I waited for a day to be contacted by 7Search to be verified…since that is what the site implied. I figured I would get a call or email or something. But I got nothing.

The next day I decided to login to my account and see if I had been “verified.” Nope. But I could hit a button to get verified, so I did that. Thankfully, I was given convenient option of being verified through live chat, so I hit the chat button and waited. And then I waited…and waited some more. Ten minutes later I was still waiting for someone to respond to my chat request.

A bit frustrated, I decided to take the alternative contact route, which meant sending 7Search an email. And no, it wasn’t one of those pre-filled out, just hit “send” emails, I actually had to write an email asking to be “verified” (still not knowing what “verified” meant).

Now let’s pause for a second here. I want to pay this company money – actually, I already had to give them some money to get this far in the process. I already wasted ten minutes waiting for someone who never showed up to chat, and now I have to send an email to ask to be allowed to use their service? I mean, I’m not trying to sneak into the US Embassy in Jalalabad; I’m trying to use a second-tier search engine.

But the fun didn’t stop there my friends. More than 24 hours after I sent the email, I still had not heard back. There was no response to my request to start spending money with them. Not even an auto-response.

Out of desperation I called 7Search to ask for my account to be verified. Surprisingly, my call was answered quickly (I was starting to wonder if the entire office was on some multi-day ropes course adventure or something). After explaining my situation to the gentleman who answered, he apologized for the inconvenience and then asked me to hang up and wait for a call to verify my account.

Hang up and wait? Couldn’t I be transferred? At this point I felt like I was attempting to buy uranium from an ex-KGB officer, not opening a PPC account.

Thankfully, I was called back within five minutes by a kind customer service representative from 7Search. Moments later it was verified that, after two days, I am now a verified member of the secret 7Search cool kids club. YAY!

Now if you’ll do me favor, let’s all bow our heads and pray that 7Search’s traffic is better then their customer service - because if I have to cancel this account, I have a feeling it is going to be as easy as stealing a nuclear powered submarine from the British…and I haven’t done that since college.

[UPDATE! 3/16/2007 - I came into the office this morning with this email waiting for me...

Dear 7Search Advertiser,

Your account was automatically placed ON HOLD.

Please contact 7Search Customer Support to specify an appropriate time to call you at the billing phone number you provided (be sure to mention your time zone).

Thank you for being a valued 7Search Advertiser.

Sincerely,
7Search.com

So now I have to call them again to get my account back online. Sweet job 7Search]