I started my first AdWords campaign ( http://www.backpainoff.com ) beginning August 2005, I set the daily budget at $1.00 as I was expecting to make between $1.00 to $3.00 per day. For the first few days there was hardly any revenue, then earnings started to climb till near the end of August It reached $9.00 per day. By the end of August it leveled of at $2.00 to $3.00 per day. Beginning September I decided to start a new campaign ( http://www.dynamata.com ), it was then I discovered my daily budget had been changed to $1,860.00 / day!. I phoned Google customer service & explained what had happened, their initial response was "no-one at Google would ever enter a members account and change anything", which was odd as I made no such accusation. She suggested that I had made a typo or entered the figure in the wrong box, I assured her that I had done nothing of the sort as I took great care when filling out forms, speculating that maybe it was a bug or glitch in Google's system. In any case it is unreasonable to suggest that someone typing 1.00 into a box would accidentally type 1,860.00 & not notice the error. She confirmed that I now owed Google $180 & said she would pass on my complaint. The following day I received this email from Google: "I spoke with our payments team regarding the daily budget that you set on your Campaign, 'Back Pain Off' of $1,860.00. We looked into this issue further, and see that although you were unaware that you set this budget, this was not a glitch in the system but something that was accidentally set, perhaps as a typo when you created the campaign. As a one-time courtesy credit, I can offer you a credit of $139.07 towards your Google AdWords account. During the time your budget was this high, you accrued $278.14 in charges, as we discussed." I accepted the credit with the understanding that when my account is adjusted, I would not be in debt to Google. I also stated that the entry was no accident because when filling out forms I am extremely careful, especially when it involves finance, scanning all entries at least 3 times. An error of this magnitude is unfeasible & hypothetically speaking would be spotted even in a cursory scan. Ruling out system error, the entry must have been made deliberately, possibly by a hacker, one can only speculate as to the motive. I then received these comments from Adwords: "I wish to apologise for any inconvenience you may have experienced while advertising with Google AdWords. I would like to thank you for your patience and inform you that I have credited $139.07 to your account. This amount appears in negative U.S. Dollars on your Billing Summary under the 'My Account' tab. To clarify, you are now currently not in debt to Google and there are funds of $139.07 credited to your account. I see that your 'Dynamata' Campaign is active and your daily budget is currently set at $1.00." "I will now address your concern regarding your account possibly being accessed by another person. This programme is designed to give you the power to manage all aspects of your account for maximum performance and the security of Google AdWords advertisers is a top priority for Google. We dedicate a number of resources to protecting accounts from being accessed by anyone other than the person with the password for their account. Also please note that AdWords specialists are not able to edit your account in any way due to security and account integrity reasons." Adwords deducted £160 ($288) from my credit card, it turns out that the credit of $139 was not refunded to my bank account but was just a credit to buy services from Adwords. I emailed Google asking them why they had charged me for something I had not done, I asked them to refund my money, to date I have received no reply. Google has charged me for something I have not done, no system is 100% foolproof & even the most secure computer system can be hacked. The bottom line is I did not set a daily budget of $1,860.00, when my profits are deducted, I am out of pocket to the tune of £100 ($180). Right from the beginning Google's response has been condescending & patronizing bordering on sarcasm, their attitude seems to be that they are above reproach & they can take your money just because of who they are. Where are the checks & balances?, if they can get away with doing this to me, they can do it to others with impunity & profit from it. Is there any organization that can help me recover my money from Google?. Has anyone else had a similar experience?.
thats odd... never heard of such a thing. Course you did post a adwords issue in the adsense forum so your off to a slow start
Boo hoo hoo you lost a whole $180..cmon don't be a crybaby Some people lose alot more than that yet you are acting like a weenie And if it really that bad just cancel your creditcard. Presto no more charges. Or stop using adsowrds.
After reading your post I can understand that you are very angry, even angry enough to post in the wrong topic . But the thing is, you can't do alot about it because the amount of money you lost really isn't worth going to trial or something. So maybe use your anger to make even better websites so you can make enough profit to forget this bad experience.
Sounds to me like you accidently allowed the amount to be automatically set when you were setting up the new campaign. Easy done, heh! You should be praising Google for giving you some leeway and a $139 credit to your Adwords account, not slagging them off for billing you. Man, that's $139 dollars of free Adwords, which at the rate you set ($1 per day) should last you about 4 months. Get a grip.
I would appreciate some constructive advice, $180 is a lot of money to me, anyway theft is theft no matter what the amount. If you read the post you will see my statement that I did not make an incorrect entry. I will take action against Google, I am not going to make it easy for them.
What do you need advice about? If you are going to take action against Google, you should do it rather than posting complaints in a forum that Google has no affiliation with.
Not exactly theft, and I'm pretty sure if you look within adwords TOS you'll see they are doing just what is stated as the appropriate response. That said this is another wake-up call for anyone who doesn't check their adwords account daily. Live and learn I guess, but I wouldn't be TOO upset as you would probably use that money in adwords anyway.
What type of constructive advice do you need? Let it go? Don't waste your time and effort with a mistake? You got a refund, what else do you want? Anyone who has set up an Adwords campaign knows how easy it can be to let the automatic settings run, which usually produces some enormous daily figure. According to you, you did not make an incorrect entry. According to my experience, that's exactly what you did. Yet you blame Google, hackers, corrupt staff, and anything else. Accept responsibility for your error, or at least consider it a possibility and count yourself lucky you got a refund!
Listen mcfox if you read the post, you will see I never blamed Google staff or called them corrupt & the hacker theory is speculative in view of the fact that Google claims their system is foolproof. Stop trying to make me out to be wrong, I did not make a mistake, I typed $1.00 in the box not $1,860.00, notice the difference?. I don't want Google giving me back my own money as credit so I can give it back to them, by constructive advice I mean how I can take action against Google to recover my money. Do you work for Google?, sounds like you do.
Keep us posted on your lawsuit. You do know you have to file it in California don't you? I just don't see the huge issue if they refunded your money. It is actually possible you typed in the wrong amount. You can't base a lawsuit off of "I know I typed it in"
It looks like the other one: I clicked like crazy on my own ads, help me or else. I understand that loosing money it's always a pain. But look at the point why would Google steal $180 from anyone? When I started with Google I set a daily budget of $10.00 When I verified everything it was $1,000 - was Google trying to steal my money or just me who typed 1000 instead of 10.00? Also by experience, if you count on $1 or $10 daily spending, save your money to spend it on other form of advertising. Even at $0.05 cost per click, you get 20 clicks per day, that's nothing and you sales will stick at 0. In my niche market, we see sales coming around 300 clicks/day. It's why now we (try to) focus on natural search rather than PPC unless it's a special and we get some $100+ per sale.
yfs1 you obviously can't read either, Google didn't refund, they put a credit on my account & I am still short £100 ($180). I never mentioned a lawsuit, there are other ways to take action, read my lips, I typed $1.00 that is ONE DOLLAR. Perhaps you are another Google employee.
Yes I am a Google Employee If this thread is any indication of your communication with them, its no wonder they gave you the reception they did