You may have received an email recently with a subject line like this:
Open the email and it’ll say something like this:
Notice that the email does not specify what verifying the account will do. We received a slew of these notices related to free Manta accounts we set up for clients over a period of several years. We had already verified these accounts. To find out what this was about, we called Manta.
After dialing the phone number listed in the email, we reached an account executive who said, “Okay, so the next step will be to activate your account.” Activate my account? “No, thank you.”
This email was a thinly veiled solicitation. The goal of the email was to get me to upgrade a free account to a paid account. Does it say that anywhere in the email? On the contrary, item 3 says, “It’s fast and free!”
As web developers and SEO specialists, we do not have anything against using Manta. In fact we encourage all our clients to full optimize their free listings on Manta, as well as Yelp, Square, Google, and others. If you want to take advantage of their paid upgrade, that’s fine. What we don’t approve of is the lack of clarity and openness in the solicitation, which is an attempt to get you to sign up for a paid service disguised as a free account verification.
Thanks for sharing. I am getting ready to do the 1st verification and don’t want to be tricked.
Manta was saying it’s fast and free to call their representative and have them help you sign up for their paid service. It’s just like some companies charge an extra fee when you call a representative to pay over the phone, but Manta explains in the email that they don’t charge a extra fee for that. You took this out of context.
The “3 important reasons” are listed as responses to the question “why should I verify?” There is no mention of signing up for a paid service. This is our only objection.
Was the email you received worded differently?
No it wasn’t because I never received such an email.