Has anyone else lost money with listsource?

First of all, I think it is important to tell this story because listsource.com gets recommended all the time by other investors, and I think newbies should know what to look out for when they call. If this could save 1 person from losing $2200 like I am about to, it is well worth saying.

When I first started out marketing for motivated sellers, I followed the advice that everyone on here gives: I went to listsource.com and built a list of absentee owners. But I couldn’t figure out how to buy it, so I called customer service. My sales rep told me I had to sign a contract to purchase my list (turns out this is not true, if you call and your sales rep tells you this, ask for a different rep). I ended up signing a 1 year contract to purchase 8000 records for $1000 (as it turned out, I only ended up getting about 5000 records over the course of the year because of the way listsource charges you for additional information not covered in your contract, which my rep did not explain to me).

Well, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Shame on me, I guess. Listsource provides a good product, and when my contract was up, I wanted to get more names. So I called my rep up. Long story short, she suggested I sign a monthly commitment contract for 2000 names a month for 12 months. I told her I did not think I would need that many names for so long. She told me that if I did not need the names anymore, I could cancel the contract. I believed her and signed the new contract. (I can hear the foreheads being slapped all across the internet). Well, you guessed it, 6 months or so down the line, when I had started accruing a huge rollover credit on my contract but did not need anymore names, I called my rep to ask about canceling the contract, and she said sure, but then the whole price of the contract would become due immediately. I have had a lot of back and forth with her, her supervisor and then with my new sales rep, and basically what it comes down to is the $2200+ that I have in my rollover account on listsource.com will be lost come May 17th if I don’t use it. And given I have not been able to use it in the last 6 months, I don’t know what I will do with it in the next 8 days.

So yeah, listsource is great for build your mailing list; just be careful how you deal with them. Don’t let them tell you that you have to sign a contract, get your sales rep to confirm everything to in an email so you have it in writing. I would not say don’t use them, because the product is a good product and many investors have used them successfully. I will never use them again, not because I feel like the sales rep deliberately sold me a product that she knew was wrong for me, but because once I spoke and complained and asked for help, the response basically added up to “Aww, geez, sucks to be you. Well, thanks for spending $3840 with us. Have a nice day.”

On a side note, has anyone else had a similar experience? I am feeling like the world’s biggest sucker right now, and I would feel so much better if I were not the only one. And yes, I know I was naïve and foolish, and suckered in, so no need to point that out.

I really don’t understand how you ended up signing a contract, rather than just creating an account to buy…

When I go to listsource, I log in, sort my list, and buy it. Done.

I have lost money using listsource, and so did a student of mine.

We both purchased lists that were abstracted several years ago, and the data was worthless.

We called listsource to help us figure out why we had an avalanche of undeliverables.

Come to find out, the list information (abstractions) was more than four years old. Lots of transfers can happen in that time.

They refunded our money for the list, but we lost hundreds of dollars in postage and printing.

Now, we always calls listsource, and confirm the abstracting date, so that we are assured that we are sending to a current list.

I feel sorry for you Kelle711. Were you offered a discount as a subscriber, or what was the incentive to sign up, other than what you mentioned?

As a subscriber, I did pay a lower price per record. The reason I got the contract though is when I went to the listsource.com, I could not figure out how to purchase a one-time list. I called customer service and they put me onto a sales rep who told me that I cannot purchase one time lists, that I have to sign the subscription contracts. It did not sound right but I believed her and signed up. Twice. I did not know that I could just sign in and buy on demand. My sales rep never explained that to me as an option, in fact she expressly told me that was not possible. It is only recently that I heard from others that they get the one-time lists.

I have not had a problem with the data being bad, but I feel like I was conned into buying a product that was wrong for me, which the sales rep knew was wrong for me because I told I would not need it for 12 and she told me I could cancel anytime.

If I were you, I would talk to someone in charge at listsource, and explain exactly what you shared here, and insist on them cancelling without any penalties.

And don’t be afraid of not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

These people aren’t trained to debate unhappy customers and their fees. So, you’re likely to get what you want out of them. Just saying.

i had a horrible experience with listsource as well. unfortunately they dont seem to care much about losing customers either. at first they were good but then they changed something on my account and tried to charge me more. upon the contract ending i never used them again. i now obtain all up to date information from the towns directly…so in essence thank you listsource i now have leads that mostly everyone else does not :beer