I pit mytime.com, for their unethical business practices.

The BBQ Pit
1

So, I had a client show up out of the blue last week. They said they had an appointment, but I had no record or memory of them setting one up. I took them anyway, as I happened to have some extra time that day, but I would have had to turn them away most days.

When they picked up their dog, they said that they had used our “online booking” to set up the appointment, and that they had received a confirmation email that said it was all set up. Was curious about this, as I do not have online booking. This is when I found out about mytime.com.

If you search for my business name, I own the first 5 or 6 search results, and then there is “mytime”. In the description under the result, it says “Book your appointment online with <my business name>.” If you click on the link, it takes you to a website that says that it is online booking for my business. It has completely wrong information about hours of operation, services provided, and prices, but you can book an appointment.

I read their literature, which asked me to set up a paid profile if I wish to correct the erroneous information. It wished to take my client’s money ahead of the appointment, and send me the money (minus their commission) “within 7 days”. They claim to help with marketing, but that is simply untrue. You do not come across the mytime entry for my business if you are searching for my industry and location, although you do find my authorized sites. The only way to find the mytime entry is if you search for my business name. If a client is already searching for my by name, then I don’t really need their site popping up, it’s not helping anyone find me, just adding confusion.

I contacted them, using their “deactivate” procedure, and they said they would remove the listing. They did not remove the listing, they just changed the site to say “This business does not accept appointments through mytime, we suggest these businesses.”

So now, if someone is searching for me by name, see “online booking” (which sounds cool and convenient), they click on the link, and are directed to my competition.

I doubt that I will end up losing any business over it, my clients are pretty loyal, but I do feel that this is a pretty unethical practice.

Am I over reacting to this, or am I right in feeling that this hijack of my name is pretty uncool?

2

I agree with you.

3

Seriously lame. Complete shakedown.

4

I’m gonna go with “pretty uncool”.

ETA: Contact your lawyer and talk about this. Send a cease-and-desist letter. Suggest he contact other business owners and see about a class action suit (make sure you stipulate your cut of the suit NOW not later) if one is possible for restraint of trade, false advertising, malicious business practices or whatever laws might apply.

5

The only customers you’re losing are the ones who value online appointment booking so highly that they’ll search for it. If those numbers are worth the bother to you of setting it up, then go set it up.

But not with those shysters, of course.

6

Can you take this issue up with the search engine, I am assuming Google? If mytime.com is screwing with you, they are likely screwing with other businesses.

7

The OP is being screwed over. I hope they can quash the ugly practises they mytime is using.

8

I will have to talk to him. He specializes in business matters, not litigation, but I am sure he can help, or at least refer me to someone who can. I wasn’t thinking it was something to involve the legal system, but now that I think about it, I might as well run it by him.

It comes up when you search specifically for my business name. Usually the 6th or 7th result. I can see a client thinking,“Oh, they have online booking now, how convenient.” And then going through their website, instead of to mine.

I can set up online booking through my POS (for a bit of a monthly charge), but I don’t really want it. I definitely want to talk to new clients, most of my returning clients re-book anyway. There’d only be a handful of people that I would want to use such a service.

Good point, I do shovel a good chunk of money at Google every month. Not that losing my business would hurt them, but there may be someone who loses a couple cents on their next bonus if they were to “lose” my account. Contacting google is of course a monumental task, but I can throw some correspondence their way, see if anything sticks.
I worked pretty hard to get my relevance up to where it is. I can see many other small businesses having the mytime search result actually come before their own websites. I don’t think that they are going to hurt me much, I just think their business model is pretty shitty.