Arizona small businesses say they paid $800 for Facebook group ads that never ran – AZ Family

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (AZFamily) — A popular Valley Facebook group with more than 70,000 members promotes local businesses. However, some business owners say after paying hundreds of dollars in marketing fees, their posts sat waiting and never reached customers.On Your Side’s Christine Stanwood received messages from business owners asking for their money back from the person running the group.‘Scottsdale Living’ is a Valley Facebook group with more than 74,000 members. Members post recommendations and job listings, and small businesses post advertisements.Business owners say the admin messages them with a social media marketing service: pay $800 for weekly advertisement posts for six months. But they say, sometimes those posts get rejected by the admin and never get posted, leaving businesses out hundreds of dollars.Time is one of life’s most valuable currencies, and every second is precious to Erin Alward.“Losing her kind of just gave me a new perspective on life and how important time is and that tomorrow is never promised,” Alward said, referring to her daughter.She named her company, ‘Time Taylored Virtual Assistance,’ after Taylor died. In her third year in business, she was searching for ways to get clients for her administrative services when she found the Facebook group, ‘Scottsdale Living’.Alward read the marketing offer to Stanwood:“Direct posting privileges post once per week in each group for six months. $800 one-time payment for six months of exposure 100% risk-free guarantee. If you post every week and aren’t happy with the results, we’ll refund you in full.”The man who sent her the message, John Doering, is admin of the group.Alward says she held up her end, posting several times in multiple groups operated by Doering, but some of her posts weren’t approved. She asked for her money back multiple times.“I’ll get this return processed,” Doering told her over Facebook Messenger. “Nothing follow up, nothing follow up,” Alward explained. “And this was months of follow-ups, and I just got excuse after excuse.”So, she took inventory of how often she posted and if it was getting posted across multiple Facebook groups.“I need to start tracking this because I want to see if this is going to be worth my money. So I made a spreadsheet,” she said.Alward tried taking Doering to small claims court, but after her certified mail was returned, she gave up.Rachel Hunter is more outspoken. She owns Cactus Crew, a junk removal and thrift store business in the Valley.She says she got a text on her business line asking, “is this Cactus Crew?” Hunter agreed to the Scottsdale Living Facebook advertising opportunity in July 2025.“So it was $800 for six months. But what that came with was we were supposed to be one of ten businesses… And the only junk removal business that would have exclusive rights to post,” Hunter said.“Once a week we could post. So, I set a reminder in my phone for noon on Sundays to post in the group and started doing that, and then quickly realized that there was other junk removals posting. So, I was like, well, this doesn’t seem very exclusive.”Hunter ended up in the same situation as Alward and wanted her money back. She called the police, filed complaints with federal agencies, and sent Doering a certified letter in April. She says he didn’t respond.Following Hunter’s TikTok videos calling out Doering, Doering sued Hunter for libel. Court documents show he is representing himself.Asked, “Are you a scam artist?” Doering told Stanwood: “Not in the least.”“It’s a business dispute, and I would hope to handle it like a business dispute,” he said about Hunter.Doering admits he’s “going through a lot of things in life right now. “I’m going through a separation. Real estate partnerships and a bankruptcy,” he said. He says he created Scottsdale Living nearly 10 years ago to give the community a place to connect.When told Alward and Hunter claim they paid him $800, Doering said, “I’m not sure who Erin Alward is.”Stanwood told Doering that Alward owns Time Taylored, a virtual assistant business. When asked when he would pay Hunter back, Doering said he could pay her back when he has an agreement with her that “she’s going to be done saying these things that she’s saying about me.” On Alward: “I’m not familiar with Erin, so I’d have to look that [up].”After the interview, Doering sent Stanwood a screen recording showing no record of interactions with Alward on Venmo or Facebook Messenger.But Alward provided proof of both receipt of payment and her interactions, including a message where Doering says, ‘Facebook has been deleting his messages.’Law enforcement is also getting involved. Stanwood told Doering he is being investigated by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, he replied: “They’ve never reached out to me, ever.”As of publication, Doering still hasn’t paid back Hunter or Alward.The Arizona Attorney General’s Office tells On Your Side it “received a complaint regarding potential fraud related to Mr. Doering’s activities and it was referred to another agency for investigation.”If you think you’re a victim, the Attorney General’s Office recommends you report to local law enforcement for review.Note: After this report was published, Doering reached out to On Your Side. He insists that all of Alward’s posts have been approved and published.See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.Do you have a story you want us to investigate? Tell us about it by contacting us.Copyright 2026 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.source