I really hope you get your money back too, just like yfs1. It sounds to me like you allowed the budget optimizer to run on your campaign when you were setting it up, causing your problem. Instead of having a go at me, or anyone else that offers anything other than a 'poor you, that's awful' response, why not try being less, um, argumentative, and a little more open to discussion? I mean, it's not like I called you a dickhead or anything, despite what I might think. You asked for more constructive advice. Just because it isn't what you wanted to hear ... The collective experience so far is to believe you made a mistake setting up your new campaign. That's a lot of experience. No-one has ever heard of, nor personally been, in a similar situation.
yfs1 you in Dublin? Knew a few google ones there, wouldnt mind a job with them when I come back...can yee help Ajak all I can say buddy is good luck with your quest, whatever it maybe
There really isn't any "advice" to give to get your money back other than getting a lawyer and filing a lawsuit.
I never asked for or expected sympathy or pity but yeah I do get pissed when people attribute to me statements I did not make & keep insisting I made an error, when I know I didn't, that is a fact. I didn't run the optimizer either. If I had made a mistake I would be the first one to admit it but I am new to this thing & am very cautious & careful, I triple check everything. Why would Google steal $180 from anyone?, that is not the issue, something went wrong in the system & they took advantage of it. Why does anyone do anything?.
Ajak, From what you describe, Google f*cked up, irrespective of what was refunded. Next time, remain aware that anyone can and will stiff you if you don't take precautions. They have refunded your money, and by way of this action admitted that you are not exclusively responsible for what transpired. You do have grounds to proceed if you choose to. Though I wouldn't bother over that amnt. You CAN however have the transaction reversed by your bank. Contact your bank accordingly and request reversal. Do it quickly. If on the other hand, you're a whining git who doesn't want to accept responsibility for a typo, forget the above and go stand in the corner. I hope you're option no 1 Cheers, JL
Kind of a silly stance to claim it is IMPOSSIBLE that you made an error. The most careful people still make an ocassional error. Claiming that it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to have made an error makes it all the more likely that you did, in my opinion. By the way your name is very amusing. What is your sirname?
I feel sorry for you but I don't think there's much worth doing. I have lost occasionally money with very large companies, the max being 133$, but I really don't have the time and energy to go after all those small cock-ups, even when I can easily prove that I am right. And it's not a refund they gave you, that's right, just an easy way of showing some good will, which isn't that bad after all. Of course they could never admit their system to be vulnerable and have to put the blame on you if it's a single case and not a widespread problem. But I tend to believe that it's not their fault even if I am sorry that you got quite a few unnecessarily rough comments. In brief I would use your energy to make up that lost money and not to go after it @ Google. I hope this advice is a tiny little bit more constructive. Good luck for the future! PS: I'm off checking my daily max, just in case....
This is stupid on so many levels. 1) Claims court would cost more time than it's worth. 2) If I was screwed and I mean HONESTLY screwed I'd put a reversal on my credit card, or put in WRITING for a categorized bill including TOS and my signature. You can easily reverse charges, you can easily ask for the contract. WTF does everyone start talking about court? You not signing an affidavit to get your money back or a formal letter to google which IMHO would solve it in a heartbeat makes you sound dishonest or a fool or a combination thereof.
john_loch: I am not a git & am not whining, just letting people know what happened & seeking ideas. Yes in hindsight I should check my Adwords account regularly but was too preoccupied with Adsense earnings. Thanks for info on the transaction reversal. aeiouy: you are silly I never used the word impossible. Let me spell it out, I type $1.00 in the daily budget field then save settings, it displays $1.00 in the field, I assume the budget is now $1.00. If I made an error please tell me where. What!, my net-name is "very funny"?, more funny than aeiouy?, it is an anagram of my initials, go figure. uca: advice appreciated, no need to feel sorry for me though. donttrustthisposter: There are steps which can be taken that dosen't involve court. To all posters who offered useful information, thanks for taking time out from your business to answer my letter.
C'mon, admit it, you're a git -- just kidding I think I know what you did, exactly. I was trying to work it out so I sat with my Adwords account and went through the process of setting up a new campaign, going back and forth through each step. When setting the amount per day, and the amount per click, both boxes are very close to one another, with the amount per day being uppermost. However, both boxes are virtually identical and it could be that you entered 1.00 per click and left the amount per day box blank. VERY easily missed if this were the case, even if double and triple checking.
No please, I set CPC at $0.05. I also did a dummy run just to check myself & I didn't make a mistake. You can see what's happening right in front of you & $1,860.00 would stick out like a sore thumb, especially to a cheapskate like me.
Hmmm.... First, Ajak, as a fellow "Peon" to this forum, I don't think you are making any friends here. I have read a lot of posts in here and this seems like a great group. People will help you when they can, but don't call them names or be rude. Second, August 2005 was right around the same time I was setting up a bunch of Google Adwords. I actually saved one of their recommendations. Nearly all of them were way off base just like the one below. I think they were having a system glitch. Set your daily budget Your daily budget is the amount you're willing to spend on a specific campaign each day and can be changed as often as you like. We make your daily budget recommendation based on several factors, such as historical click data for the same or similar keywords as yours and your targeting options. We suggest: $690.00 Estimates for this daily budget: $4,830.00 cost per week; $20,700.00 cost per month. Enter your own daily budget: $ Ajak might actually be right. I always selected my own budget, not the recommended, but if they were having glitches like the one above, who knows???
Thanks for the info, it was never my intention to be rude but I was experiencing hostility & had to defend myself. I contacted the credit card company & they said they would mediate with Google. Yes I agree this is a good forum.
Did they deliver visitors at $0.05? If so you got some high quality traffic for next to nothing. Also, I never consider my account to be a big thought in a multi-billion corporation. Would they have a couple of $120k per year developers figure out how to nab my $100? I do believe they are focused on making it easy for me to spend tens, hundreds or thousands of dollars per day and for it to be profitable for me.
Ajak I support you and understand your concern. These other people in this forum who are ridiculing you have probably never been screwed by Google. They are naive enough to believe that the almighty God Google is incapable of making an error. The bottom line is that Google is a corporation run by humans and humans screw up, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. What most people in this forum don't ask themselves is if Google did do this on purpose, what would they expect us small webmasters to do about it? The answer is nothing, because they are a big bad corporation and they probably think they can get away with whatever they want. I like Google, but they are not omnipotent. I wish you well in your battle Ajak. But you can see the power of corporations in our world today. My best advice to you is not to rely soley on Google in the future to generate wealth from your site. I don't know about you or anyone else in this forum, but I didn't leave my job at a big Corporation where I was controlled to turn around and be controlled by another one. It is scary when we live in a society where it seems whenever their is a dispute between a customer and corporation, the customer is automatically seen to be at fault. I used to remember the old saying of the "customer is always right." I guess that no longer applies to today's world.