Scams for leads in the news again.

Housing Zone sent me this link today regarding yet another lead scam that has been going around. Fellow contractors, beware.
http://www.housingzone.com/human-resources/bbb-advises-contractors-avoid-firms-charge-99-advance-fee-job-leads
  5 answers
  • Good call Woodbridge. I just received a call the other day from somebody wanting to sell me leads. No idea on the legitimacy of that particular company, but I declined either way. Has anybody out there had any positive experiences with job lead services?
  • Many years ago, mid 90's I hooked up with Service Magic. At that time the leads that came in were great. Overtime as this company grew so did their lead costs and the quality of the people who logged on to ask about having a quote. I found early 2000 or so that the profile of the people who were asking for prices were tire kickers at the very best. I learned a lot about who to call and what leads not to take just from the information or time when the lead came in. Often times leads came in later in the evening when most people would not be on the internet. It turned out these were the worst leads to accept. Most said they were not interested at all and hung up. Many said they thought they would get a quote over the internet by filling out the form. None knew that we paid to get their names and could care less that we had to pay upwards to $25 every time they clicked on send. I quit SM and got involved with Contractors.com. I was impressed with the method of their lead program. So much so I began to work with them as a contact point in the tri state area. Well the promises they made about being associated with several TV home repair sites did not happen and the costs involved went through the roof. Needless to say I not only stopped selling the lead program with them, I canceled my subscription with them as well. The one thing I did learn when I was working with them was. They took three old day leads and sold them to a re-seller who then sold them to other sites that sold leads. How many of these have you called only to find out they already had someone? That was a resale lead. I know this first hand as I monitored the leads as they came in and within three days later got the same lead from another lead generation company. These programs work well in areas where there is not a lot of competition. But as soon as many people get involved in your particular industry its a cat and mouse game to get the good lead and end up with the job.
  • SawHorse Design Build SawHorse Design Build on Jan 21, 2012
    Thanks for sharing WE! The only leads we ever paid for we specialty leads like geothermal HVAC or solar. I agree with WE- they rest of the leads are very low quality. Instead of putting $$ into lead generation on other sites, we just made our site better so it would show up at the top in searches. Check out our new design- it still needs some work, but the new format is less dated- www.sawhorse.net
  • Very informative there Woodbridge, especially about the reseller part. Never even thought of that but it certainly makes sense.
  • I never knew about the reseller part. We worked with Servicemagic for many years and discarded them a few years ago. As Woodbridge mentioned, the leads were initially very good but then we discovered that one siding leads...we were one of 10 who bought the lead at $75...or we would get leads from someone "thinking" about buying a house and then have to fight them for a refund. I've heard quite alot about companies offering leads for bank work...and most of it is nonsense. We've been gradually rebuilding HandyANDY on word of mouth & the internet. Thanks for sharing!