Sem Advance - Further Warning

Hello.

I hoped not to post this, but a well respected user of these forums, Sem-Advance (Sem) has left me little option and I feel it is my duty to warn other users of Digital Point.!

In late January 2008 I entered in to an agreement in GAF(Get A Freelancer) with Sem, he had bid successfully for my following project on GAF

The Job - SEO Guru for Google 1st Page Ranking

Financial based company(Loans) seeking SEO professional. We are currently running successful PPC campaigns on MSN and Yahoo. Our web site is virtually invisible in organic listings. We are looking for a long term relationship with a TRUE SEO PROFESSIONAL who is skilled in all aspects of SEO. Top 10 rankings on the all the main UK search engines, Yahoo and MSN are our main priorities, Google is our ultimate goal. We understand this will be an ongoing project and once the positions have been achieved on the search engines we would like you to please keep us there on a monthly basis. HIGHLY SKILLED SEO PROFESSIONALS WITH A PROVEN TRACK RECORD ONLY PLEASE

Our website:-
Google views the website as being 7 months old
Has a Google Page Ranking of one

Ideally we would like to get listed on all the main search engines for 10-20 highly competitive keywords, such as UK loans, personals loans, but we are also open to recommendations and suggestions.

How long do you think this project would take to complete, when do you think we could achieve a top 10 listing on MSN, Yahoo and Google. What would do you estimate the monthly ongoing costs of maintaining the website position on the top pages of the search engines?

Finally, if you are in a position to bid for this project, what guarantees can you offer us please.
Apologies for the short timescale for your bids, but we are extremely anxious to get this project moving if we can find a good solution.

The fee agreed with Sem for this project was $2,500
My payment terms were as follows:-
50% down payment direct via Paypal to start.

25% after 30 days, balance after 60 days.

Monthly costs($500) would start after 90 days by which time you will see results climbing in rankings.

After approximately 4 months into the project and seeing no improvement in traffic, despite a number of assurances from Clint Dixon, I sent him the following Email:-

Please you give an update on how things are going at your end with SEO
The way I see it, things are not looking very good

I would expected to be seeing a lot more organic traffic by now, but I just get the odd couple of clicks every day if I’m lucky, most are USA requests?
The main source of my traffic is from a Rackspace.com server in Carmel, IN, around 50-60 Clicks a day, but traffic that is of no use to me?(Bots)
At the beginning of our agreement you advised me we would see a climbing in the rankings in 3-4 Months. You took a baseline measurement, has there been any improvement?
At the beginning of last month you advised me I should start to see between 500 & 1000 visitors daily to website, clearly this is not happening?
Virtual Marketing, what are your latest plans on this?
Link Building what are your plans please
DMOZ and other directories what are your plans please
MSN, I have see nothing from this SEO

In summary Clint, I am not seeing any traffic, therefore no business for the website. I need understand what is happening and more importantly when it’s going to happen for the website.

[B]I never heard from Sem again.![/B]

Paid him $3000 and virually got nothing.!

Today I have had my new service provider look at my website and I asked him how much SEO work has been done on my website. The response nothing, pages have the SAME meta tags, which means NO SEO was done on them

Please also look at this thread, it would appear other DP users have also had similar experiences with Sem:-
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=678087&highlight=clint

Should he decide to do the right thing, I will quite happily update this post.

If I suffer a ban because of this thread, so be it, but please be very careful, you have been warned!

Thanks

 

If he never done any work, Why do you pay him the 2nd and 3rd installments?

 

That is a good question....

 

You should take this up with Sem Advance and Get A Freelancer.

I second that -- Good Question.

 

If paid by a credit card, a chargeback via that (and not paypal) will be the fastest route to get anything done. If what you say is true and he really didn't do a single piece of work then he's not likely to respond and give a refund now.

If he done shoddy work then its not really criminal, if he done zero work then its theft or fraud, go the cops? Thats what I'd do here if he didn't do a single thing.

 

If he never done any work, Why do you pay him the 2nd and 3rd installments?

Assured the website would receive hits in around three months, after the website had been SEO crawled, I am not a website or SEO guru.!

You should take this up with Sem Advance and Get A Freelancer.

As I mentioned above, I have Emailed Sem-Advance asking serious questions, received no response, also made a formal complaint to Get A Freelancer, in my view USASEO should not allowed to bid for SEO jobs on GAF.

If he done shoddy work then its not really criminal, if he done zero work then its theft or fraud, go the cops? Thats what I'd do here if he didn't do a single thing.

Few hours work(virtually zero work) at most, cost $3,000, I have also made a formal complaint to Paypal about Clint Dixon, Sem-Advance USASEO or what ever you want to call him.!
I am UK based, he is in the USA and laughing all the way to the bank.!

Guys, many, many thanks for your assistance, any more suggestions would be most welcome?

Please also look at this thread, it would appear other DP users have also had similar experiences with Sem:-

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showt...ighlight=clint

 

I appreciate you didn't expect results before the 2nd/3rd payments, but there is a difference with expecting results and seeing that work had been done. If something has been done, then there are new backlinks or there are changes to your onpage code. I'm sure this is nothing you don't know now, its just another unfortunate thing about learning a lesson the hard way. We all need to get stung like this once, I've had a deal go south before too. The trick is just learn from it and it can't happen again.

 

Thanks again,

My main concern is for other DP users or any other SEO websites, do NOT get scammed by Clint Dixon, Sem-Advance, USASEO or what ever you want to call him.!

He is a conman and a theif

All my statements, are fact not fiction.!

If I receive a DP ban for stating facts, so be it, you have been warned DP users

 

Do you have a contact phone number and have you tried calling him?

 

Yes, I had a ccontact phone number and called to discuss the matter. He was some what surprised when he received my call, but he said he would get on with the SEO work.

Consequently, he did nothing and I did not hear from him again despite my further Emails!

 

Its funny how he continues to post giving people SEO advice but refuses to reply here. I think if it was me and I was innocent then I would definetely be posting my side of the story!

And if its true (which it looks to be) then I'd be too embarrassed to keep posting after ripping people off.

 

Thanks Vic_mackey,

This is exactly my point, it was also raised in the thread I mentioned above.!

Please also take a look at this:-

http://www.complaints.com/2008/july/11/Clint_Dixon_177110.htm

This is not my posting on the website, I assure you, but I think it backs my experience up!

$3,000 & virtually nothing from Sem-Advance, Clint Dixon, USASEO or what ever you guys want to call him

 

GAF has just introduced the following improvements, so if you get scammed as I was by Sem-Advance(Clint Dixon or USASEO) you can make a formal complaint which I have done again today.!

This is the Email I received from GAF today:-

We've made several improvements to GetAFreelancer.com and more are on the way.

Yesterday we implemented these changes:

1. Buyers may report incomplete projects and providers may comment them.

2. Select up to 10 winners on featured projects.

3. We've improved the Buyer/Provider area to easier handle more projects.

4. It's now possible to read old PMs on closed projects.

We hope and think these changes will make many of you happy.

Thank You and Have a Great Week!

GetAFreelancer.com Support
http://www.getafreelancer.com

I do not care if I get banned from DP, I'm just trying to prevent others from being scammed by Sem-Advance and others like him..!

I am advised he is not the only guy on GAF which picks up the cash and walks away without hardly doing anything...!

Many Thanks

 

WWW.COM Was this a new site? or what is the URL?

 

No it was not a new website, it was 9 months old when Sem-Advance first touched it, I will Email you the URL

thanks