1646596995
https://www.google.com/maps/reviews/data=!4m8!14m7!1m6!2m5!1sChZDSUhNMG9nS0VJQ0FnSUNXeTYzN2JREAE!2m1!1s0x0:0x9a8fc1f50c98617c!3m1!1s2@1:CIHM0ogKEICAgICWy637bQ%7CCgwIg6eUkQYQsJewvAE%7C?hl=en-US
Scott Burke
google
https://www.google.com/maps/place/?q=place_id:ChIJT6Vr6HoEsocRfGGYDPXBj5o
Scott Burke is a fraud and left SMG with an unpaid bill for his contractually obligated amount of his final month of service and so a judgement has been filed against him and his company for that reason. As well as the company collection agency is in contact to collect that debt. Scott Burke came to SMG stating he had created a men's underwear brand that was "better than any others out there." Naming such competition as Tommy John, Saxx, Mac Weldon etc.. He was going to be the "LuLu Lemon of men's underwear" he said. There were some red flags we should have seen unfortunately. Scott had big aspirations to be a "baller" l, his brand is named Ballerz, but he did not have the budget to back it up. Scott wanted to compete with multi-million dollar brands with only a few thousand a month budget which is impossible to do. We told Scott we would take him on as a client and do all that we could with the budget he had but it takes time to grow a brand. His website was inadequate in many ways. He had clearly been taken advantage by another company who created the website. We offered to build him a new website, at no additional charge just as a way to make what we were doing would work effectively and we like to invest in our clients. We would be happy to show the email we offer this. Crucial elements of his website were not integrated correctly to function with Facebook/Instagram ads and we told Scott this. He asked SMG to fix them for free. We were not comfortable fixing another companies mistake, once again we did offer to recreate a new site at no charge. He did not take any action so they remained unfixed. I believe he also didn't pay the company who built his site their final bill which is why they did not fix it. SMG has been running targeted advertising for 10 years now. As an agency we have Facebook representatives we work with directly & have never been given any such cease and desist order from Facebook, that's not even a real thing Facebook does. Facebook does not get involved in what an agency does with their clients that's just an absurd statement that Scott must believe would hurt us but clearly didn't think it through before writing it. SMG did agree to complete the build out of Ballerz email funnel. However at the last minute, before we began work, Scott changed the platform we were going to use to something we had no working knowledge of using. Additionally this was not a service we charged Scott for doing because he did even have one email to utilize as the time. We made him aware we were not familiar with the Klaviyo platform that he had chose to switch over to but we would take the time and learn it. Ballerz is still using all the same templates we custom designed from scratch on Klaviyo of which he never paid anything to have done. If the work was bad it's interesting he would still be using them? Scott was provided reporting regularly but said he was unable to understand how to read the CVS file format provided. So he said he didn't care about them. It would have been impossible for us to charge Scott anything without his approval because he had his credit card setup to only allow charges with his approval with the specific amount he authorized. We would have charged him for his final bill, that he skipped out on, if it was that easy. Once again just a fabrication on Scotts part. To sum it all up Scott was unhappy he was not selling thousands of pairs of underwear after two whole months of being a brand. He fired SMG and skipped out on his last months billing in his contract. He now has a judgment against him and a collection agency hounding him which is clearly why he wrote this review. We had not publicly said anything about his dishonesty up to this point but now that Scott has chosen to write this totally fabricated review we will be more than happy to share everything about him and his company. We have all the emails as well as all our calls recorded which completely validate our position.
1646626643
1
On 9/3/2021 Sociallutions Media Group was paid $13,650.00 to set up our advertising accounts with Facebook, Instagram, Shopify, Klaviyo, a full funnel strategy. $6250.00 was paid in ADVANCE and I was promised in writing a 2 week on boarding process, development of ads, and organic postings. The $6250.00 included the following services: • $3000.00 Ad Spend Monthly • $2500.00 Account set up and management fee first month/$1200 management fee after -Full Funnel Strategy • $750.00 Social Media Management fee for entry level start up package organic content posting and management In addition to set up paid and sponsored advertising would be executed by SMG on both Facebook/Instagram platforms using multiple ad sets. SMG was supposed to provide analytics to me on a monthly basis or upon request. Under the terms of agreement, I was to have the ability to approve or deny all content before it becomes posted live on platform and request any changes. On 10/2/2021 SMG without my authority billed my credit card another $2100.00 for ad management. On 10/23/21 SMG billed my credit card $3150.00 for Facebook and Instagram paid ads. I was never provided data or ads so I have no idea if my money was actually used for my ads. On 11/3/2021 SMG without my authority billed my credit card another $2150.00 for ad management Total Amount paid to SMG= $13,650.00 in two months time Almost immediately after the contract was signed problems started to develop. Josh the owner of SMG tried to encourage me to let SMG change my Shopify website to a custom built website from his brother for an additional $4500.00 which I declined. After two weeks had long past and the set up was not complete Josh said they were struggling with the integration of Shopify, Facebook, Instagram and other applications. Josh admitted not being “friendly” with Shopify, Facebook, Instagram and other Shopify Integration apps and encouraged be again to let his brother take over development of a new website. On 10/12/2021 a notice of default was sent to Josh the Owner of SMG Sociallutions Media Group noting that Facebook, Instagram and other platforms were not properly installed, ads were being run without my consent or approval, and I had not been provided any data. I submitted written complaints almost daily to Josh and other staff members up until 11/17/2021 when I received a phone call from Facebook regarding the advertising account. The same day I also received a email from Klaviyo support. What I found was that Josh and his staff had never properly integrated Facebook and Instagram and was using their “in-house” advertising account to run improper ads on Facebook. Ad’s that I NEVER approved or were even given an opportunity to see. I also found out from Facebook that SMG was not an approved advertising agency and had in fact been given several cease-and-desist orders from Facebook regarding using their clients money to purchase ads for their own company. On 11/19/2021 – SMG was fired, and I had hired another agency to fill the services and complete the full funnel strategy. In addition to the loss of $13,650.00 it cost me an additional $10,000.00 to hire another agency to fix all the problems that SMG caused. I am writing this review now 3/6/2022 after receiving threats from a debt collection company located in Dallas, who claims Josh SMG has a default judgement against me for $5150.00 but cannot provide any proof of such judgement. The collection company, Southwest Recovery has called family members and lied saying they were trying to track me down regarding another completely unrelated matter. Southwest Recovery even threatened to evict my wife from our home and that they planned to call our mortgage bank, US Bank and advise them of the judgement. SMG has not once owned up to the fact that they were unable to perform the services outlined in the contract and proposal for which they were paid $13,650.00. Hopefully this post will save someone from this company.