Completely false advertising from them. Do not trust them! We have been in a contract for 4 months and have gotten no business prospects from them. They have avoided our phone calls and emails until the last two days when we have been talking about canceling. This morning the person on the phone said they didn't understand why we couldn't see something on our dashboard that they could (we couldn't see a button to be able to contact people that had liked our ad and she couldn't tell us why). Stay away from this company, they are not to be trusted. read more

Datasphere has increased my professional look and business. There professionalism in putting together my video has been most needed. Now to see results of response from consumers. Jane v.L. read more

I've been reading all these awful reviews and am sad to say that my experience was exactly the same. I wish I had read this before I signed their advertising contract six months ago. I haven't received a single actionable lead either. This company is a scam and not only should they be ashamed, KING 5 should be ashamed to do business with them. I have changed my credit card. They are not going to another cent from me. And am going to follow up with a complaint to the BBB, the Attorney General's office and I'm going to have to have a talk with KING 5. I want my money back. There seems to be a lot of these scam outfits like this out there. Buyer beware. Don't do business with DataSphere! read more

I have been so frustrated with this company that I'm inclined to write my first Yelp review. I signed a 12 month contract with them for a banner ad and a video montage. The ad reads like a 5 year old wrote it. I've been calling and emailing nonstop, with no response. Then, they published a non-approved video montage with my personal phone number on it. All weekend. Customer service has not been helpful and wants me to pay a 40% buyout. No freaking way. read more

Sounds good on the phone, spot on Fox baltimore's web site, custom made, guaranteed 100 actions per month on their site. It took them a month to produce the site and all the while they are sending reports on how well my ad is doing. They hadn't even created or posted it yet, how well could it have been doing. Bottom line is that they can produce reports that say anything, but really say nothing factual. read more

I have been kind and tried to refrain from posting this review, but I want to add my voice that this is by far the worst company I have worked with. I was lied too and mislead by the sales person Scotty telling me that I would be working with a company called "Sinclair broadcasting". I spoke with Scotty 2 times for over an hour asking him many questions to ensure I was not being scammed. But unfortunately I have been scammed. They have you sign an electronic "contract" for a year so when they rarely work or take 3 weeks to make a video that I could make in 5 minutes and look 10 times better I had no recourse but to fight with them to end my contract. If they worked just as hard on what I paid them to do rather than trying to "screw" small business owners out of their hard earned money they would probably be a good company. I am truly disappointed that this company was able to scam me and so many other small business owners. read more

I like everyone else was scammed. I was misled from the beginning by being told I was the only one with my type of business in my area that had or would have a contract with this company. What a crock. I paid in full for a year contract and that was it. I figured I was done after that. I sold my business within that year of the contract but didn't really care nor think about it since I only signed a one year contract. Imagine my surprise when there was a charge on my credit card at the end of the year when I did not authorize it and I had sold the business 6 months prior! If they monitored the business as they claimed they would, they would have known that. I called my credit card company who reversed the charge and contacted Datasphere. That was in May, now it's June and we did it all over again. The credit card has now blocked them but told me to keep an eye on my statement in case they bill under a different name. Instead of Datasphere Technology, they would bill me under Datasphere Inc. obviously they have had dealings with this company. I think a class action suit is exactly what is needed! This is a scam. Beware!!! read more

Beware! The sales people are smooth and convincing. We wish we would have read the reviews before shelling out $2000! We thought, wow, we will be on the front page of 9 news and get a ton of business! They start your contract before any ads or anything is even live, even though it takes a month to set everything up, so your really only getting 10.5 or 11 months, not 12. We haven't received ANY business from this. None! When you go to the site where they have your ad published, you don't see it. On top of that, it is not on the front page as they tell you. Very hard to find even where the ad is placed. They had to talk us through finding it since they are basically hidden. Once we found it, we refreshed the page for 1.5 hours and never saw our ad once! It appears their statistics they tell you are fake as everyone else says. Read the fine print! You are only guaranteed 30 "actions" a month. That comes out to over $5/action! They don't tell this to you when giving the sales pitch. They tell you the ads get thousands upon thousands of hits every month. Should have put the money into Google adwords. Much better response. Save your money! You won't get results! They also don't tell you if a computer has ad blocker on, no ads will show up at all. That's about 35% of people you are losing! Then they tell you can cancel but will only get 40% back. This company is a scam! Stay away! Would have done better wallpapering the bathroom with $10 bills! read more

This company is the worst! I got a call from Michelle who states that she was with the local King 5 news station and then she's with a completely different company. So right there is false advertising! They failed to complete my phone call that I had today so I tried to cancel and Vickie called me to tell me that she's going to go by the contract and charge me the 40%, on something that was never started. She told me that she was going to note that I had buyers remorse which is untrue. They are a scam just like everyone is saying. They just take your money and they are so unprofessional. read more

Absolutely HORRIBLE company. Do not use them under any circumstances. They have high pressure sales and tons of promises for which they deliver NO results. None. Not one. Save yourself money and just post free service ads on craigslist, you'll get more results. read more

DON'T FALL FOR IT! If there was a no star option i would give it. The absolute worst advertising investment you can make! Beware of 6mo or yearly contracts with these people. We are supposed to have a "banner ad" on 13WHAM.com. If anyone reading this goes to the 13WHAM website i guarantee you will not find us. This is because they fail to mention you are in an ad shuffle and depending on the "luck of the draw" you may come up... We don't, no matter how many times you refresh the page. We have not had one client call in all this time from their "advertising". And when you call to complain they already have a "discontented client package" ready to offer you for $99/mo. That's still $100/mo down the drain with no return. They know what they're doing but really don't care that it's costing small businesses their monthly advertising budget for nothing. read more

If they call you and try to sell you there service HANG UP!! they are a SCAM. I find it hard to believe that our ad's show up anywhere unless you are fully directed to the add from someone at DataSHERE. I feel that the occasional emails about the amount of clicks and people that viewed our ad's is fabricated information. we have not receive 1 lead or phone call. when they sold this to us we were told we would receive leads ( email, phone ect). I have contacted them on this and was told that is not the case only if there person enters the information in for us to have. the local news station affiliation with WFAA is also a scam unless one knows where to look. I am shocked that our local station would allow them to affiliate and or use there name. Me next email will be to WFAA to see how they respond to Datashere. read more

Like everyone else on here I advise you to stay away! This company goes after small business owners and lures them into thinking they'll be featured in your city's local news, all this advertisement will be done for you etc etc.. well it's all false. Their local saver page which is their advertisement Facebook page is not active at all, the last post is from I believe two years ago. They present me with data that I believe to be completely falsified.. stating that there have been so many (300+) actions on my advertisements/website/local news ad but not ONE phone call (funny huh?) Their YouTube video is something that I could've honestly made myself. I went on the mobile version of the local news station where they said my ad would be and literally refreshed over and over and over again and nothing in regards to my business ever came up - I doubt they even have anything to do with my local news station. I asked to see proof that my advertisement was ANYWHERE and they could never prove it. I tried to cancel and they tried to charge me like $900 bucks I'm like no way! I have not been getting what I've been paying for. I filed a complaint with the BBB and a couple of days later they cancelled my subscription and waived the buyout fee. The funny thing about this company is that they sent a "screenshot" of my company's advertisement to the BBB that was supposedly posted somewhere but whoever came up with that photo forgot to change the date because the ad was "posted" in November of 2015 as per the photo but we only signed up with them in May of 2018. (Funny huh? Lol) Do yourself a favor, stay away. I don't understand why or how this company has been up and running for so long. Im just glad I'm no longer in bed with them. Thats the only good thing about them, they know how to undo their ties when the going gets tough and they start getting caught up in their own mess. Tsc tsc. read more

This is a scam - they continue to charge our online banking $99/month even though they have been instructed to stop several times over the past year. BEWARE - read more

Shellie was quite helpful in reactivating my account. These guys have helped increase my business. Thanks!

We used DataSphere for a 6 month trial. After 4 months I decided the cancel the contract for a number of reasons: 1) Account creation person was unresponsive and unhelpful 2) Performance is measured in "actions", very little activity is generated, zero results or coupon redemptions were received 3) Was sold something (placement next to content) and did not receive that 4) Called to cancel, and agreed to give a second chance, I was told an account rep could contact me to help improve the ad performance - never received that follow-up even after a month 5) Cancellation fee is high My profession is buying and selling online advertising. My professional opinion is that Datasphere is a load of garbage. read more

THE GOOD: The people I worked with all seemed nice. THE BAD: My website is fairly new, so it doesn't get a lot of traffic. I told my account manager that I bought this ad to help increase traffic to my website and build SEO. He said that he couldn't gaurantee any results, of course, but in the past people saw a lot of traffic from the ads (500-2000 clicks a month!). When I didn't see ANY results in the first 30 days, I decided to cancel. I was told by the person canceling my account that the ad didn't even point to my website, it pointed to my company's profile in their system. They could make it direct traffic to my website instead, but that was not the default setting. Wow. So, they totally missed the point of why I wanted the ad. THE UGLY: I was told that during the first 30 days, I could cancel my contract without penalty. After the first 30 days, I would have to pay a cancelation fee of 40% of the remaining charges. When I said I would have to think about it, he said, "Why, you won't lose anything for the first 30 days." He said they can do this because they are so sure that folks will see results and will not cancel. I said okay, that sounds alright. So, I said to send me the contract so I could have a chance to review it and we'll talk later. He didn't want to let me get off the phone without signing up, so he breezed through the contract and explained it to me verbally. I repeated what he said, to make sure I got it right, and he said I understood him correctly. I put a reminder on my calendar to make sure I didn't miss the "grace period," and when 30 days was approaching I checked my website statistics. Traffic to my site hadn't increased, so I decided to cancel. The person who helped me cancel my ad was very polite and nice, but informed me that unfortunately my contract was totally different from what I understood and that I actually would lose quite a bit of money. In the end I feel bullied, duped, and lied to. I know it is my fault that I didn't take the time to read the contract - but, I put a little faith in humanity and I thought it was okay that he verbally explained the contract to me, and when I repeated it back he said I understood correctly. read more

Resolved my issues... reduced contract terms.. thanks Ruth

I won't be over the top emotional about this experience, but here are the facts. Shortly after opening my small business, I was solicited by King 5 with an unbelievable offer to be their featured company in my local area - they said they only feature one per industry in any geographic area. The cost was reasonable, $150/month for one year. They offered to include a promotional/commercial video to showcase the company. I signed up over the phone without reviewing the contract. That was dumb of me. When I got the actual contract over email, it did not outline any of the promises that had been made. And none of those promises ever came through. I found out that DataSphere Technologies would be handling all the details for King 5. Well, I never have been featured by King 5 in their local online advertising. There are occasional coupons with pathetic graphics that show up on Facebook. But that's all I've ever detected of an online effort. I did get the video and a link to use on my website. But the quality is really poor, so it's not something I use. It looks like something from the '80s. It's basically a glorified slide show with a dramatic professional voice over. Not impressed, and even disheartened because I had a 12 month contract. I crossed my fingers and hoped that somehow it would materialize clients. But no. I only ever got one client referral from one of the 50% off coupons. So no money made. Much money lost. After 8 months I spoke with a company rep to see what they could do because I was so dissatisfied. A new/better video would have been nice. But no. All they did was offer me an inflated buy-out rate for the contract. I just sighed and payed. They had no incentives to keep me as a client. So I cut my losses and took the buy-out. Lesson learned for the novice entrepreneur. Buyer beware. read more

I made a bad business decision: I listened to a cold call from a Datasphere sales person who said they work for KING5 news. After 2 phone calls, I decided to try it. The next mistake was paying up front for a year because I would get a discount. HUGE mistake. They have terrible designers, so the ads look amateurish and tacky. They promised leads, but it came to absolutely nothing. It was a huge waste of money. Since they set up the campaign a year ago, I have heard NOTHING from the company. No follow-up. Nothing. Then today, they automatically renewed the charges. I'm asking for my money back for that charge. If they refund me, I'll post here. I wish I had looked here before agreeing to try them out. Do not do business with them. read more

I found Jodi to be an excellent representative of DataSphere. Her patience and commitment to helping the customer understand the process was refreshing and amazing!! I'm seriously hoping the remainder of the process is as encouraging and helpful!! read more

I was almost taken for a lot of money by this company. They call offering you an exclusive spot on their homepage, a short video, etc, etc, all to highlight your business. It is all a lie. The second I signed the contract and saw the receipt that was sent to my email I realized my mistake.No problem though. I revoked the contract. IF YOU HAVE JUST SIGNED A CONTRACT WITH THEM YOU HAVE THREE BUSINESS DAYS TO REVOKE YOUR SIDE OF THE CONTRACT (a FEDERAL LAW put into place for precisely this type of encyclopedia salesman who uses high pressure techniques). These are charlatans pure and simple. RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!! read more

TERRIBLE PEOPLE! ALL THEY DO IS MAKE PROMISES but can't keep a single one!!! Now are trying to screw me over for the next 10 months. They keep saying "its building momentum" until you are out of there 30 days money back window then they just dont give a damn... read more

Here's an update to my original review, before I had some concerns about the performance of our ads and wasn't too sure if this was going to work. I want to personally thank Ruth from DataSphere. She took the time to talk with me and explain all the different features of their services and how they work as well as options we had open to us. She also gave some great suggestions on how to use them. DataSphere services work as long as you are using them correctly and are effective in communicating your business. Again, something Ruth helped us with. I am also happy with the recent update they have made to their site to manage your services. Very easy to use now and they made it simple to update you ads and customize them further. I'm looking forward to the next few months with renewed optimism! read more

I signed up for $200 per/month and was promised a minimum of 30 actions per month via a local news stations website. After 3 months we received 1 action. Datasphere then went to explain that it was 30 actions on their entire network which includes facebook etc. To get 30 clicks on Facebook outside of the network you need to sponsor a post for about $1.00. This is a complete bait and switch tactic and if I had the phone call recorded they could easily be sued. They are refusing to cancel the contract and once received letter from an attorney I have not been able to get any responses. I've emailed and called with no response back several times now. read more

This is business is out of this world, who believed they should be rewarded for been a sham. First I called I requested visibility for the my ad in April, because the pictures they used were old pictures and that I have only had 2 phone conferences instead of four since I signed up. There was no support and Ad was not displaced as it was supposed to be in March, April, May and major part of June. Mr. Peter Woosley was bent on collecting the 40% buy-out or 9 months to complete offer. Not minding my concern for the company not living up to their promise. You continue to pay a company who has not leave up to reasonable expectation because of contract. I am disappointed and if I had read reviews of others' experiences by all means I wouldn't have signed for the six months wasted money. read more

This is a scam. I did not receive one call as a result of their service. The guarantees of "action" are suspect in my opinion. I believe you should take your money and throw it away rather than enter any agreement with them as would be a much more productive use of time and money. I cannot believe WFAA TV partners with them. read more

We will NEVER use this company again. If there was an option for zero stars on their rating, I would have chosen that option. We originally signed a contract for 6 months, and unbeknownst to us, our account went month-to-month with them after that. We never received so much as a confirmation of the account or a statement for over TWO YEARS, and since the lady who signed us up left the company we had no idea it had gone month-to-month (and that's on us, admittedly). It took calling the place where the ad was running, researching a website they sent me for a different company, and numerous phone calls and emails just to FIND this company. After I finally got in touch with someone there, I followed a link from one of his emails to fill out a form requesting cancellation of the contract. Of course, the gentleman I was working with could not cancel the account himself, and of course they claim to have never received the email. SO- about a month after I thought I had cancelled the contract, I receive an email from a lady with Datasphere telling us that we owe them payment for another month. When I told her I had submitted a cancellation request, she responded by telling me that unless I can provide her with a copy of that email, we were still liable for the bill. Again, this was a form through Their website that said it could be used for account cancellation (and had it given me the option to copy myself, I most certainly would have). After emailing her back to request our account cancellation and a paper invoice, she never responded, and after 3 more messages left on their customer service number and 2 more emails sent through the website form over the next 2-3 days I still never received a response from anyone. I called them back again today, and finally got in touch with someone who confirmed that our account was Still active, but said that he cancelled it. That was half an hour ago, and I still have not received the cancellation confirmation that he promised me multiple times. Do not use this company. read more

They sell you a year long subscription.. but what you need to know is: 1) When your site flashes up... other "similar" companies also show up (i.e. your competitors) 2) It's an "auto renew" at a price about 3 times what the original monthly rate is 3) They actually linked me to a YELP review for a DIFFERENT business!! read more

DON'T BOTHER! We are a small, startup auto glass company and the first person we talked to promised us the world! He said we'd get so much online presence in our community from the position of our ad given the average daily visitor to the local news site we'd be advertised on... Well, after we negotiated a better monthly rate and only a 6 month contract (thank God!) our positive outlook quickly faded! We found that our "banner" looked more like an annoying "Get Lower Rates" type of ad that used to be plastered all over Myspace (if any of you remember that). PLUS where we were promised advertising that would reach our entire service area (we have mobile technicians in 2 counties) we found out that we were only on select pages within a 10 mile radius of our shop! NOT at all what we were promised in the beginning! AND the actual little ad we have is so far down on the page that if the reader finishes the article, they'd have to scroll down another 6 or more inches to even SEE our ad! WHAT IS THAT?!? We're only 3 months in and have not had even ONE call from the ad (let alone an actual paying customer!) So we know there is no way that we'll get enough business from the ads to pay the $150 monthly fee (another promise the original sales guy said would be "an ease"). Bottom line - DON'T give them any time or money! Last month we decided to try our luck with an actual SEO company who also adds us to business listing websites (again, something DataSphere said was in our "package" but we haven't seen any results from) and Yodle is actually delivering on ALL promises they made when we got set up. We get calls from our Yodle ads every single day and make enough income to cover the cost of their monthly fee as well as the money we waste on the DataSpere ads every month. read more

I wish I could rate it 0 stars. This company has a lot of good stuff come from there mouths but can't back up any of it. My wife and I spent $2,000 for a 1 year contract. We have not gotten a single call or email and we have 2 months left. I have requested to cancel the contract numerous times and they still have not done it. I had an agreement that I could cancel at anytime for 40% of my remaining contract and now I can not get anyone on the phone. Stay away from these filthy people. Empty promises! STAY AWAY! read more

Scam! They do not deliver on promises and then wont cancel when you are unhappy. You will get no leads or click traffic.

I wish I had read these reviews before agreeing to work with this company. The sales person online was very persistent and eventually we agreed to give it a shot. The sales person promised that all of their marketing was compliant for my industry (mortgages) and that nothing would be done until my compliance group approved their marketing platform and website. Furthermore the sales person promised that if it wasn't compliant we would be released from any obligation. Well it turns out there were not in compliance with my companies standards and when I asked to be released from the agreement as promised, the sales person directed me to customer service. The customer service manager said that we had signed a contract and that regardless of the sales person's promise we had to pay for 3 months to cancel. I explained that this wasn't what was promised and that the sales person completely misrepresented her company, but my complaint fell on deaf ears. Shady sales practices at their best. Please don't make my mistake, read the 100's of negative reviews online before doing business with this company. read more

I was told I had signed up for 6 markets. When I checked in a few months later to inquire why my phone was not ringing, they had only signed me up for 3, but they certainly charged me for 6 markets. Waiting on a call back from a supervisor, since the rep I was speaking with became aggressive, and began talking down to me. I haven't been treated like that since kindergarten. All I wanted to do was dissolve the relationship due to breach of contract. i.e. they did not provide services for what I was promised on the phone. I was even told I could suspend the plan, if I fell on hard times, which I was told later was untrue. Beware...Looks like a great product, but unfortunately 0 clients were a result of this service...What a waste of time and money! -Jeff Henning Michigan read more

Boy wish I had read the reviews here before signing up with this boondoggle, cost me a boat load of money I could have used on marketing my business elsewhere. As the others have said I missed the month to month contract extension in the contract and was contacted this morning about my "unpaid balance" for "service" $150 a month for an average of 18 views and NO CALLS! Run, do not walk away from this outfit. I only wish I could leave 0 stars. The rep I spoke to this morning was rude (I admit I was rude as well) and gave no consideration to my complaints. Don't do it, and I will tell anyone who will listen. read more

I am the owner of a small restaurant. I was cold called and sold on their advertising with channel 10 news. This is not the most spectacular advertising in the world but for the price it really can't be beat and the people you work with truly are nice and helpful people. The ad on WBIR was a little disappointing but it is wonderful to just have the association with the news gives credibility. The video is a pretty decent montage that once I put it on my site I moved from page 3 on Google to the bottom of page one! The coupons are just that and they do bring people in on occasion. But the reason I gave 4 stars was the ad on smartphones. When I bought over the phone the mobile ad held little interest I was way more excited about the news ad but the mobile has been the most effective. I had a gentleman come in, show me his phone and ask if that was really me! It was an amazing moment! I am now roughly 5 months into this and while the villagers are not pounding down my doors it has been effective and actually brought in some new business which is pretty impressive for online advertising. So far I am satisfied and will continue it as long as it stays effective! read more

Beware! Bait and switch. Told me I could try a 6 month contract, now when I called to cancel, they said it was a year! I have not received one call or email. What a waste of my hard earned money. read more

Probably the worst marketing decision I've made. Sales people misrepresent their product and the service team really doesn't try to understand your business. They must be paid by transaction or have no time to think. Would highly recommend using your money for something other than this service read more

I am very guarded having been burned by these types of companies before, however, my rep Sydney had me convinced that they were different. Sydney went into hiding at the first sign of trouble. That was exacerbated by the recording that said it would take up to 3 business days to return a call. A couple of gentlemen did call back that day but the long and short of it is that getting a sale out of this program is like winning the lottery and they know it when they tell you they are going to increase your sales! They are a sales organization whose focus is to get you into a contract for continual monthly payments... Not advertising. The ineffective ad service they offer is just the vehicle that they use to get your money. To be fair, when I complained they reduced my contract to three months from twelve months. My frustration is primarily at myself for believing Sydney and getting involved in something like this yet one more time when I knew better! read more

This is one of the worst decisions I have ever made with marketing and technology. This company creates a dash board for you to set up a banner and a coupon and not one person will see it or give you the time of day if they do, because it's like an annoying pop up. No artistic help with the ad as offered. No real contract ,just a welcome letter. My start up was to be 125.00 for the first 6 months and then we would go over a new contract or cancellation. There was no contact until my card expired and then came the phone calls daily requesting me resubmit my new account information. I never resolved the issue so I didn't give them my new info. They in turn drafted funds through fraudulent means. BBB has 62 complaints against them. Enough said. read more