Datalot Reviews 352

I'm writing from an employee perspective. The licensed agents are correct. I don't know how many times I've answered a call and the caller is calling about an ad they saw on TV or social media claiming $40 insurance. Although I know we don't have any agents that's offering $40 insurance, I have to keep the call going and attempt to transfer to an agent. They do it with auto, life, and Medicare insurance. Then they'll have people transferred from company to company then when they get to me they think I'm a licensed agent, but sadly I have to make them repeat everything ( a third or fourth time). As much as I want to blame the rude callers and "leads". I completely blame the company for how draining and depressing the job is for full time "verification specialists". They make us out to be liars and harassers. There shouldn't be a rule on how to get commission when you spend the whole day speaking to people who don't want to speak with you. You're lucky I was even able to get them to want to continue the call. Even the callers who really need the insurance can make you feel like shit. I used to think the licensed agents were rude until I realized that they're being scammed too, but paying for it. I understand why they hang up on us or ignore our calls when we try to transfer a lead to them. I don't know how many times I reached an agent that wasn't licensed for the caller's state. Can't speak for licensed agents who want to deal with Centerfield/Datalot, but avoid being a verification specialist for this job unless you have previous experience with debt collections. Also do part time, do not do full time.

These are decent- ish leads but once in a while you get someone that definitely doesn’t fit your filters and getting refunds can take a second.

Gus Viart is why I’m giving five stars. He’s good at his job!

They claim they generate their leads digitally on the internet.
You'll come to find out all they are doing is cold call telemarketing.

Datalot is a scam. The last 2 weeks there were no live xfers. When there were live transfers, one lady told me she was responding to a tv ad for $13 a month life insurance for $50k of coverage for seniors. This is the kind of fraudulent advertising that all of these lead companies use to generate low quality leads that they charge between $60-$250 for. The next call I got was a guy who said he had a heart attack. If you have a heart attack, you can't get life insurance. The next call I got was a guy with dementia. If you have dementia, you can't get life insurance. Most places out there refund all of these calls. Datalot did not refund even one of them. That is when I told them to close my account and refund my money. That was last week and I still have yet to hear anything back or receive the money left in my account. My account manager was named Emily and she was awful. I never heard from her unless I emailed her. She would not go over my numbers for the month. Gave no suggestions of how to maximize my results. I already see this company's ratings are low, but I just wanted to make sure nobody invests with them.

BuyerZone was an okay lead system hitting 10% of the time. It was purchased by Business.com and rebranded Datalot. Datlot has provided ZERO 0% actual leads.
What a WASTE of my licensed professionals time and WHEN these leads are not Quickly disqualified, the cost is HUGE. $50 - $100 per some leads.
The service is worthless and costly to moral, time and our payroll dollars.... in our opinion.

This is the single worst company that I have ever dealt with. They are a total scam. My company was contacted by them in September 2022, for their Buyer Zone lead program. They were under new ownership, we were told, and we had worked with the prior ownership in the past. The cost for leads with the other company, just a year earlier was around $25.00 per lead. Their new price was $48.00... We were skeptical, but over a week or two, we actually received a few good leads. Then starting a couple of weeks after we agreed to accept their leads, we starting hearing, "We have already selected another company", "We have received a dozen calls already", while we had only had the lead for less than a minute. And we were told that only 4-5 companies would get the leads. Clearly, they were both passing out the leads to more companies than promised, and we were getting the leads after their preferred vendors. Stupidly, we decided to let it go a while, and see what would happen. By the first of 2023, it was obvious that the leads were garbage, and we began calmly stating the facts, then, because they outsourced us to India, for the worst support imaginable, as we have hundreds of worthless leads, that they have sold us. We were forced to be more vocal in our complaints. They idiotically offered us "private" leads, for $200.00 per lead... Which was so ludicrous, my team just laughed. I put a freeze on their account in late January, early February, and withheld (permanently) any payments, and reported them to the Massachusetts Attorney General;s Office, and our states version. Also, we began to create a law suit, and have many other companies that have joined. This company is a scam, pure and simple. Look at the extreme negative reviews here and on Yelp, and other places, when you simply type Buyer Zone on your search engine. They are getting away with theft, and we intend to stop them. Greg Coonley, claims to be the VP of Sales of this scam. He uses bizarre comments to try to keep from answering questions. The last one, was that we were being bigoted against him, because he is a woman... It made no sense, as how would we know about his private business...? Run from these criminals. They have changed their name to Datalot, in hopes of running away from their nightmare past... Now they are using Centerfield. Crooks!!!

Very unethical company, they lie to you about lead qualifications and send you very low intent leads that have NOT been screened properly. They just worry about emptying your bank account. Agents I have never not made an ROI with my leads until I ran into DATALOT, STAY AWAY

Customer service is Great I will give them that.
The sales people make great promises that don't show up in the quality of calls. The calls are the lowest quality of calls that I have seen yet. Most of the customers you cant understand or they think there getting 40k in free insurance. I was paying $101.00 for a lot of the calls and you get somebody on the phone that cant even hold a conversation. Ten calls not one person worth a $5.00 lead...

Charge for calls that are out of your demographic area.

If zero stars existed that is what I would award. I am not a new agent, I've been around. Previous to going independent I worked for a national call center, so this type of work is not new to me. These leads are not quality. They often come in thinking they are receiving "free insurance", or are people with zero income. I could go walk the streets of Atlanta and talk to people with zero income for free. The truly disgusting part of this business is the fact they will not refund you for leads that disconnect less than a minute into a call. You will pay over $70 for 50 seconds. I don't know about you but I could hire a dedicated appointment setter and buy some aged leads for a heck of a lot cheaper than that. I spent $1400 dollars in 10 days. I could have paid someone to make calls for me at $17.50 for 80 hours for that sum. I made one sale from Datalot for $200. 7 of those calls at $70-$78 a pop were calls that were less than 3 minutes that the person either hung up on me, or was not looking to actually purchase anything. For a comparative I have spent $29 on FB marketing and made $3000. This is not a company that is part of that "good, cheap, or fast" conundrum. They are not good. They are not cheap. I will give them fast, they keep the calls flowing, but fast is clearly their only priority. The transfers are unprofessional, the call quality is poor, and their refund system is disgusting. Stay away from Datalot.

Beware of the 5 star reviews! Pay attention to the 1/2 star reviews. My leads were great during my onboarding phase. The day after onboarding concluded, so did the leads. I have been shown "volume charts" that do not correspond to the number of calls I was receiving on a daily basis from 11 states I am licensed in. The reason I was given as to why I wasn't receiving any lead calls is that my bid was too low. Interesting enough us that during the entire onboarding phase my acerage per lead price was just $63+/-. But the day after my onboarding concluded I was told I would need to raise my bid to nearly $80 per lead. The volume chart showed how many calls had come in from each state I use. The numbers are nowhere near corresponding with the number of calls and cost per I incurred.
I have emailed & called Paloma Oliver's, Kathleen Shugg and Leslie McKenzie about this. Not one of these people has responded to me.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!!
I WISH I HAD!!!

Turned on my Data Lot at 8:45 PM EST hoping to catch a LIVE TRANSFER call before calling it a day. Five minutes later the phone rings twice as I am reaching for the phone in an attempt to answer. I never picked up and the operator forwarded the contact's name and number to the site as a billed called. Out of curiosity I called this fella from Birmingham AL.....he had been shot earlier in the day and was involved in a very severe car accident shortly thereafter. I asked him if he worked and his response was.......not in over a year. He continued to state, after being released from the hospital he was online looking for health insurance. Please note, this is a $130 lead and the operator billed me when I was not even allowed to answer the call. I emailed Rachel Holdman with Data Lot asking for a credit of which she denied. I reviewed with her the fact the phone only rang twice and I never spoke with the prospect during the LIVE transfer. At the beginning of my contract I was informed I would be given 45 seconds to determine the status of the prospect......try zero seconds......can you say..."LAWSUIT?"

This lead provider started out strong. I was closing every other transfer but it did not last long. A month later and I am still paying $60 + for single line auto policy $350 in premium that lapse when the first payment returns. All recent leads have no prior or 1 month prior or something that obviously makes them ineligible. Guess what??? Not refundable since They say the prospect told them they had prior coverage. Asking if they've ever been insured before is not the same as, do you have 6 months of uninterrupted coverage?

Wish I could 0 star this company. Not only is their lead system bogus, their refund policy is too! Datalot misrepresents EVERYONE in the life insurance industry. Ads using copy such as “Get $500k for $20 / mo” just as bait and switch for browsing clients. “VA Benefit” Ads who are specifically targeting Veterans which in my opinion is VERY unethical. Now on top of that, their screening method for “health conditions” was described to me as “black & white” you know what that means? You still MAY receive a client with health conditions and NOT be applicable for refund. Only Datalot’s “specified” conditions. Leads me to believe they use Robocallers to grab them, then use the agent (you) to steal your time & money too by using a bid strategy system. Which now is upwards of $120 / call. Good luck if you’ve made it this far and still decide they are going to be a good fit for your business. Because THEY aren’t even a business.
Hope this helps all new agents from what we all have been through.

Worst Company for live transfers! They have ads that misrepresent future clients by offering ads that say (YOU CAN GET $20 for $100k Coverage) and, the clients 73 years old. Very unethical company, and just pure degusting. They use unethical ads, and don't refund there customers for getting people they cant help due to their ads. They lie, and there bidding system is pure fraud. They make you keep bidding higher and higher to the point its over $100 dollars per call.

I was informed that leads would cost about $60 for standard (healthy) individuals, but then no leads came in for over a week. I kept raising my price until I finally got anybody and it was costing $120 per lead and most were bordering on homeless or drug addicts.

My rep told me that because of my 'filters' I would have less leads, even though he stated that it should be higher during our onboarding.

In the end, the only real filter I have is that they are not with a terminal illness.

Kathleen Shugg sends generic emails pretending to care and asks how she can help. However, when I reach out with concerns she simply states that she cannot really help.

Total scam of a company. I even messaged the founders on LinkedIn to see if they would defend the company's actions. They never responded.

This place is the typical shitbag tall talk no actual service marketing company. Do you want to waste your money? work with them.
nothing about the name of their company or what they do is live transfers whatsoever.
Then when you catch on to the little scam they don't pick up their phones.
That's okay I'm going to make sure that everywhere on the internet knows how BS this company is.

As a lead source their job is to MISLEAD you. The biggest thing they neglect to mention is that they have a MINIMUM BID on the leads.. Auto Min. bid is $50!!!
Home is $58!!! Not once in the sales conversation did they mention that. The leads are also sold to other agents. NOT TO MENTION THE PENALTY! IF YOU MISS A CALL YOU ARE CHARGED THE FULL PRICE OF THE LEAD!
AWFUL UNETHICAL COMPANY

I usually don't write reviews because I don't have time. I have to speak my mind about Datalot. They prey on lower socio-economic people. Every lead I have received has been on SSI income or no job at all. There bidding system is very suspect based on the other agencies I have spoken with. I have been using leads for years and this is by far the most suspect service in my opinion.

Both the quality of the leads and the customer service have deteriorated in the last year. Our initial experience with Datalot was good, but recently we are getting leads who have been given unrealistic promises, are not actual homeowners or in escrow to purchase a home, but simply want generic rate quotes for hypothetical homes. Datalot used to give reimbursements fairly for bad leads, but now if the client is lying, not really interested in getting a quote and just ask you to call them back but never answer or various other issues, it is extremely unlikely to get approved for a refund. We have begun moving our lead generation money to other companies who provide better leads and better customer service.