Cold calls from Hungary

[Lorna]

I have had two telephone calls in the past week from a company wishing to advertise my property on their website. They claim to be able to reach a lot of new clients in the US. They said they were an international company, but calling from Budapest. I listened to a long sales pitch - they wanted 129 euros for a years advertising. When I interrupted to say that there was no way I would be giving any credit card details over the phone, the conversation was immediately brought to a close.
Property owners beware!

[paolo]

Welcome to the forum, Lorna!

This chap from Hungary is very busy, he seems to spend his life calling owners up. Others have reported he is oddly reluctant to say which site he is calling from. There is a site because I have seen it, but I can't remember what it was called and I certainly wouldn't advise advertising on it.

[debk]

Those Budapest guys must have some impressive phone bills. I get their calls here in Portugal, too, about every six months.

[John Borg]

The guy from Budapest is from this website: worldvacationrentals.net.
I was duped into paying €129 and I have never ever gotten a single enquiery. It was one of the few first mistakes I have made during my relatively short letting experience. I am not stating that anything under-handed was done, it was simply a pressurised sales tactic, constant phone calls etc. I hope I am older and wiser now!

[Alan Knighting]

John,

Having had a quick look at the site in question, it looks good and is fairly quick in what it does. I would have thought it is one to consider. How does it rate on the Search Engine listings?

Oh! yes. Your pool looks great. Just the job on a hot sunny day.

Alan

[centime]

Right on time - repeat phone call from the Budapest? guy again he seems to like to call me on Friday mornings as I am having my coffee, this time it was just to find out my last name and them the phone went dead. Has anyone else had this experience as I find it very odd! Why do they need my name unless they are planning something? If it is this company mentioned in the previous post I think I will be ready next Friday if he calls again and ask him if this his his company as if I was expecting him, taking the bull by the horns as it were, so that he knows who is in control here - and want to know if I can have a 6 months freebie - I think we should all bombard this company with this request for extensive free trials and see how they like it! Maybe it is a good site, but I like to choose where I put my money and anyone who has interupted my breakfast coffee two weeks in a row deserves a bit of their own treatment Okay I feel better now - don't let the B's get you down!

[oskar]

Just had a cold call from this company. Listened to his speel for 10 mins or so, as I'd finished my coffee!

He told me to put "villa with a pool on lanzarote" into Google, and the website came up 7th on the first page - oops! have I given away the name?

Should I be impressed or still very wary?

[tansy]

I posted about this last week I think it was..but on the wrong thread ...any way I wasn't able to be on line and talk to him - so I had a look then rang folk advertising on there....not one person had had one enquiry or one booking...so even though it is on the search nothing happens! In fact one person didn't even know she was on there!

It's Linus...originally from The Cameroon & lived in Woolwich for 2 years! He seems quite a personable young man!

VRBO is a bit like that for me...enquiries - but the ratio is something like 25:1 whereas holiday-rentals it is 3:2

[Steve Noctor]

He told me to put "villa with a pool on lanzarote" into Google, and the website came up 7th on the first page - oops! have I given away the name?

It's doubtful a huge number of people are going to be searching for that term and I can prove from experience that being 7th (or 9th) when I searched isn't going to provide much in the way of traffic.

Just look at the better known sites appearing above this company (unfortunately in this instance not mine )

The term is also not very competitive (yielding 150,000 results). If a company is trying to impress you with good results in the search engines they should at least come up with more competitive keyword (i.e. words generating well in excess of 1,000,000) and ones that are likely to be searched for more often.

[paolo]

He told me to put "villa with a pool on lanzarote" into Google, and the website came up 7th on the first page - oops! have I given away the name?

Should I be impressed or still very wary?

Very wary! I don't think that particular phrase is going to be used very much. It's interesting that if you drop the 'a' and search for 'villa with pool on lanzarote' they sink like a stone.

If they are on page one of Google for 'lanzarote villas', then you might consider them.

[oskar]

Had a follow-up call today and I said I'd taken advice and decided not to subscribe.

So Linus then phoned me to try and persuade me otherwise, which involved questioning your replies and saying I should believe him rather than you.

So I invited him to respond on here if he felt you were all wrong. Somehow I think it'll be a long wait!

[Thomas BC]

I got a very similar call last Friday, 18, morning about 11 am. But it was a woman, and she was obvioulsy reading from a script. I asked a question that was clearly unexpected, as I then could hear her russling through papers trying to find the answer. Otherwise the same 129 Euros - claimed to fill all my unbooked weeks - particularly the out of season ones. I was busy and could not talk for long so I made an appointment for her to call back - I was intrigued, but could smell a rat. I missed the appointed time by 5 mins, but have not heard since.

Glad to have read this thread!!! I agree with Centime - we should catch them at their own game.

I think we should all bombard this company with this request for extensive free trials and see how they like it!

[jimadept]

Tansy wrote: "In fact one person didn't even know she was on there!"

I received my first call from Linus this morning, as you may have read in another thread (which hopefully Paolo will be deleting soon, to keep things tidy). Tansy's comment doesn't surprise me, it's not unusual for new rental sites to 'borrow' rental descriptions from other sites to bump up the numbers and make themselves look bigger than they really are. Full marks to Tansy for following it up and making some calls!

Re: search engine ranking - I'm well familiar with all the sites getting the best ranking for my most relevant keywords, and this site is not one of them. If I were going to spend any more on rental sites this year, Abritel would be top of the list.

BTW everyone mentions a €129 fee, but this is ex-VAT and the website states that VAT is payable in the EU, so unless you're a business, the fee is €161.25.

cheers, Jim

[Marc]

I’ve received 4 telephone calls from this company and yes they were all reading from a script, I know because I worked in a call centre in the UK for a few years. I've also had an e-mail from them which says that I have subscribed to their site, which I certainly have not.

Whenever I get a cold call from a company such as this I always tell them that I will mail advertisers on their site and ask for some feedback from them. The reaction of the salesman to this will usually let you know if the company is good or not.

I have been approached by 3 internet based companies asking for my business and each time I mailed the advertisers and they all said not to bother.

I am now looking to advertise on a few sites but I don't know who I should go with. At the moment I am with French Connections and although I have had some bookings with them I still have some empty dates in July and August. Has anybody had really great service, enquiries and bookings from a particular site?

I have 3 gites and 2 chambre d’ Hotes in the Aveyron South West France.

Regards

Marc
www.yourgite.com