Last week I reported a major financial altercation, to the tune of $130, with the folks over at Article Marketer… here’s the post.  Today I’d like to update you on what transpired and how the situation finally ended.

As you know, I wrote the original post on March 24th at around 3p.m.  By 8p.m. the same day, this message was posted to my blog:

Hi Ms. Yates,

Wow, did this ever get mixed up. Let me clear up a few misunderstandings. Article Marketer didn’t cease operations, it split into two companies, DistributeYourArticles.com and ContentCrooner.com. The customer list was split randomly. Your account was assigned to DistributeYourArticles.com. Each company continued to honor the subscriptions of its assigned customers.

Alas in your situation, when you contacted PayPal, ContentCrooner’s customer service responded to you about your refund request even though it should have been DistributeYourArticles that responded. The transaction that you asked to be refunded was from January of 2009, long before the split. You have noted here that you had some transactions from February of 2010. You should by all means talk to DistributeYourArticles about those transactions.

I personally apologize for any confusion.

Regards,

Ken Vogt
ContentCrooner.com

I manually accept all comments, so I didn’t allow this one on the blog — preferring to correspond privately to try to solve this problem. So here’s how that conversation went (I blocked out any sensitive information):

Hi Ken,

While I appreciate your contacting me directly through my blog, perhaps it would be better if you contacted me directly.

The dispute in question is from Feb 28, 1010… not 2009.

Here is the paypal transaction number:  #xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I was charged from Articlemarketer.com, not distributeyourarticles.com, from which I already pay a monthly fee.

This transaction was disputed directly through Paypal with the transaction number above attached.  I was also falsely charged for a second account (transaction number:  #xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) on the same day.

Since you seem to understand how this misunderstanding happened, perhaps you could look into it and issue the refund that I deserve.  I would really like to update my blog post with a statement about how your company corrected the problem and that I can now fully endorse your company.  I’m sure that you would like to see that as well.

Please let me know if there is any additional information that you need to rectify this situation.

Best Wishes,
Arvada Yates

His response:

Hi Arvada,

I am happy to talk to your directly. I contacted you through your blog merely because that is where I saw your comments. Please understand, Article Marketer split into two companies. Your account did not stop nor did operations cease, it merely started being serviced by DistributeYourArticles on October 13, 2009. This is not to say that you shouldn’t get a refund. I am just letting you know you need to talk to DistributeYourArticles since they are the ones who got your money. Our customer service person never should have contacted you about the matter. I have no sway over the folks at DistributeYourArticles. I am only trying to help you get the matter resolved.

Regards,

Ken Vogt
ContentCrooner.com

My response:

Hi Ken,

The charge was made by “Articlemarketer.com” and the dispute was sent directly to the company that owns that particular subscription.

I get charged on a completely different subscription by distributeyourarticles.  The two charges are completely unrelated.  Distributeyourarticles didn’t get my money — Articlemarketer.com got my money from a year old subscription that should never have been charged.

Obviously if the dispute was sent to Content Crooner via paypal, then they were the ones that ran the old subscription and charged my account… the other company (distributeyourarticles) didn’t own that subscription, article marketer owned it.  If article marketer now owns content crooner, then your company is the one that owns that subscription and charged the account.

When I joined distributeyourarticles, I had to sign up for a completely new subscription — there was no carryover from article marketer — the subscription didn’t move over.

Please explain how you believe that distributeyourarticles charged my account when all the information I have from Paypal points to you guys.

Arvada

Ken responds:

Arvada,

The dispute was not sent to Content Crooner by PayPal. Chris Ellington and I founded Article Marketer. We split up. In order to continue servicing our Article Marketer customers, we created two companies. Accounts and their associated revenue were assigned randomly to our new companies. Chris’ s company is DistributeYourArticles. Your Article Marketer account was assigned to DistributeYourArticles. DistributeYourArticles got your money for your Article Marketer account. If you also created another account with DistributeYourArticles, they got that money too. Let me assure you, we didn’t get a dime of your money at Content Crooner. I am trying to help you. Please contact (email address removed) about this matter.

Regards,

Ken Vogt
ContentCrooner.com

Okay, I now have a direct contact to at distributeyourarticles.com, and I’m obviously not getting anywhere here, so I contact Chris Ellington:

Hi Chris,

My name is Arvada Yates and I’m a customer with you at DistributeYourArticles.com.  I joined your service after Article Marketer split.

On Feb 28, 2010 my paypal account was charged by Article Marketer twice for a total amount of $130 under an old subscription to Article Marketer… something that shouldn’t have been charged.  The transaction #’s are #xxxxxxxxxxxxx and #xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

I tried to resolve the issue through Paypal, but the only people that answered my concerns were the folks over at Content Crooner.  They were unable to resolve the issue and paypal closed the dispute.

As you might imagine, I was a little irritated to be charged for an old account and not getting any satisfaction from Article Marketer or Paypal and I wrote about it on my blog:

http://www.arvadayates.com/content/articlemarkete-ripped-me-off.html

My post got Ken Vogt’s attention and we’ve corresponded about this issue (that conversation is below).  He insists that you guys are the ones that have charged my account.

Can you help me Chris?  I already get charged monthly for your DistributeYourArticles.com service and shouldn’t have been charged for anything else.  I would like a full refund on the two transactions listed above.

Thanks for your time,
Arvada Yates

I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the charges was refunded through Paypal a few hours after I sent the message above.  Then I received the message below:

Hi Arvada,

Yes, I will absolutely help you. We are very happy that you have chosen the DistributeYourArticles community as your article marketing service going forward. I see that one of the two accounts you referenced was assigned to DistributeYourArticles. My team refunded that $39.95 Article Marketer payment a little bit ago. It should appear in your PayPal account straightaway.

However,  I don’t want you to have to suffer through anymore rigmarole with my former business partner, so I have copied him on this note. I have provided specific instructions he should follow in order to grant you your refund in spite of his “assurances” that he “didn’t get a dime of your money”.

The fact of the matter is, he is holding onto about Ninety Bucks of your money. It was credited to contentcrooner on March 3, 2010 in PayPal transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxx. When he reviews the information below, it will be clear to him that your money is in his pocket.

Here’s the complete information about your two Article Marketer accounts, based on PayPal’s records:

This account was transferred to DistributeYourArticles
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
UserName Arvada
Author ID: xxxxxx
PayPal Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subscription Date: May 28, 2008

Date of Cancellation: Mar 12, 2010
Subscription Terms: $39.99 USD for each 3 months
Full Refund issued: March 25, 2010

This account was transferred to content crooner
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
UserName trusite
Author ID: xxxx
PayPal Email:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subscription Date: Feb 28, 2006

Date of Cancellation: Mar 12, 2010
Subscription Terms: $89.95 USD for each year
Dispute Date: Mar 3, 2010
Time: 13:34:22 PST

Ken -
To make it easier for Ms Yates, I’ll point you directly at the information necessary to immediately resolve this matter. She is a valued member of the DistributeYourArticles community, and you ought not to have ground her through your rhetoric mill and made her work so hard just to avoid sending her a refund. You have access to the same information as I, and you should have done the right thing from the start. This is truly a no-brainer.

Step-by-Step Instructions:
1) Open the accounting spreadsheet.
2) View Mar 2010 payout tab
3) Look at rows 34 & 35.
4) Note that the funds are held by PayPal. That is Ms. Yates’ PayPal dispute against her $39.95 Article Marketer payment.
5) PayPal transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxx resolved that dispute this afternoon.
6) Look at rows 37, 90 & 93.
7) Note that Ms. Yates’ $89.95 payment was credited to content crooner, held by dispute, then credited to contentcrooner.

Ken – I respectfully request that you make a complete refund of the Article Marketer payment that was credited to content crooner. However, what the content crooner service chooses to do for Ms. Yates is between you and your conscience… and her blog audience.

Arvada – I look forward to seeing you around the DistributeYourArticles community :)

Chris Ellington
Founder, ArticleMarketer
CEO, DistributeYourArticles

Within a few hours of receiving this message, I received a refund of the other charge and an apology from Ken Vogt.

Therefore, I am happy report that I have received a complete refund on all the erroneous charges from Article Marketer.

Clearly, there would have been no refund if Chris Ellington hadn’t come to my aide… at least that’s the way it looks to me.  I think you could reach a lot of conclusions about both companies from the email messages I’ve posted here.  I will leave you to judge these companies yourself.

Clearly, this all resulted from one simple blog post — never underestimate the “power of the pen.”

For my part, I can now completely endorse DistributeYourArticles.com and I would like to publicly thank Chris Ellington for helping me to resolve this situation.

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