Free guide — built from public FTC orders and BBB complaint records
How to not get burned by a marketing agency.
Five questions to ask on any agency sales call. A good agency answers all five in writing. A bad one gets uncomfortable at question one — which is the point of asking it first.
We answer every one in writing before you pay a dollar — most of them in a named clause of our terms.
Up to $7.2M
required in refunds by a 2023 FTC final order against one national home-services lead marketplace, over value claims it couldn’t substantiate.
114
BBB complaints in three years on a single national marketing agency’s public file — billing after cancellation the recurring theme.
~$30
the average refund check that eventually reached business owners under that FTC order. Prevention beats restitution.
None of the stories below name a company, because the company isn’t the point — the pattern is. Every incident referenced here sits in a public record: FTC orders, BBB complaint files, and widely shared first-person accounts from business owners. The same five wounds repeat across vendors, years, and trades. Which means five questions, asked before you sign, catch almost all of it.
Question 1 of 5
“If I asked the ad platform directly how much you spent on my behalf, would the number match what you bill me?”
Why it matters
A business owner asked his agency exactly this, in writing, in a widely shared public thread: would the platform’s number be close to what you claim? The answer he got: “No, probably not… that’s confidential.” His own ad spend — money he paid, spent in his name — confidential, from him. He ended the relationship on the spot, and he was right to.
The gap between billed and spent is the category’s most-documented wound. Public BBB complaint files on national small-business marketing agencies record the supporting cast: analytics never installed, websites never submitted for indexing, reports that reconcile with nothing the platform shows. And when value claims can’t be substantiated at all, it can end in federal enforcement: a 2023 FTC final order against a national home-services lead marketplace required up to $7.2 million in refunds, after the FTC charged that lead-quality and conversion-rate claims were unsubstantiated and that leads sold as first-party were in many cases purchased from affiliates.
What a good answer looks like
- “Yes — and here’s how you’ll verify it: the ads run in an ad account you own, under your login.”
- The platform bills your card directly, or every invoice shows the platform’s own receipts, line for line.
- You have admin access to the ad account and the analytics from day one.
Red flag: Any version of “that’s confidential,” “our reporting covers that,” or “we run it through our master account for better rates.”
How Morthn answers it
When we run ads, they run in your ad accounts, under your login. Ask the platform what was spent on your behalf and the number matches what you were billed, because the spend happens where you can always see it. And the fee itself gets argued every month by a ledger built from your own data — graded, with the weak claims downgraded before you ever see them. See a real monthly report →
Question 2 of 5
“Walk me through what happens when I cancel. Can I see the clause?”
Why it matters
Billing that continues after cancellation is the most repeated theme in public BBB complaint files on this category — one national agency’s file alone shows 114 complaints in three years, with billing-after-cancellation the recurring subject. One documented case describes a business charged for eleven months after a documented cancellation. Others record websites switched off over a single missed payment while the invoices kept coming. The pattern is consistent: cancelling is easy to say on the sales call and hard to execute in the billing system.
What a good answer looks like
- Month-to-month, in writing, with no early-termination fee.
- Cancellation by a single email or a dashboard button — not a phone call to a “retention specialist.”
- A written statement of when billing stops (end of the current period) and what happens to your assets after.
Red flag: The cancellation clause is “in the master services agreement,” which they’ll send “after the call.”
How Morthn answers it
Month-to-month. Cancellation takes one email, billing stops at the end of the current period, and there is no early-termination fee because there is no term. It’s commitment #2 of a named clause in our terms — and the terms match the marketing exactly. Read the clause →
Question 3 of 5
“If we part ways tomorrow, who owns the website, the phone numbers, the reviews, and my customer data?”
Why it matters
Public complaint records document what happens when the answer is “we do”: websites deleted 30 days after a client left; a business’s own email shut off as leverage in a billing dispute; phone numbers — the ones on the trucks and the door — that turn out to belong to the vendor. An asset you don’t own isn’t an asset. It’s a hostage with your logo on it.
What a good answer looks like
- You own the domain, the site, the phone numbers, the ad accounts, the review profiles, and the customer list — registered in your name from day one.
- The agency works inside your accounts under its own seat, which you can revoke.
- A written export commitment: what you get, in what format, and how fast.
Red flag: “We host everything on our platform — it’s easier that way.” Easier to keep, they mean.
How Morthn answers it
You own everything, always: site, data, phone numbers, inbox, ad accounts — registered in your name from day one, and it says so in a named clause of our terms. On exit you get 30 days of full export, then we delete our copies and leave clean. Read the clause →
Question 4 of 5
“Is the contract I’m about to sign the same deal you just described to me?”
Why it matters
BBB complaint files document “month-to-month” sales pitches that turned out to hide 12-month commitments, discovered only at cancellation — and, in lead-marketplace contracts, early-exit penalties of $1,000 to $2,800 under agreements sold as flexible. The sales call is not the contract. Only the contract is the contract.
What a good answer looks like
- “Yes — here’s the signature copy. Read the term and renewal clause with me right now.”
- Every number the rep quoted appears in the document, verbatim.
- Auto-renewal, if any, is flagged out loud on the call — not discovered at month twelve.
Red flag: Any daylight between the pitch and the paper. If they’ll misstate the term to win you, they’ll misstate the results to keep you.
How Morthn answers it
Our terms are written in plain English and mirror the marketing exactly — same price, same month-to-month, same guarantee. Where a lawyer would insert two pages of capital letters, we wrote what we mean, and made the five commitments a named clause you can read before any call. Read the terms →
Question 5 of 5
“Are you doing this exact work for my competitor across town?”
Why it matters
One documented complaint describes an operator discovering that the agency he was paying was already building a direct competitor’s website. Lead marketplaces at least disclose their version of this — selling the same inquiry to multiple businesses is the stated model. An agency doing it quietly is worse: your playbook, your spend data, and your market intel, working for the other truck.
What a good answer looks like
- Exclusivity, in writing: one client per trade per market.
- A straight answer about current clients in your service area, before you sign.
- Nothing produced for you — creative, copy, strategy, data — reused for a competitor.
Red flag: “We keep client engagements confidential.” That’s the question-one answer wearing a different hat.
How Morthn answers it
One client per trade per market — while you’re a client, we don’t take on a direct competitor in your service area, and nothing we produce for you is resold to or reused for one. And we never sell leads, to you or anyone: we run your operation, for one flat fee the monthly ledger has to justify. Read the clause →
Our answers, on the record
Five promises the checklist can’t catch us on.
We built this checklist because we can pass it. Every promise below is either a named clause in our terms or an artifact you can inspect before paying:
- 1.We never sell you leads — we run your operation.
- 2.Nothing we produce is resold to your competitor. One client per trade per market.
- 3.You’re never billed per “lead” — one flat fee, and a monthly ledger that has to justify it.
- 4.Month-to-month. Cancellation takes one email. The terms match the marketing.
- 5.Every ROI number we show is your own data, graded — never a projection from a sales deck.
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