Comments on: Merchant Circle Can Kiss My Consumer Ass

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:19:59 +0000

I myself have had a couple of reviews deleted from them. What makes it so frustrating is that it was for a business with terrible customer service and I wanted to warn others of them. Little did I know that my honest review would be deleted. Tried again, deleted again.

I will never even go to Merchant Circle again except to warn others of this business every few months (as my review keeps getting deleted).

Thanks for writing this article, Rae. Its great to see that its on the front page after typing “Merchant Circle” on Google. I’m so you already do this, but don’t take the criticism heavily. The person who wrote before me must not have noticed that this article is two and a half years old, and it sort of makes their point quite idiotic.

By: Rae Hoffman

Rae Hoffman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:10:43 +0000

Nope Aedan, I’ve got no problem with letting you show anyone who comes across this post that you’re an asshat :) Thanks for taking a break from second life to share tho! Cheers.

By: Aedan Beaumont

Aedan Beaumont — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:27:53 +0000

Waaaaa… crybaby bloggers. Who are you promoting? Merchant Circle is just another business listing site to help small businesses get exposure and it works just fine. It’s another tool for businesses that can not afford high priced SEO consultants. Go back to bitchland where the only rank you pull is from in your shorts. You will probably delete this post anyway. Oh No! That’s what you’re bitching about!

By: Daniel Mangru

Daniel Mangru — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:26:35 +0000

This article was written on March 2007. Visiting the current version of MC, i’ve seen that it does give merchants more options for promotion and such. Do you have an updated viewpoint of MC now that it’s 2 years later? Just curious as to what you think now.

Thanks.

Daniel

By: Joe Deasy

Joe Deasy — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:15:07 +0000

You cant trust “reviews” from any website, because so many of them are bogus. I admit I’m biased because I’ve also had competitors spreading lies via on-line “reviews”. Because of that, I dont have a big issue with businesses being able to delete “reviews”.

That said, I agree that MC is a sleazy company, using many sleazy tactics. The business “listings” created are advertisements, and that fact should be made clear to the reader. And, it would be more appropriate to call the “reviews”, testimonials instead.

In my opinion, the worst thing they do is to create messages “from” one listed business, and send them to another. The “from” business does nothing to initiate this message, and has no knowledge of it’s existence. In other words, it’s a blatant forgery.

Here is the text of “invitation” messages that MC creates and sends of fraudulently:

“I’d like to invite you to join my neighborhood network on MerchantCircle. MerchantCircle helps me build stronger relationships with the other businesses in our neighborhood. It’s been a big help for me to get referrals and to reach customers. It’s exciting to see our local community take shape online, so I hope you’ll connect with me and ABC Widget Company! It’s free to join and only takes a minute to sign up and connect.”

I have received this message many times, purportedly from other businesses. In reality, they are created by merchant circle, with a forged (unauthorized) signature line.

Others have also received this exact message, “signed” by me. I have never written this message to anyone.

I called them on this about a year ago, and they said it was a mistake and would not happen again.
It started happening again last week.

Joe Deasy
US Cargo Tools
Hillsborough, NJ

By: D

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:14:34 +0000

#3 for phrase “Merchant Circle” ! No, you don’t need SEO to rank in Google :)

By: bh.rusoff

bh.rusoff — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:24:45 +0000

I am tired of people calling my cell phone and asking for Computer Edge. One caller tonight indicated that people may be getting my cell phone number from Merchants Circle. If so, I would like them to cease and desist and make amends for the calls I have to pay for.

By: Mark DeLancey

Mark DeLancey — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:30:27 +0000

Here is a good one for you! I ALMOST signed up yesterday until I found this blogpage. I exited out of “Merchant circle” just in time NOT to verify my account.

I recieve an email today from them stating this. And I quote…” Your invation has been accepted by “****” company. Now that ***** has joined your network, we encourage you to write a positive review of their business. Each review you write adds value to your network increasing traffic to your site.” WHAT? I have never been to this business but they want me to not only write a review but a favorable one in the disconnected “hope” that it will increase traffice to my site. HOW? What kind of games are they playing?

Mark

By: Kristen

Kristen — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:12:16 +0000

You clearly have too much time on your hands. I could go into more detail to elaborate why this article is foolish but why waste my time and energy.

By: Savings

Savings — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:59:51 +0000

That statement is enough to totally discredit whatever ratings service / site who offers this to sweeten their deal. Consumers need to made aware of these services so that they can make informed choices as to which ratings service is honest