apple walnut salads, 23.75 lb. turkey, homemade rolls, accompanied(oh, the percussion!) olives, radishes, home canned pickles, spinach dip & crackers/ black bread, chocolate bon bons, appertifs and Dairy Queen chocolate chocolate mint chip blizzard birthday cake.
So many “funny looking” paper plates went to people that now there is almost nothing left cooked from turkey.
Back to my last music collection this 2006. It’s 1 wk. from when some of my new Christmas music will be out.
The kitchen is for “R. Ray, Emeril, Paula Dean, Betty Cr ocker.’ They do the “Best Of The Best.”
I have to finish my work this yr. & God Bless You All!
Oh, please listen to my new Christmas song, “Santa’s Sleigh Froze In Mid-Air!,” ‘ ’cause it’s 2006 all the way home. 2 of my songs that I wrote in 2001 are up for awards, “Candlelight Candle Bright, and Oh Christmas Treee What Will You Be?” All good…as I do write great Christmas Songs and my sister-in-law Karen wanted the CD that I mentioned Tommy in, “Christmas Lights Up Heaven,” at Thanksgiving Dinner..which I gave her..along with new music of course….lyrics and music written for the piano…copied, stapled as songs…the songs…
God Bless!
Thursday evening I will be listening at Orchestra Hall to “The Nutcracker.” I my own music to write but look forward to Peter’s(aka) wonderful presentation. No much more writing here as this going to be a musical Christmas!
Enjoyed by family, friends, I have some serious writing to finish…and God help me…as with our troops abroad.
See…a funny thing here…I’m in the same standing of help as beloved troops abroad…as written a joyous tune, “Christmas Special Delivery,” but I’m in the same standing same being same slowness same same same..
So…I have to go.. and God Bless Us All!
We need and pray believe in and live his teachings..
Anyway, my new Christmas songs probably come out next wk.!
Every ones right…i don’t get much money or even “saying’s or “We want you to play this Christmas piece at our Church…” I get nothing…
Nothing…so I have to finish writing again at Ground Zero, nothing…’cause that’s where I’m at…the beginning…where there is nothing but ice, hole, darkness, light, blank, nil, death etc.
So…please buy my new Christmas musical recordings. Thank you!
Bummer! I see you have removed the phone number for the guy who worked for Merchant Circle and previously was able to remove my listing after I called him. Unfortunately, once again Merchant Circle has posted my street address with my business name, even though (as mentioned in my 10/16 post) I only give out my PO Box. This time Merchant Circle has misspelled my name. It coincides with the misspelled name given to me over the phone earlier this month by a person who claimed to be working for Experian, was calling from an ID # 888-929-3282; said his name was Daniel Juarez and he was in the Phillipines. He had my street address. I may have been a sucker as I believed he was actually Experian and I gave him the corrected spelling of my name–and asked him to delete the street address from records and list only the PO Box #. Does Experian actually make such calls??? (Never got one before.) And can you PLEASE post a phone number for Merchant Circle??? I don’t want to e-mail those folks and start getting spam!!
You may add us to the list of better things to do than answer the Merchant Circle recording. As if small business men (and women) don’t already have enough to keep them busy.
I just received the same phone call inviting me to go check out my rating after a customer supposedly Googled us and left a rating (at least it was allegedly a positive review). However, given the small and specialized nature of our client base, I would be very surprised if that was true, and since I had never heard of Merchant Circle, I Googled them and found my way directly here. At least I’m not alone!
Got the same jerk-phone-spam a few minutes ago here too – saying we were googled and given a positive rating. (What, no more scare tactics about the negative ratngs any more?)
Then I sent Email to their ‘support’ address asking to be added to the MerchantCircle do-not-call list. And after that, I found this here web page and now I suspect my Email will go unanswered.
Well, it looks like anything else I might have to say about all this has already been said… 😉 Thanks, JB, for this web page.
Just a quick note on MerchantCircle and its reason for being viral
After receiving an email from the Governors office inquiring to my email that I had supposedly sent them, I did some checking and here’s what I found. MerchantCircle had sent an email to the Governor of Connecticut fraudulently using my name as the signatory which boasted about the MerchantCircle service and asking them to sign up. Yes, they in-fact, took my personal email after I was jerk phone spamed, high jacked my email address and sent emails out making it appear they were from me with the intent of endorsing their service.
After days of aggravation over the issue (it’s my reputation not theirs) I officially reported the fraud to the State of Connecticut and to MerchantCircle, the State has promised to look into the fraudulent practice of Merchant Circle. MerchantCircle honored my request to cease and desist notice and removed my account. No apology, no answer on their practice – just hiding from phone and email inquires.
Their practice is certainly viral but not a mystery anymore –Ben Smith and Wayne Yamamoto are common internet spammer and scamsters of the worst kind that give legitimate companies a bad name.
L. Rubin
We just got spammed as well. How does John Battelle end up talking to someone like this CEO and NOT know that the guy and company are not legit??
Just received a call from these idiots about a ‘favorable review’ on my company. Just what the internet needs.. more shitheads like these guys.
Just received a call from these idiots about a ‘favorable review’ on my company. Just what the internet needs.. more shitheads like these guys.
I recommend that anyone getting scammed like this- I got a call today- go to http://www.alexa.com and put in http://www.merchantcircle.com. When it comes up, look for text that invites you to post a review and click on that. I just gave it the lowest score, stated it was a scam to drive up their rankings with all those (free)clicks, capture all visitor emails (which they probably trade and/or sell), and capture your money for suppossed access to the bogus low rankings you have- that don’t even exist. It is working. They have a high rank. Help to knock them down by spreading the word.
I RECEIVED THE “UNFAVORABLE REVIEW” SCAM TODAY, AND WAS VERY SUSPECIOUS,BUT HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON UNTILL FINDING THIS SITE. THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP. I WILL BE PASSING THE INFO ON TO THE MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL.
Got the call in St. Louis today. “Negative” reviews from my customers. I typed in a phone number from the phone book in their site, saw that it required registry, then Googled them and got this blog.
Thank you all. I’ve been in business for 30 years and was suspicious but your comments sealed the deal and they didn’t get anymore info from me. They will die the painful death they deserve. Curious that in my IN Box today were a Nigerian “be my partner” and a UK Lottery winner scam email. Must be my Lucky Day!
We got the call today in Alaska. I found this site first because I didn’t want to give their web site any additional “hits”. Thank all of you for posting, it is a big help to sort out scams which seem to be more and more frequent now days.
Well, you might get a laugh out of this. I did. I’m a cop who just got through interviewing a suspect over the phone and a few minutes later I checked my messages and got “The Message”. You know, the “Negative Rating” one. I figured he wasn’t too happy with me after I told him he would be in front of the judge soon 🙂 I thought he did me on “Merchantcircle” but I figured the message was BS so I Googled it and got this BLOG.
I thought it was funny, but hey maybe I am easily amused. Good day all… (BTW, this is a useful Blog) Hopefully the CA AG will shut this clown down
Yup… Negative ratings for our Iowa based business as well. Time for Merchantcircle.com to get a life. Come to think of it… Perchance we should all log on, and post negative feedback for them 🙂 Does anyone think that their call system would let them know? What justice indeed!
Thanks for all your comments regarding merchantcircle.com. We received a phone call from them today suggesting a “negative rating”. As I was suspicious(knowing all our customers) I choose to google them prior to going directly to their site. What an ENORMOUS amount of information I have found regarding their unethical tactics (on this site as well as other website’s and postings). Please continue to spread to word about this as will I.
I sure hope no one has put money into a piece of garbage company like merchant circle.
Their ethics stink, what a waste of my time, chasing a lie
I have better things to do for good customers & contacts.
These people have the ethics of a Fred Phelps group.
Well, they’re *still* at it six months later… It’s 3/12/2007, and the first post here about the jerk-phone-spamming was 9/18/2006.
Our business got the “unfavorable review” call, as a ploy to get us to visit their site and sign up. Clearly shady business practices.
Do NOT support this business, or others which use these deceptive marketing techniques!!!
THIS PHONE CALL MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL. THIS COMPANY IS A LETCH . ROTTEN . WASTE OF TIME . NOT WORTH TIME TO WRITE THIS . STAY AWAY FROM . SCAM
This piece of crap business, and I hesitate to say business when it is probally some fat slob sitting in front of a computer too lazy to start a real business. This place needs to go, we all don’t have time to be getting fake phone calls while we are trying to work.
trying a whois shows that merchantcircle is hiding behind a network solutions anonymous registration account. Apparently they are too afraid of listing their company details in their whois info, or they are phone spamming so much that keeping that info public is a liability. Complain to network solutions that they are providing anonymous cover to a phone spammer, and they shouldn’t be providing ANY services to a spammer of ANY kind.
Got their “customer left negative feedback, go to our site and enter your number” phone spam today, caller id shows “unknown” and “866-849-3243” as their calling number. Note that when you call a toll-free number, your phone number shows up in their records regardless of whether you block your number during your call or for all of your calls “all-call block”.
That number, once again, 866-849-3243
That number, once again, 866-849-3243
That number, once again, 866-849-3243
That number, once again, 866-849-3243
That number, once again, 866-849-3243
That number, once again, 866-849-3243
So, today is March 13, 2007 and thanks to your site, we chose not to login to merchantcircle. We are on the do not call list, and they still spammed us, so we are reporting them. We suggest all others do the same. If your business is on the do not call list, you can go to the website to file a complaint. Thanks again for all the info! DO NOT SUPPORT THIS SITE BY BEING CURIOUS!!!!
I sensed that this was a scam. I went to the site, found no rating at all (after spooking me with “negative ratings” on my voice mail), and tried to contact them. No email address. No phone number. Even my cell phone’s call back feature didn’t work on them. These people suck…
Our business telephone line just got spammed by these “people”
I hope there is a special place in hell for “people” like these who use deceptive practices.
Our business is not mentioned anywhere on their site and yet their spam telephone call said customers were reporting unfavorably about our business.
Their recorded message violates the FCC TCPA (Telephone Consumers Protection Act) prohibition on the use of recorded or computer generated messages.
Also, they are a telemarker and did not give me a telephone number where I can call to have them remove me from their list – another violation of the TCPA.
We are also on the Federal and state do-no-call lists.
I will be reporting this to everyone possible.
Given the dates of the complaints above, it looks like merchantcircle phone-spammed customers in September and are back at it again in March. Yep, got the same message, knew instantly it was a fishing expedition scam designed to play on the fears of legit business owners who care about their reputation.
Their email address is questions@merchantcircle.com and I’m sending a copy of these blog entries to them so they can see just how much negative buzz they’re creating for themselves on the net. I can’t believe any sort of quasi-legit company would be so dumb as to fail to apprehend the fact that in today’s world nearly everyone uses Google as truth serum. The first thing I did when I got that call was Google their name and this is what came up. Only complete morons would pay a phone-spamming company to foster ill will and bad word-of-mouth about themselves.
Here is a fax number listed for MerchantCircle
Merchant Circle – Mark Hall*
210 Main St., Suite 100 Tel:
Los Altos Fax: 650-917-9972
94022 merchantcircle.com
So Start Faxing them to death!
650-917-9972
Well, they must be at it again. I can’t say it any better than the below quote. I’m wondering if they are calling the regular line or the toll-free line. I don’t think I put the toll-free lines on the no-call list.
“So, today is March 13, 2007 and thanks to your site, we chose not to login to merchantcircle. We are on the do not call list, and they still spammed us, so we are reporting them. We suggest all others do the same. If your business is on the do not call list, you can go to the website to file a complaint. Thanks again for all the info! DO NOT SUPPORT THIS SITE BY BEING CURIOUS!!!”
I too fell for it, however, I am soooo glad I googled first.Never went to their site and am angry and frustrated. Thanks for all the heads up on the issue.
This is such a scam, we are not a business but got this phone call … I did have it removed and used my junk email addy to do it. They had us listed as a company that hasn’t been in business in over 25 years.
Get real, what a farce.
Well, they must be at it again!
This is the second time that I have received their ‘phone message’. The first time, I ordered them to remove my company from their listing. So, too, with this call.
I am a small, private firm with a VERY exclusive client base.
5 months ago, I wrote (above):
“Then I sent Email to their ‘support’ address asking to be added to the MerchantCircle do-not-call list. And after that, I found this here web page and now I suspect my Email will go unanswered.”
Sure enough, we got their pre-recorded phone call again today. Grr.
I just now called the 866 number which Johnny Penguin posted above, and pressed “1” to stop further “messages” from the number I called from. If you don’t hear from me in, say, another 5-6 months, I guess maybe it worked.
Now off to the alexa.com site that Toni Coleman mentioned …
I just got the favorable review message on my phone about 20 minutes ago. Scam detector went off and low and behold what a Google search brings me. I went to their site and did find my company without signing in, but no reviews. Well, since they’re representing me without my permission I clicked on the review link and reviewed my own business. Surprise! We got a great review! I also filed a complaint since we’re on the do not call registry.
I find Ben’s message way up this page about how they’re working out the kinks to be very amusing since here it is, 11 MONTHS later and they’re still practicing the same underhanded business practices.
They told me my company had a favorable review, but there was none there. They also has a google form indicating that
” There were no results for found on Google.com.”
which is odd, since I there are pages of links to my business at listing .. someone shoudl tell google that these folks are lying and misusing google’s name.
Just received a spam call form Merchant Circle. I filed a complaint. My business is on the do not call registry.
Same tale of spam call regarding a favorable review. I think that once you contact the company and give your phone #, that gets around the do not call list by implying that you voluntarily replied to them therefore you’re now a previously contacted client. Clever spam scam.
I have been spammed twice by this company….Merchant Circle. Once they said I got a positive rating and another time a negative rating. I put my phone number in at their site and they say they have no record of my business. They should be put out of business by their dishonest unethical practices. I am going to report them. I have top ratings in my local area in the best magazines. They try to make you paranoid as if they have a superior rating system that people should rely upon.
When you review this blog contact your state’s authorities about them.
August 4, 2007. They are still at it. Got the call yesterday. Same story, positive rating though. Didn’t go to their site, as I smelled a rat,(rats stink when they are dead)Anyway, googled them and found this great site and all you cyber warriors, so thanks, “when life gives you a lemon…….” G-man
These folks keep calling my home phone number. I can’t get rid of them.
Yes, they are definitely “still at it”! I just received the same phone call as everyone else on my voice mail this morning. HOWEVER, I refuse to log on to their website after reading so many of these postings. I WIL NOT give them the satisfaction of thinking that their phone call worked and got me out to their website. I WILL NOT give them another hit. It’s the only way to drive a “business” like this out of business. If you’re like the rest of us, you Googled the company and possibly landed here first. Don’t respond to their website and do your part to help make merchantcircle.com go away! Thanks!
Sunday morning they call me with the “negative review” scam. Glad I googled and found out for sure it’s a scam without going there. How have they stayed in business for this long?