Hibu

In the first weeks of working together, they posted our holiday ads with a special offer 5 days AFTER the promo had already expired! They are refusing to accept that they screwed up even after we show them the facts and screenshots. They have been destroying our reputation with our customers by creating very basic ads that anyone with no knowledge could create, by posting offers that have expired DAYS before. Dealing with Hibu has been the worst nightmare and I highly recommend steering away from them. They will take your money and refuse to answer you emails or call back to solve an issue. The WORST customer service and service providers.

She came in with the contract but we were busy at the time and I said the prices and the dates we discussed and she said yes. My business partner was informed of what terms I agreed to, so he signed the paperwork. After she left we realized we didn't have a copy of the contract. I called and asked her for it and she said she would bring it, she did not.

Jody, the person who did our campaign setup called and I reiterated our terms of agreement. She told me that their standard contract is 6 months and I would have to contact Anna. I contacted Anna and she said she could pause it if I sent her a request in writing. I said, "These terms are not what I agreed to," and she told me to email her and hung up. I emailed her the same day telling her to pause my campaign. She responded and said she couldn't pause the campaign until November. I told her that was unacceptable as this is not what we had agreed to but since I did not have a contract, I didn't know what had been agreed upon.

I spent two hours today trying to get a copy of the contract from their "customer care" team. One hung up on me. I called back and then asked to speak to a supervisor. He initially refused to let me speak to a supervisor. Finally I spoke to a John, who apologized but told me I was contractually bound to pay them $3000 during my slowest time of the year. He eventually said he would pause the contract until January. I am contacting my lawyer tomorrow and have stopped payment through American Express as their business is exceptionally shady.

They do not communicate well with you after they get your credit card info. You would think their goal would be to get your advertising working well so you would stay with them but not the case. They put together the primary ads that were not approved. They then asked us to change our website some so they could get the ads approved. All in all in the end we are now running two separate websites just to get some name recognition out of our Hibu advertising even though it is not advertising our products. The ads they got approved do not advertise what they are supposed to advertise but hey at least we are getting impressions on one web to get the name out there. All I can say is be very cautious of Hibu as they are a scam in my opinion.

Then they told us the name we gave wasn't in his department so the confirmation number we had was pretty much useless. WHAT??? Then went on to say we are responsible to pay the monthly fee because there were no notes on our account for the last 4 months. Between myself and my mom and the new owners that came in, we had contacted Hibu OVER 10 times in the last month alone. We ask to speak to a supervisor and none were available. Ya right. They do not communicate between departments and if you want something done or taken care of you better make sure that you have first names, last names, extension numbers, confirmation numbers, departments and everything you can write down pertaining to that conversation. Will NEVER go with them again for this reason. We had enough headaches selling the business anyway, Hibu made a headache turn into a nightmarish migraine.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any leads from their ads. They used the wrong keywords, which we talked about using specific key words for the ad. I couldn’t find my ads on Google anywhere. I was promised first page of Google, and I never saw that. I went from 80 leads per month with my old marketing company, to zero leads per month with Hibu. At the end, nothing was resolved, I filed a complaint with the company. They did nothing about it, but just kept telling me I was in a 6 month contract. If you are looking to attract people to your website or get leads... THIS IS NOT THE COMPANY FOR THAT.

As per contract, Hibu promised 4 15-second ads on YouTube. They did provide this, but rather than develop new content for these ads they reused content from the more than 100 educational clips we have on YouTube. The contract also stipulated that they would send us a monthly status report showing where we were in terms of search rankings, and how much we had improved. Hibu was also supposed to contact our web designer and coordinate on adding searchable content for Google. This never happened. Instead Hibu wanted us to give them control of our website, which we refused.

Our website was not receiving much attention or improvement from Hibu’s services, so I asked their local sales representative to come into our office. Together we contacted their main office to discuss our situation. The only person we could talk with was their office secretary. While she was very courteous, she made it plain that she did not have any knowledge of SEO or organic rankings growth. She also would not allow us to speak with any technical people in the office. She said all she could do was relay a message to their IT department. We have not had any response from their IT team, other than the monthly status reports. We have spoken with Hibu’s local representative approximately eight times over six months. The first four visits were for the express purpose of getting the contract signed.

Though Hibu had been working on our contract for four months, our site had reached only the 8th page of the Google search rankings. At that time, we started working with another company on SEO and marketing to improve our Google rankings. Six weeks of work on their part moved our site from the 8th page to the 1st or 2nd page of Google search results. This work included 4,000 emails to customers, six new educational videos on Youtube, and $2,500 per month for Google ads. Additionally, we have updated SEO information on all website pages and send out daily tech tips on Facebook. Meanwhile, $12,000 was spent on services from Hibu. That money was wasted.

We have learned our lesson. Never agree to a lengthy second party contract. Look at the Better Business Bureau reviews for any company you work with. Though you may find some good reviews, there are far more complaints about Hibu from companies both overseas and domestically. Make sure to research any company you are investing in. Otherwise, like us, you might get burned.