Spent $800 on a lead gen tool that was just scraping LinkedIn profiles

Signed up for LeadHawk Pro last quarter thinking it would save me hours. Turns out the emails it pulled were outdated half the time, and I got flagged by LinkedIn twice for aggressive scraping. Ended up going back to manual outreach with Apollo's free tier. Anyone else burned by a hyped up b2b tool that didn't deliver?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessap738d ago

My buddy Kevin bought into one of those "AI powered" lead tools last spring. The sales pitch promised contact info that was verified within 24 hours or something like that. He spent almost a grand on it for his side hustle selling marketing services to local shops. First batch of numbers he called, three were disconnected and one was a pizza place that got mad at him for soliciting during lunch rush. The tool's support team basically ghosted him after he asked for a refund. He ended up just driving around town and talking to business owners face to face, which actually worked way better.

nancy_king298d ago

Ugh, that sucks... I've been there too with a tool called Prospector Plus that bragged about real time data but half the profiles were from 2021. Felt like I paid for a list of ghosts honestly. Manual still beats junk data any day.

harperp248d ago

Bought a "high end" lead scraper last year that promised to pull current data from trade association directories... ended up getting a bunch of guys who retired back in 2018. Called one number and his widow answered, telling me he passed two years ago. Had to apologize and hang up, felt awful. It just reinforces what you're saying - nothing beats going out and talking to actual people, even if it's slower and hurts your fingers from all the typing.