Google, Give Me My $30,000 Back!

Apr 30, 2009 at 3:24pm ET by Barry Schwartz

I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that one new AdWords advertiser found a $30,000 surprise from Google in her AdWords account. The advertiser said in a Google AdWords thread that she set up a test ad one night and when she returned the next morning to see how the ad was doing, she noticed she ran up a bill for almost $30,000.

I am not sure how an advertiser can make such a big mistake. To accrue $30,000 of clicks overnight, you need to be bidding on some pretty expensive generic keywords. But then again, you would think Google would have some checks to prevent new advertisers from making such a mistake. I am not saying Google is at fault here, it may be that the post is a joke or a lie. I don’t know. I did email Google for a comment on the following three questions:

Is this case true, did this woman accidently spend $30,000 overnight with Google?
What is Google planning doing about this case? I know Google does offer refunds, as a courtesy, to some customers who make mistakes.
What type of controls does Google have in place on new accounts to prevent such bills?

If we hear back from Google with answers, I will make sure to update this post.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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4 COMMENTS ON Google, Give Me My $30,000 Back!

Andrew Goodman, April 30th, 2009 at 11:52 pm ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

$30,000? No problem. There was revenue coming in against that, right? No!?

Brad Geddes, May 1st, 2009 at 8:09 am ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

We all know that to spend this, you already had to have a very high daily budget that says you’re willing to spend that.

If you change your daily budget more than a % at a time, Google does pop up a warning making sure you meant to change it that much.

Might be a refund; but the advertiser made some pretty big mistakes and if Google gives a refund – they are just being nice.

ganr8790, May 4th, 2009 at 6:13 am ET:

As long as the Contents and Partners Network implicitly switched
on (when creating a campaign) that can happen quite easily – despite
numerous requests, Google has failed to respond and change it!!!
In other words – this is a rip off …big time

srichardson, May 6th, 2009 at 11:12 am ET:

Strange that there hasn’t been an update to this issue on the Google thread. Is the advertiser not allowed to comment or is this a strange, yet original way to get your website’s name out there?

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