Basic service | Deceptive membership renewal practices

What are the best aspects of this product?

The interface is easy to use and easy to learn. There were no issues rolling this out to multiple users in our firm for basic searches and tracking media mentions of the firm and our projects.

What aspects are problematic or could work better?

Overall when compared to using simple Google alerts for topics and media related to my firm, Meltwater was outperformed by the free service. When we let Meltwater know that we were interested in cancelled because of this, they deceptively asked that we wait to cancel implying our renewal date was several months away. In fact in was much closer and we missed the deadline to renew. However, it wasn't published anyway easy to access but buried in a page on the internet, reachable by a link deep in our contract in fine print. We missed the official cancellation date because we were issued a final invoice the day after that deadline - when I refuted the invoice explaining it should have been clear we were cancelling the response was that we hadn't stated that clearly in writing. Another detail not shared with us when we called and emailed several times to complain about the service, and express out intent to cancel. After weeks of "negotiation" we were threatened with legal action if we didn't compromise and spend an additional $2000 (as opposed to the $8000 they wanted us to pay) to extend our contract partially through the end of the year.

What specific problems in your company were solved by this product?

I inherited this system as i joined a firm. I was aware of Meltwater and had never previously found a need for its services which are less successful than my experience using a PR person or team, Google alerts and/or reaching out on my own to find publication opportunities.

Are you a current user of this product?

Yes