Textiful

What do you like best?

I loved how the software was set up and worked, simple and intuitive. It's basically texting for dummies.

What do you dislike?

I had secured my keyword, SMILE, and was rolling out a campaign for movie-goers to "text SMILE to 33777" and they would be entered to win a free Waterpik or electric toothbrush. I worked 2 months on a proof of concept and lining up creative, coordinating ad-buys and getting approvals. I got an e-mail from Sam at textiful that quickly soured the relationship and showed how slimy their business practices are.

Hello!

Thank you for trying out Textiful! I wanted to check in since it's been a couple months since you have gotten started with our platform.

Do you have plans to use the keyword SMILE? We are experimenting with a keyword buyback program for unused keywords. If you don't have plans to use that keyword, I would be happy to refund the $30 that you have spent already on keywords fees.

Please let me know if you'd like to move forward with the refund or if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Sam

THREE DAYS LATER he refunded our money without a response from us and sold the keyword to another company and later stated that:

"I understand your frustration. That keyword should have not been issued to your account in the first place. It was on reserve by another organization but due to a system glitch, it was shown as available....

...Based upon that information we made a judgement call to issue the keyword to the client with the original rights to the keyword.

We have refunded all keyword fees that you have paid to date.

Sam"

I told Sam I planned on using them and once I caught him in a lie about the fake "buy back program" for unused keywords he couldn't get his lies straight and basically left me hanging with a whole campaign that I'm having to revamp with another company and offered no remorse or solution for the situation.

I took our business elsewhere and having nothing positive to say about my experience with this company.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

get in writing that your keyword will not be resold to a higher bidder or that a "glitch in the system" will not result in your keyword being taken from you.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

None, now. It created far more problems than it solved.