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HEROES & BULLIES: Small Business Consumer Advocacy
Attention Small Businesses! Do you know any Heroes?
We want to hear your stories about companies that have provided a great service to someone in the Small Business Community.
If your story is compelling, we'll post it on this site, and we will nominate them for Small Business Hero of the year. Current Nominees include:
Cor-Ben Consultants - An independent insurance agent located in Central Ohio
PartsTrain.com - An online car parts supplier.
Do you know any Bullies?
There are a few bullies out there, and it’s time we stood up to them!
We would also like to hear from you if you had a bad experience with someone who's systematically (hostile or heavy-handed)
to the Small Business Community. All anecdotes considered for publication will be investigated. If your story is true, and
if the bully won't "back down", we'll post your experience on our site. The bully will also be nominated for Small Business
Bully of the Year. Here are some examples of bullying behavior:
- Have you ever responded to an ad to purchase a service for a low monthly fee, spent hours setting up and registering, and then find
out (at the end of the process) that there is a $1,000 setup fee?
- Ever get in an accident and find you're not covered for the rental car - two weeks after you've been driving it around?
- Are you in a 401k that was supposed to cost "only $125 per month", but then you find out:
- Your participants are also paying 4% per year in hidden fees, and
- There's a 10% surrender charge if you try to get out of the plan?
We currently have only one confirmed nominee for Small Business Bully of the year:
Google AdSense.
Please contact us with your stories. We're hoping for more good
stories than bad, but we'll see how things shake out!
Paid advertisers of Gruber and Company will not be considered for this site. However; if a legitimate claim is made against an advertiser,
we will terminating their contract and then listing them as a bully!
HEROES:
Persons who submit Heroes and/or Bullies will remain anonymous.
Cor-Ben Consultants: An independent Health Insurance agency in Central Ohio.
Cor-Ben distinguishes themselves by being a great advocate for clients and their employees:
- They work hard to keep rates down for their clients. If they feel it is beneficial to get new quotes
every year on your behalf, they will take the time to do it.
- They process medical claims for you. IE: Don't send medical bills to the insurance company; send them to Cor-Ben.
They will make sure your the bill is coded and processed properly. If you have any experience with insurance companies,
you know that claims often get turned down because they were 'coded improperly'. With Cor-ben on your side, these
problems will be greatly reduced!
- TPA Services are also available. There's no additional fee for many of the services.
- They have also helped my employees get coverage for needed medications that were not on the list of covered services
or prescriptions.
I became acquainted with Cor-Ben after accepting a Controller position with a new company years ago: The Company used Cor-Ben. I was
planning to fire them and bring my favorite agent on board, as I had done in the past. I informed Cor-ben that they were being
fired and they said, "give us a chance to show you what have to offer"............ I have been using them for almost 20 years now,
and I haven't found an agent that will match their service or their prices. You might say that Cor-Ben has created a monopoly
because there is no other agency like them anywhere.
Partstrain.com: Great prices and great customer service!
I was in a small accident in July 2008. I ordered a front nose panel from partstrain because their prices were as good or better
than everyone else, and their web-site was easy to use. Unfortunately, they shipped a steel panel instead of the fiberglass I thought
I'd ordered.
I called them, and they gave me no trouble at all. The customer service department was very nice!
They refunded the cost, including shipping, and they gave me a UPS# to send the part back at no cost to me.
I am disappointed they didn't have the part I wanted, but I couldn't have asked for a better experience.
I will not hesitate to order from them again!
More to come!
BULLIES:
Persons who submit Heroes and/or Bullies will remain anonymous.
Google Adsense and Adwords: Let the buyer beware!
Google sells advertising to business of any size and any budget, but at least one small business found them impossible to work with:
- Google's cost-per-click advertising offer indicated a cost of about 1 cent per click, so I thought I'd give them a try.
After about two months, the charges escalated up to $2.27 per click! In addition to that, they were registering
at least 30 time more activity than I was. I had racked up charges of $750 in almost no time - $750 I didn't have!
- I contacted them many times about this. They were very polite, but refused to make any consessions or take any responsibility.
- I was also featuring Google ads on my site, which netted me about $10. Apparently, Google won't pay for a click unless the
customer stays on the site for a period of time. There is a serious double-standard here that should almost be against the law!
- I know a few people who have made money with Google, but my experience was not a good one. And since their customer
service was completely unresponsive (politely condescending), I'm planning to avoiding working them entirely.
We investigated these claims and found them to be accurate and compelling. If you work with Google, be very careful to set the
parameters properly for your situation. If you make a costly mistake, Google will give you sympathy, but they won't give you a refund!
Comming soon!
Enterprise Rent-a-car
Shareasale.com
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