Beware of Martindale-Nolo

I recently had the unfortunate experience of dealing with Martindale-Nolo.  They offered to conduct a “campaign” on my firm’s behalf in which they would provide me referrals.  I was willing to do this so long as there were not automatic referrals. While there was a budget agreed to, I was concerned that if they could automatically renew I would not have control over the spending. It would simply continuously renew as the money ran out.  It was my understanding that was the agreement. Then, when being trained on their software, I saw that in fact it did automatically renew.  I complained.  I was then told by Jeffrey Koch at Martindale Nolo that he had told me about the automatic renewal and that he believed he had a recording of his having told me that.

I was shocked, as I had never been told that he was recording my phone calls.  I then called Martindale Nolo customer service. I spoke to a service representative, who never informed me that my call was being recorded. However, when I asked her, she admitted that it was.  I then wrote back to Mr. Koch to express my outrage at this practice. At that point he stated that they did not have a copy of my call to him and that they would allow me to cancel my contract.

This whole interaction is very disappointing, particularly as I thought I was dealing with a somewhat reputable company.