Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Our story, the $29,000 ripoff by LegalMatch, LegalMatch.com

The following is our unfortunate experience as a client of LegalMatch.com.

LegalMatch.com is a service designed to match attorneys and clients. I'm not here to say whether it works or not for attorneys, as we are not an attorney firm. But that did not stop the motivated salesmen at LegalMatch (Stephen Pomerantz and Joshua Thompson) on trying to sell us a service that was not designed for our business.

After about 6 months of constant phone calls and pressure and promises from the sales staff in 2008, we decided to give the service a try. We tried very hard to make it work, but it failed miserably for us. At first, LegalMatch was trying to tweak the system to make it work, but trying to shove the square peg in the round hole never worked out. Then in March 2009, they pretty much just gave up after collecting more than $15,000 and quit returning our calls, ignored us completely, and still took an additional $14,000 out of our account in March, April and May 2009 even though they were told not to.

I called multiple times to have them stop, but they ignored all calls and emails, and continued to take money out of our account. Finally, I had to close the account. I called and emailed again multiple times to have them return the money that we did not authorize, but was totally ignored, not a single return call or email, nothing!!

Finally, since no one from LegalMatch ever bothered to respond, I was forced to file a BBB complaint to get anyone to talk with me. Finally I get a response from Ken Lamance, general counsel for LegalMatch, stating that I signed a contract, and they were still going to try and collect almost $28,000 more from us, even though I was sold a service that was not designed for our business and absolutely failed miserably. He basically referenced the contract that LegalMatch takes no responsibility. That would be a valid argument if we were a law firm in which the service is designed for, but we are not! So basically, they did not refund us the amount that was not authorized, and they are threatening to go after more.

We are willing to forfeit the $15,000 they collected up front, but to take $14,000 more after we had revoked our committment due to fatal flaws in their model and a cease of communication, well that money should be returned immediately.

I have left multiple more messages for the CEO Laurie Ziffrin and other executives of the company, but no one has bothered to call or email me back on my requests to speak with someone about the problems.

All we got was the complete run around and a huge bill for $29,000 with threats of another $28,000!!

If you've had problems with LegalMatch, Legal Match, LegalMatch.com, please post below, I would be interested to hear your story.

Notice to LegalMatch, I will be removing this blog when you refund the 3 payments that were taken without our consent from our account. Until then, the blogs of our experience and others will continue. And since the entire posting above is true, it is not libel, so don't hassle us with threats from attorneys about this factual account of how we were ripped off by LegalMatch.com.

Also, I have until August 28th, 2009 to respond to the BBB whether the complaint has been resolved. I would love to report to them of LegalMatch's cooperation, but so far, they have ceased contact.

Also, if no resolution by 8-28-09, I will report this experience to ripoffreport.com, and if that happens, I will be unable to remove the posting. Unfortunately, that complaint will be on the internet forever, whereas this one can disappear with some immediate cooperation from LegalMatch.

7 comments:

  1. I understand your frustration, I own a law firm in the east, and the process was cumbersome and time consuming. In my opinion, LegalMatch's service is overpriced and not a good value.

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  2. I thought aobut LegalMatch.com, but after reading your experience, think I'll pass.

    Thanks for posting it!

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  3. I was wondering if this service worked, but I couldn't find a lot of info from clients. Interesting to hear that it didn't work for you, and it looks like you paid a hefty price to find that out, ouch.

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  4. They are calling me non-stop. At least once per day. Was starting to get sucked in but now I am going to begin efforts to make them stop.

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  5. I worked for legalmatch during 2011. I have inside knowledge of how they operate. Contact me if you have any questions. Thanx

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    1. How to contact you? Would be interested to hear as I just spoke with a representative and am considering signing up...

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  6. You might as well set your money on fire, don't bother signing up, it's a waste of time.

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