John Surdi has been in the carpet cleaning business for 19 years. And during that period the owner of Bellevue's Crystal Carpet Cleaning has avoided promoting his services on Craigslist, partly because it doesn't mesh with the high-end services he provides.

So, you can imagine Surdi's surprise on Thursday after he was told that an advertisement for his carpet cleaning business was circulating on Craigslist under the title "Want Cleaner Looking Carpets?" Surdi didn't post the ad, which used his company's name and included a misspelling. So who did?

Turns out, it was written and posted by HelpHive, a Seattle online directory whose tactics have raised the ire of small businesses before. The hyperlinked text in the ad didn't direct potential customers to the Crystal Carpet Cleaning Web site, but instead to a profile page on HelpHive.

That didn't sit well with Surdi. He had previously signed up to be included in the HelpHive directory and referral service, agreeing to pay for any qualified leads that were driven his way through the Web site. But Surdi said he did not agree to have HelpHive post ads on Craigslist on his behalf. And he's not alone.

"I am concerned," said Surdi. "I really don't want people writing my ad copy."

Surdi's not the only one questioning HelpHive's methods.

Howard Hale, the online marketing strategist at Fischer Plumbing, said he was "shocked" when he discovered on Wednesday that HelpHive had placed an ad on Craigslist about his Seattle company. As with Crystal Carpet Cleaning, the ad connected potential customers to Fischer Plumbing's profile page on HelpHive.

It read:

We are the plumber people recommend because we get the job done right every time. We are here for all your plumbing repairs, installations, and upgrades. See more details about us and contact info: Fischer Plumbing

Hale said he did not write the ad. Furthermore, he was never contacted by HelpHive about the promotion, nor did he approve it.

"I was kind of amazed that they would dig that low to try to garner some business," said Hale, who discovered the Craigslist ad after receiving a Google News alert about his company.

Hale said they use a lot of online directory services -- including Angie's List. But -- after this incident and the dust up from last year -- he said it is likely that they will cease involvement with HelpHive. "I am very leery of them," he said.

In an interview, HelpHive co-founder Karim Meghji said the company has been "experimenting" with placing advertisements on Craigslist on behalf of small businesses. He didn't know how many advertisements they had posted on the online classified site or when those ads started appearing, though he said it is not like "we have an engine cranking out things."

Meghji

A search on Craigslist turned up more than a dozen HelpHive ads, including ads for electricians, roofers, house cleaners and other service providers. Many of the ads were posted in the past week, and they all directed potential customers to HelpHive.

Meghji said the company notified some of the businesses about the Craigslist campaign, as well as other advertising efforts taking place on Facebook and Google. If businesses were not aware that it was occurring, Meghji said that was "an oversight on our part." And if those small business owners are dissatisfied with the way things have played out, he added that the company will fix it.

By posting the information on Craigslist without the consent of the businesses, HelpHive could be violating the terms of service of the classifieds site. Those terms say -- among other things -- that you agree not to post content "that impersonates any person or entity ... or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliate with a person or entity."

Meghji said he was uncertain whether HelpHive's current Craigslist campaign violates the terms of service of the site. But he said no ill will was intended.

At this point, the former RealNetworks employee said he has received one complaint about the Craigslist ads, and they took that specific announcement down upon request. "We are very open to hearing feedback," he said.

The company received plenty of feedback last November after HelpHive set up new phone numbers for small business owners in the HelpHive directory. That irked some who didn't like the idea of the online directory promoting and controlling unique phone numbers for their businesses. HelpHive later altered its policy, and allowed local businesses to opt out of the directory altogether.

One of the most vocal critics at the time was Evan Conklin, a Seattle plumber who filed complaints with the Washington State Attorney General and Better Business Bureau. He also set up a Web site at HelpHive.info to rail against the startup's practices.

Conklin, the owner of Evan Conklin Plumbing & Heating, had his profile page removed from HelpHive last fall after the dust up.

So, Conklin was pretty perturbed this week when he learned that HelpHive had created an advertisement for his business on Craigslist.

"These are pretty savvy Internet guys, and they have a business model to get in front of someone else's recognized name," said Conklin. "They want to funnel traffic to their site.... It is so insidious."

Because Conklin's profile page had previously been removed from HelpHive, a potential customer who clicked on the Craigslist ad this week would be taken to an inactive page. On Thursday, Conklin asked Craigslist to remove the listing that referred to his business, and by Friday morning he said it had been taken down.

Conklin -- who called the ad "fraudulent' -- is not happy. "They think there is nothing wrong with this. I don't understand the mentality," he said.

Meghji disagrees with that assessment, and says they are simply trying to come up with new ways to drive productive leads to businesses.

That may be the intention, but some of the small business owners are losing faith. Surdi, the carpet cleaner, said that it appears that HelpHive is thinking "outside the box." But he wasn't pleased to learn that his business was being promoted on Craigslist without his knowledge.

He said he planned to contact HelpHive, and "might just pull the plug" on them altogether.

John Cook is co-founder of TechFlash. Follow on Twitter @johnhcook.