PLEASE HELP :-( so frustrated - my competitor is clicking on my ads

hi all ,
I'm new here so please forgive me if i am venting in the wrong place .... hoping to really get advice from someone who knows or has an idea ...
so last year i started a campaign with a company that managed it ... nothing huge $paid them $1,000/month - and the return on it was somewhat OK to keep us floating - but people convinced me that i could run the campaign myself and save their % , plus i will have more control to see where my money is going.
so, i stopped the campaign and setup the campaign myself.
i did not take into consideration that now - every empty click is making me more and more anxious and restless. i don't sleep at night because we really cant afford much anyway ... so as i started tracking my website traffic - i noticed some weird repeating ip's - and got some weird calls asking about prices and hanging up. yesterday it was the last straw : a few calls with " rude nasty costumers " came in - so i entered them all into my contact book. yesterdays ad words cost me $80 - with zero jobs ! today i get a phone call and the caller id display one of yesterdays callers - and as i answer the competitor is asking to speak to a manger or owner. i ask her how can i help - and SHE tells me , with an attitude , that i need to stop calling them asking for prices because its costing them $20 per lead ( they don't advertise directly with goggle - rather with a pay per lead directory - so each call they are getting costs them $20 ). i was in shock ! so - because i was in such shock that she even had the nerve to call ( from the same number she used to click on us yesterday ) and tell me that I'm doing the same thing. i politely told her that we do not use this method to get business - but i did not tell her i know she called me several times yesterday ! i can assume we are not her only targets - so someone must be pissed with her as well and he is calling her asking for prices ...
I'll admit - i wanted to do it many times when i was paying for clicks and calls that never came - but i didn't because i wasn't sure which one of my competitors were behind it. i called goggle - and all they said was that they will investigate it , to block their ip's , but maybe i should try to target " different locations" than she does ..( so, she won ? for playing dirty ? ) . ?????? for now i paused my campaign to try and figure out what to do next , and i would appreciate ANY advice you guys might have ... i have their IP - is there anything i can do with it to confirm my suspicion even more ? what would you have done if you were in my shoes ?

If it is costing you money and time and frustration hand it over to a pro.
Seriously, its called outsourcing and people do it for a reason.

If you report the IP to google, they may be able to turn those clicks off so they don't count against you

I would report the number & ip's so Google can investigate. You shouldn't have to pay for something that has been committed in fraud.

What is very curious to me about this is that you say "...and SHE tells me , with an attitude , that i need to stop calling them asking for prices because its costing them $20 per lead"

So am I getting this correct that they are claiming what is happening to them is what they are doing to you?
If that is in fact the scenario taking place I wonder if its actually that you both are getting attacked by the same party and they are using some kind of masking trick to make you think its each other?

Honestly if I were in your shoes I would go find a really experienced advanced hacker. Only someone with that kind of skill set will be able to get to the bottom of something like this, cuz obviously Google doesnt care to help. If you do go this route whatever retaliation you decide to go with just make sure you are not doing anything too too nefarious

8sideways said:

What is very curious to me about this is that you say "...and SHE tells me , with an attitude , that i need to stop calling them asking for prices because its costing them $20 per lead"

So am I getting this correct that they are claiming what is happening to them is what they are doing to you?
If that is in fact the scenario taking place I wonder if its actually that you both are getting attacked by the same party and they are using some kind of masking trick to make you think its each other?

Honestly if I were in your shoes I would go find a really experienced advanced hacker. Only someone with that kind of skill set will be able to get to the bottom of something like this, cuz obviously Goggle doesn't care to help. If you do go this route whatever retaliation you decide to go with just make sure you are not doing anything too too nefarious

Click to expand...

i know its her because i recognized her voice the moment she called with the attitude .... she called several times before - but it only hit me when i heard her say the company name. so i am now 100% sure its been her all this time with the empty clicks ( at least the majority of them )
I'm trying to use the approach of 2 wrongs don't make a right - but its starting to feel like I'm standing in line playing by the rules , and everyone around me is pushing so I'm getting nowhere ... i just don't know what to do...

tawsifhossain said:

If it is costing you money and time and frustration hand it over to a pro.
Seriously, its called outsourcing and people do it for a reason.

Click to expand...

when i had a company manage it - its not that she didnt click on me - so i was still wasting money i dont really have. ..the only diffrence is - than i didnt know what was going on so it didnt hurt as much.. trying to make some profit that will allow me to pay more than just the basic bills - i tried cutting the middleman ... now i know whats happening to my campaign money - so even if i do pay a company - i still knows she is clicking and fake calling us .... desperate for suloutions....

ownal said:

I would report the number & ip's so Google can investigate. You shouldn't have to pay for something that has been committed in fraud.

Click to expand...

i did report - feeling very frustrated that their "filter" did not filter those clicks out ....they will investigate it but their recommendation was that i just add the ip's to the blocked settings .(after they clicked )... or find another area to work ... so I'm not sure what good will their one time investigation would do ...
in the meantime my campaign is off - lucky for me I'm getting 1/2 calls from local listings ... that helps to put food on the table ...

check this niche# Cocksmith# the worst they click all day from cellphone all around

There is a solution for it. I had seen a sales thread in some forum recently which sold a wp plugin that would restrict the amount of clicks a particular user of an ip can make. Google for such plugin or hire a freelancer to design one fo ru

I think you should hire professional or at least ask for paid professional advice . It will save you money in a long run. Certified adwords services probably.

lol go ahead and retaliate..do some research and spam ther Pay Per Call campaings!

It is better to contact Google staff by sending them an eMail.
I am sure they have a solution for such problem, I Know someone who had similar issue in the past and he contacted them and they solved it for him.

report IP to google and Ban him via .htaccess

Yep thats the best way(unless they change their IP frequently)...

imperial444 said:

report IP to google and Ban him via .htaccess

Click to expand...

thanks to all -but i keep adding ip's to my block list - after i get charged for their click . and still they do it. i think they might be using vpn or ip changer ... i would think google has a better filter than just ip ! like track mac address or something ?

jdearf said:

thanks to all -but i keep adding ip's to my block list - after i get charged for their click . and still they do it. i think they might be using vpn or ip changer ... i would think google has a better filter than just ip ! like track mac address or something ?

Click to expand...

anyone knows if there are any investigative tool i can research the exact ip location or a way to unspoof ip ?

Hello
I deal with this frequently with clients. Unfortunately the competitors don't understand they are only raising their own costs because no one will just walk away, only spend more money so in turn they spend more money and no one wins.
Google won't be much of help or you will never know. Advertisers that spend tons of money have an issue getting refunds.
The good news is google does not count every click as cost. The algorithm takes in account for this and "watches" your ip. If you click an ad repeatedly it knows you are not serious and only counts the same click once every so many hours. There are many things you can do like blocking the ip, but more as well.
I'll give you a free consult if you like and investigate (nothing pisses me off more than people wasting clicks and driving up costs).
I train at Google headquarters many times a year and i'm a PPC expert.

I will say this = Sometimes my clients are crazy and insist the competitor is clicking them - I assure you it costs money to build a click repeater - If a competitor has time to click your ads all day then they must be broke from not working - Phone calls from Google adwords are free!! & lastly I ran into this with locksmiths driving cpc's up and ROI down out of ego.

Let me know - I can help, legally, strategically and if all else fails we can shut down their site - joking - not really - no i'm joking.

It doesn't cost that much money to build a click repeater, I had the "idea" of coding up a highly targeted CL autoflagger after an angry competitor admitted to flagging a client of mine, all of my clients ads would all be flagged off twice a day. They had a confrontation, the competitor let him know he would be sorry; when confronted if this was his response he admitted to it and said "what are you gonna do it about it, if you flag us off we will just post more." I let him know if it continued the same would be done to them and in a way they could not fight it by hand until he stopped. Whatever course of action we chose to take... the issue was resolved in about 3 days, they agreed to stop playing dirty and are also now a client of mine.

The cost add's up in the form of either purchasing vpn's with multiple IP's or purchasing or finding a good proxy list to rotate through; even if you find someone with a list to do the work they are going to want to charge you for using their list.

In theory if a good coder where to undertake the task I suggested, I would say it could be done in about 30 minutes. Something for google may take an hour or 2 more.

Sadly you don't know for sure exactly which competitor it was for sure. There could be a 3rd one doing it to both of you and she called you thinking you were the culprit. True you cannot confirm the culprit without them admitting it or finding out there IP by being on their site and checking it (which doesn't work if they do it on their phone mobile.)

Legally you could come up with a total cost their IP has cost you in clicks, take them to small claims court over the damages. You would need to subpoena the provider to know who the IP was released to at the time of the incident. By showing their number of clicks to drive up costs and showing the IP it came from and showing the provider had leased that IP to the judge I am sure he would side with you with costs of court and any money lost due to ad words clicks. It would be hard to attempt to go for any damages due to loss of business due to your daily limit being hit if you had one and not having the ad show, I would advise against this. But if you choose to go this route I would be very sure you know who did it, as once you subpeona those records and go to court you better have the right person. Though you could name them as a John Doe at the IP address and then subpoena the ISP for who it was leased to, but this is a very costly route and I am not sure small claims would take that case. To do any of that you would need to check your locations laws and consult with a lawyer as I am NOT a lawyer. Sounds more costly then needed though, just block the IP from your site.

The sweet ain't as sweet without the sour.

This shit happens all the time. You have done what you can.

Karma's a bitch that will fuck you when you least expect it so stop self agonising and start thinking about ways in which you can generate other sources of traffic instead.