This comes up every once and a while, but I wanted to review a specific company, AllWedding.com that I have been having some "discussions" with as of late.

5 star based review with categories is at the bottom for those wanting to cut to the chase.


Having said that, the substance of my discussion centers around their business practices which are buried in the TOS, which, had I really paid attention to before clicking, would have saved me $40. Yes that isnt' a lot of money. But when my ad budget is only a decimal plus a bit off of that, ads up to a significant portion of my ad purchasing.

Their policies leave you essentially helpless in the following scenarios:
-You must deposit $30 to open an account, and use it or not, that money is theirs forever. No refunds ever.
-When you purchase a lead, you cannot get your money if:
--the email bounces back (for any reason including non-existent email, full in-box, incorrect domain, etc).
--leads are more than 2 days old when you seek a refund
-You want to cancel and take your ad money somewhere else.

In all the above cases, they keep your money.

The other main catch is there is NO automatic way to have them NOT take money from your account every month to "replenish" your account (if you are lucky enough to actually receive any leads). You must manually write in and have them remove you from auto billing in order to actually deplete your account.

Regarding leads I have actually received from this company, I should say that I booked a wedding from a referral from Travis here on DVInfo, and I also received a lead for that same event (or one on the same day using a similar name). But I only ever heard back from the client when the client called me as a direct result of the referral, and not as a result of my contacts to the client via the lead info. Not sure what is up with that.

I did receive 1 out of the 3 total leads that was a real honest to goodness, real phone number that actually rang, and client replied to my phone calls...... lead. Still working on that one. That lead cost me $10 apparently for a "just price shopping" lead (which is almost totally worthless). I've had Russian Dating SPAM messages than promised more action than the leads from this site.

In any case. I'm sure I'm not the only one hunting for leads and getting a bit desperate to fill up the winter famine after the summer feast (of a minimal sort). So buyer be ware.

You could read the towering TOS to figure out what you are getting in to, but I suggest a quick search on DVInfo for a better way to find out the reputation of the company.

My review of the AllWedding.com Leads website is as follows on a 0 to 5 scale:

Speed of Customer Service / Support: 5 of 5 (very fast.... not much biz?)
Customer Friendly TOS: 0 of 5
Quality of Leads: 3 of 5
Billing Practice: 1 of 5 (essentially everything is non-refundable)
Price Of Leads: 1 of 5 (very pricey... 1% of customer's listed budget for a lead!)
Account Admin Simplicity: 4 of 5 (they do have a easy to use interface)
Account Admin Power: 3 of 5 (not the most powerful of site's I've used)

Compared to other Lead Sites: 2.5 of 5
I have used about as many lead based sites as exist and this isn't any better or worse than most. Their billing practice / TOS are not vendor friendly, but the quality of leads might be better than many.

But really, $40 is throw-away money. Especially compared to the cost of video gear (and also the cost of doing business).

Andrew

True. The problem occurs when this pattern is repeated for 10 different leads / directory sites (yes I've used that many). I've spent several hundred on these kinds of sites just in the last year. So my total starts running into almost the cost of a booth at a wedding show!

I have to say, I don't see much sense in using an online service to get business leads for wedding videography. Generally speaking, with just a few notable exceptions, wedding videography serves a *local* market. Sure you need a web site, but when it comes to advertising and getting leads, you should be acting locally. When I did wedding video, our company did plenty of business from a simple Yellow Pages ad and referrals from local wedding photographers. I just don't see the need for an online service like that. Go online, sure, but follow your local market by networking online with other local businesses.

Nothing beats a human referral.

Nothing beats a human referral

absolutely. I need to work on other vendor networking because I haven't had any referral bookings from non-video businesses in my area (aka someone besides Travis C.).

Hunt down your local wedding photographers and develop a good working relationship with
them. They were crucial to our company's success with wedding video back in the day.

I have to say, I don't see much sense in using an online service to get business leads for wedding videography. Generally speaking, with just a few notable exceptions, wedding videography serves a *local* market. Sure you need a web site, but when it comes to advertising and getting leads, you should be acting locally. When I did wedding video, our company did plenty of business from a simple Yellow Pages ad and referrals from local wedding photographers. I just don't see the need for an online service like that. Go online, sure, but follow your local market by networking online with other local businesses.

The reason to do it sometimes is that these 'lead companies' show up at the top of the natural listings on Google, so it's a good way to gain that exposure.

That said, I completely agree with Jason on this company. They have been a complete bust for me and once I discovered that they automatically renew my account by charging my card (something that is in the TOS but is definitely not clearly defined up front), I was done with them.

Also, after receiving obvious fraud leads I can't say I trust this company's business practices either.

...No refunds ever...
--the email bounces back (for any reason including non-existent email, full in-box, incorrect domain, etc).
--leads are more than 2 days old when you seek a refund
-You want to cancel and take your ad money somewhere else.

In all the above cases, they keep your money...
Jason, They will refund your money if it's a dead lead. It is a very convoluted process to get the refund though. Here are the tips I would recommend to you.

1) lower your bid amount to around $4. The leads they send you aren't that good anyway, so why pay the higher rate per bid.
2) Turn off automated bid acceptance. Screen to get only the clients you really want.
3) VERY IMPORTANT- use the tracking system they have in place in the admin for any bids you do buy. It is the key to getting a refund.

How to get refunded on dead bids. If the number doesn't answer and there is no reply to emails sent to lead, in the admin under the bid detail section is an email link for getting refunds. You will have to go rounds with them but they will refund your bid. Especially if they see that you have tracked contacts attempts in their system. The refund goes to your account with them though so you have to stay on top of it.

CH - I agree with you about the networking. By far that is the best method, but Travis brings up a good point. These types of sites have established themselves as hubs in googles organic searches and generally speaking a google search for wedding anything combined with a city/state in the US will deliver hits across their network long before they hit our sites. Companies like AllWedding, Decidio, WeDJ, weddingplanners, partyplanners, and a few others take up the first page or so of result pages. If you aren't in the list and don't have the network locally then this can really hinder you in organic web searches.

I have used AllWedding for 2 yrs now and have NEVER recieved a lead that resulted in a job. The only one I can verify, called me directly before her lead was emailed to me. But I have gotten a few calls because I list with them.

1) lower your bid amount to around $4. The leads they send you aren't that good anyway, so why pay the higher rate per bid.

Oh I had my limit set to $4 (which is astronomically high for the quality of leads now days any way). $1 is more like it .... at most.

I think what happened is they reset the lead price setting, or possibly a few leads hit at the same time, but I obviously forgot to contest the lead IMMEDIATELY.

2) Turn off automated bid acceptance. Screen to get only the clients you really want.

Oh that was top on my list to reconfigure when I signed up.

3) VERY IMPORTANT- use the tracking system they have in place in the admin for any bids you do buy. It is the key to getting a refund.

That is for sure. I think I made the mistake of buying the lead and not calling OMG IMMEDIATELY! Besides, I do try to give someone more than a few days to respond to my email / phone calls. Not everyone lives online like I do and sees emails immediately (unless the spam folders snags them that is).

It is incredibly annoying that these companies steal the top page of search placements in Google, yet contain nothing but leads. Unfortunately a lot of these sites rely on something called linkbacks which are usually required in their TOS, so that your site has a link pointing to them. That makes Google think the site is important. I'm pretty much ready to yank all my link backs because I am sick of these sites under performing compared to Google organic results. Somehow I have enough exposure in Google to still get organic searches and clicks so hopefully that will continue.

I should also say that the single biggest referrer on to my site is DVInfo.net. I get 30% of my visitors from here. So either all of ya'll are constantly clicking my sig and checking out my site, or else clients are. In any case, DVInfo is the single biggest assistance to my pagerank.

Another point that I forgot to mention is that they sell each bid to up to 5 vendors and one of those 5 gets 3 days head start on the other four by being the "preferred" vendor. So by the time the lead gets your contact you could be 3 days behind someone else or lost in the flow of the other 4 videographers you are competing with.

The linkbacks do have an unfortunate impact on the organic search results. If you search my company name, DV info does get the top hits usually, followed by a mix of my pages and the hubs we link exchange with.

The reason to do it sometimes is that these 'lead companies' show up at the top of the natural listings on Google, so it's a good way to gain that exposure.

I should also say that the single biggest referrer on to my site is DVInfo.net. I get 30% of my visitors from here. So either all of ya'll are constantly clicking my sig and checking out my site, or else clients are. In any case, DVInfo is the single biggest assistance to my pagerank.

It's important to understand that Google *loves* DV Info Net -- a lot. DV Info Net is extremely well placed on Google. New posts are indexed immediately and we have a knack not only for page one returns but also the very top of page one returns. I'm willing to bet that DV Info Net can beat out any of these lead sites for refferals.

You guys can take immediate advantage of DV Info Net's excellent Google positioning by filling out your profile page and your signature fields. The guidelines for signatures on this site are that they can't be used to pitch goods and services to *fellow forum members* (for that you need a marketing agreement from me), but I encourage you to use your forum signature as a calling card for potential customers. Try adding "Wedding Videographer" or "Wedding Filmmaker" to your sig and see what happens. Be sure to fill out your profile here by going to http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/usercp.php and adding a link to your site. I've been wanting to improve our member profile pages so there may be more room to grow DV Info Net's referral power.

I have never asked anyone to link back to DV Info Net, not because I don't need links, but because I never felt very comfortable asking for them. However here's how it can directly benefit you to do so: by linking back to DV Info Net, you help to increase this site's page rank and visibility, and in turn this helps you because there's a link here going back to your site. The higher up you push DV Info Net, the greater the visibility of your links going back to your own site.

I could never really reconcile asking for link-backs until I realized that it's *mutually* beneficial for everyone. Anyway, I'll say it again, DV Info Net can go toe-to-toe with any of those paid referral sites and I'm ready to prove it.

It's important to understand that Google *loves* DV Info Net -- a lot. DV Info Net is extremely well placed on Google. New posts are indexed immediately and we have a knack not only for page one returns but also the very top of page one returns. I'm willing to bet that DV Info Net can beat out any of these lead sites for referrals.

Absolutely. IT is funny because I have a google alert set up for my name and any time I post a new thread or respond to a thread I haven't yet touched, then the google alert comes back in a few minutes.

DV Info Net can go toe-to-toe with any of those paid referral sites and I'm ready to prove it.

I don't see DVInfo show up for wedding related searches, which unfortunately is much of what I am looking for. When I do a search for wedding videography, DVInfo is no where to be seen because all the directory / link farm sites grab that term.

I would love to see google use DVInfo for that phrase (and related phrase) but of course I would also want to have a private section so I can post industry & business questions with out being afraid of potential customers ( or competition that hasn't already caught on to DVI) reading and snooping on me.

And the company posts another unauthorized transaction to my card. I am about ready to block all transactions from this company at my credit card (if that is possible).

You should already be able to 'bounce' any unauthorised transactions as it is. Just take it up with the credit card company.

Andrew
(Disclaimer: I don't own and never will have a credit card.)

Hi All

I think you have it better there!! I'm with a company called "serviceseeking" who invite clients to post their "job" in a category and then vendors can submit a quote. They classify the job as big, medium or small and attach a quotation fee of 5, 10 or 15 credits to each job!! 1 credit is $1 BUT you can only purchase "credits" in multiples of $50.00!!!

Details of jobs are sketchy to say the least and are often confusing!! "I need photos and video for my wedding" No times, no dates and if you want more you have to quote and cannot contact the client until they have accepted your quote!!! You really don't know whether you are quoting for 2 hours or 10 hours!!! When I approached them all they could say is that they would refund my credits if the customer didn't specify a date and I was booked on that day.

However I do actively have a listing with a couple of wedding directories which puts me on the first page of Google (well, the directory, not me specifically) but at least clients will click the link are have a choice of a dozen videographers(with myself amongst them)

As Chris Hurd says, DVInfo is highly ranked in Google and also many other forums too!!! Google seems to be very quick to index forum posts and I often will find posts from myself on Google a day after they are made. Hmmm maybe that's the way to advertise??? Just have a dummy forum that Google will pounce on!!!!

Chris

I just posted that AllWedding.com started a monthly debit to my account. I received the following terms reply from this company:

This is your subscription fee for the leads account. This is explained during signup.

Which is of course NOT explained at signup, and is NOT present in their TOS. I pointed this out after actually reading all 5 pages of their TOS, and performing several searches for key words to find any text I might have glossed over as my eyes entered a legalese induced coma. And there is no such language in their contract.

I said as much in a followup email to them (more on this at the end).

AllWedding.com simply did it because they thought they could get away with it. And of course, their policy of refilling your account back to $30 at the end of the month automatically means that the subscription fee they just hit you with is non-refundable (because all automatic payments to them are non-refundable).

So I will say it again.... do not contemplate doing business with this company. They will steal your money if they can and have already proven to me that they are willing to simply initiate automatic debit transactions against your bank account with no warning, just to see if they can get away with it.

I am filling out a complaint for the local MD office of the BBB with this company.

Now, in a small bit of refreshing news, I just got a followup email to my rebuttal of Allweddingcompanies.com crooked practice. This email claims that they have refunded the most recent charge though my bank has yet to verify this claim.

In any case, I took the drastic measure of reporting this to my bank and canceling the debit card and having a new one re-issued since I can't trust ANYTHING this company says.

Ouch. Sorry you had such a rotten experience, Jason and thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have taken to monitoring my interactions with them much more closely since your postings. Thanks.

Ouch. Sorry you had such a rotten experience, Jason and thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have taken to monitoring my interactions with them much more closely since your postings. Thanks.

Note that participation with this company means you are automatically agreeing to a monthly subscription service, even though their TOS never says so. So if you want their leads, you have to pay a $6 / month fee even if you get no leads and don't buy any existing leads. This is not mentioned in their TOS at all.

Also note that the company AllWedding.com / AllWeddingCompanies.com is the same company as LocalExperts.com, so participation with that company is also likely to be filled with fraudulent charges and hidden fees.

AllWedding.com appears to be the parent company for ALL of the following domain names on the same server (virtually all of them wedding, or event business related). This information available via the public DNS system using a reverse DNS query available on the web site WHOIS & Reverse IP Service (http://whois.webhosting.info/66.117.56.23).

edit: I removed the list of domains so that this company would not receive links or even any references from DVInfo.net. Click the link above to find out if a company you do business with is a shell company for AllWedding.com

ok even more information. The previous list of 33 domain names are just the domains listed on one of their two servers. They also have 208 domains hosted on their other server. (http://whois.webhosting.info/66.117.56.21)

I initially posted them, but I deleted them from this post so as not to gain more attention to themself. Just go to the above link to find out of a company you do business with is a shell company for AllWedding.com

Jason, that's very useful information. The fact that a company would have that many web identities tells you everything you need to know about their business ethics. They are trying to build an automatic money machine with actual customer service having nothing to do with their "business".

They look like they have the morals of a domain squatter.

Andrew

Nothing beats a human referral.

I agree with this view in principle with the one codocil that the referee usually expects the same price as the referrer got. When that's two years back the difference can be 2-300 UKL.

As far as paying for leads is concerned, I'd rather spend the money getting our site high in the natural listings. We're currently on P1/2 on Google for most of our keywords and we're constantly reviewing the detail on the site and regularly (not over frequently of course) submitting to the search engines.