I am with the Google Adwords program in the Netherlands. Early 2007 I decided to stop advertising with Adwords. In your account there is the refund button. They promise to pay you back your money in 4 weeks. Well, nothing happened. So I mailed them and they asked me to start the refund process again. But after 4 weeks nothing happened. Then they asked me to give them my bank account number again. They promised they would pay me soon. After 4 weeks, again nothing happened. Etcetera.
I have been communicating with the Adwords team for many months now. Every time I am contacted by a different Adwords employee. Each one of them promises me to pay me back money soon. But they just don't.
After 8 months of asking and begging them to pay me back my money, I am very close to a point that I don't believe anymore that they are incompetent. I never thought I would think this of Google, but I am now affraid I am the victim of common thieves. Is it possible that a local branch of Google Adwords is corrupted?
Anyone else out there who feels he or she is swindled by the Adwords team? What would your advise be?
[edited by: DutchChris at 10:01 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2007]
I am sure there are folks that are using pre-paid scenario, like agencies and companies running their accounts themselves, but not sure how many of them are actively participate in this thread of WebmasterWorld.
I wasn’t even aware of “refund” button. Man, I wish I had one. ;)
Sorry for a little joke. 8 months is absolutely unacceptable. Maybe AWA can help, at least to shed some light onto your situation.
Finally, many people that read this thread are from the US, and there is quite long weekend (holiday) going on right now.
Thanks for your reply.
In many European countries using creditcards is not a common way of making business payments. When I started using Adwords, I think using a creditcard wasn't even an option yet. So I pay Adwords pre-paid.
Last year my keywords became more expensive every week. No matter what I tried, using Adwords was no longer profitable. So I decided to cancel my Adwords account in 2007. However, there still was $#*$!X in my account.
In the 'My Account' tab there is a sub-tab 'Account Preferences'
There you can find a link called 'requesting a refund'.
By clicking that link Google starts the process of paying back the money left in your account. They say it might take 6-8 weeks before you have your money back. I think that is ridiculously long, but I thought, if that is the procedure, OK. As long as I get the money back that belongs to me.
But right now I fear they have the intention to steal my money.
They promise me all the time my money will be paid back soon.
And every time I contact them they ask me the same questions over and over again (what is your address, what is your bank account number, what is the name of your bank). I have supplied them with all the information they asked many times. But after 8 months, they still haven't paid me back my cash.
But right now I fear they have the intention to steal my money.
I can assure you that intent is not to steal your money - although I'm certainly sorry that you've been left with that feeling.
They promise me all the time my money will be paid back soon. And every time I contact them they ask me the same questions over and over again (what is your address, what is your bank account number, what is the name of your bank). I have supplied them with all the information they asked many times.
This leads me to believe that you are somehow essentially starting the process over, again and again, with different people - rather than working with someone who has already contacted you.
At this point (and in general) I think the best thing to do is to reply directly to an email from AdWords support on this subject which has recently been sent to you: when you do this, it will reach the same person who sent it.
Then when they reply, you would reply directly to that email and so forth - thereby allowing you to work with the same person through to resolution.
I can't explain the experience you have had, and I am certainly sorry that it has dragged on for so long.
AWA
<edit> fixed typo </edit>
[edited by: AdWordsAdvisor at 11:05 pm (utc) on Nov. 26, 2007]
AdwordsAdvisor, I indeed reply to every mail the Adwords team sends me, even if I have nothing else to say than just begging them to pay me back my money.
I can not judge if I am repeating the same process over and over again with different people. Because sometimes the Adwords team doesn't sign their messages with a proper name. I do know that 4 e-mails (out of XX) from the Adwords team that I received for the past few months were signed with the same (dutch) name. Many messages have about the same content and read like "I can assure you we are doing everything we can to pay you back your money."
Although I don't go broke because of this, this is a fundamental issue. Google has my money and they have promised me to pay me back numerous times. But in the meanwhile they don't explain to me what they are doing, they ignore most of my questions, they send me the same canned answers over and over again, they ask me the same questions over and over again and they don't pay me back my money. And because of their extremeley poor way of communicating, I don't even have a start of a clue about what is causing this problem.
Never before in my life have I been treated in such an insulting an incompetent manner as by the Dutch Google Adwords team.
Therefore I repeat my question. Is there anyone out there who has the same problem: The Google Adwords team not paying back the money that belongs to you. If there are more 'victims' of the Google Adwords team we could join and start some legal thing against them.
[edited by: DutchChris at 7:05 pm (utc) on Dec. 11, 2007]
