$7,000 bogus overbilling

Not a nice thing to see

[coachm]

Just logged in and noticed my bank is telling me of two huge charges, which adwords made to my credit card. Checked adwords, and it shows two charges totalling approximately $7,000 for an ad campaign that has been deleted, and whose adgroups contain NO ads, and NO keywords.

I'm not pleased. I sent off a note to adwords, and I guess I'll give them until tomorrow to respond before calling my credit card company. I know google has a habit of refusing to do business if you dispute charges, but this is nuts.

I don't know if it's a hacked account or what, but I'm certainly NOT happy.

Suggestions?

[xurxo]

There have been a few phishing emails going around lately asking people to click on a link within the email to update their account but of course the link is bogus and the account ends up being hijacked.

Not sure this is what happened here, but I would also get in touch with your credit card company to do a chargeback given that this seems to be either a major error or some form of fraud.

Maybe give Google a day or two to look into things further for you before doing that since they usually have a good response time to these type of inquiries.

[coachm]

Thanks. Here's the summary. I emailed google, and then took a longshot to see if I could find an adwords phone number. googled it, and tried the toll free and immediately got a person answering who was very helpful.

It's clear someone hacked something. It was not a result of phishing, since I don't click on unfamiliar links and always check anything to see where links actually go.

They will investigate, and I was told it could take up to two weeks, at which time they would do "something". Of course I don't want ad credit since it would take me years to use up a 7,000 ad credit. Nothing except a complete refund to my credit card would be ok.

So, the upshot is, I'll wait until tomorrow, then call my credit card company and explain, and see if I can hold off disputing the charge until I hear from google.

However, going through the cc company is the only way I can guarantee I won't have a bill I can't pay.

I mentioned this to the google customer service rep, and she indicated that disputing a charge would probably result in my adwords account being closed, but that I could open a new one, though I'd lose my data and quality scores.

So, that's where it sits, if anyone else happens to have this occur.

I can't complain about google's response at this point.

[xurxo]

Sorry to hear about the situation. I really hope that Google can clear this up for you because it really isn't fair to have to lose your QS because of a fraud that you didn't commit.

Keep us posted on how things end up.

[coachm]

I'm fairly confident this will be resolved by google properly and fairly, but I did some what if scenarios, and realize that if google wants the money, there is not anything I can do about it.

Even if I was to dispute the charge, and it was upheld by the cc company, all google has to do (and I suspect they would if they felt I owed them that kind of money) would be to use my adsense money to offset the "debt". Which would leave me with a choice, which would be to no longer use adsense (losing the income forever) or continue, until the "debt" got cleared.

In this case, it's so obvious that I didn't run up those charges or receive an; benefit that I can't imagine google would not do the refund.

The thing that scares me is if they offer ad credits.

Anyway, now I wait, and check all computer security issues and such.

[netmeg]

I'm pretty sure they'll refund you. I've had issues on behalf of my clients over the years where they've issued refunds (not a hacked account, but that's been happening so often lately they must already be used to it)

I'm also reasonably sure they would not take the money out of your AdSense - they maintain a certain separation there for a reason.

[coachm]

Just that I'd report back. Google did an outstanding job responding. They did an investigation, which they said could take as long as several weeks, and got back to me much sooner.

They'll be refunding. Congrats and thanks to the google adwords people.

[xurxo]

Glad to hear it ended well. Nice to see that the adwords team continues to be on the ball with such things as well!