yellow Pages - Mis-sold product?

amancalledmartin

118247 is an utter scam in itself. Whatever happened to the good old days of directory enquiries when you got given the name of a business provided they'd registered (for free, of course). Now the customer pays 50p or whatever to ring this number, hoping to be given local contact details, but is only given the numbers of people who have paid for the privilege. I think it's a rubbish system. I gave the sales rep who tried to book me up for it such a hard time that he put the phone down. Lightweight.

Witham

I friend has just had the annual visitation from (yet another new) YP rep. he was told that the paper book was more popular than ever dispite "the internet and all that".
My friend was in the habit (don't ask!) of weighing the yellow pages each year and pointed to an annual reduction in the weight of the book. His thinking that a lighter book means less pages therefore fewer adverts. The answer left him reeling; "It's lighter 'cos we use thinner paper to be more environmentally friendly" - yeah rite!

amancalledmartin

Love that! Didn't think it was possible for the paper they use to get any thinner...

tjb_2

hi, Sorry to hear of your problem but same thing has happened to me recently oct 2009.Has your problem been resolved and if so could you give me any information that might help me.

Berry7

Bit late to post on this thread but I have just had to write a strong complaint to the Yell group on account if being mis sold a £5000 ad! Last year the rep visited us in our first few weeks of business and signed us up to a year with yell.com at about a grand. He tried to get us in the book but it was too expensive. He offered to reserve us a spot in the next year's issue with a BOGOF offer and then if we did not want to proceed with it, to just not confirm the order. We didn't really want to reserve a spot but he made out it was good for us (in case we had a storming first year) and good for him and he'd been pretty helpful so we just did it. We were stupid and signed a form.

The new book has just come out with our ad in it and they have invoiced us for nearly 5K! They have a signature and that's that apparently. The new sales rep (surprise surprise) was unflinching when she told us yesterday. You signed it, you pay for it. That's it.

Obviously we are a bit naive but it's a total killer for a small new company. I'll be fighting it. I'll let you know how I get on. No idea if anyone else got their money back but here's hoping.

Macka_Moose

Also mis sold by Yellow Pages / Yell.com. I was led to believe that the second print advert was available ata special proce - what I actually got was a duplicate contract with as a second package - an extra £1100.
Their customer services are particularly unhelpful, "You signed it - You pay for it".
Now I think about it the Sales Rep came back to us for a second signature - She forgot to get it - I reckon I was scammed on this second visit to purchasing a second package that I definitely didnt want - we are only a one man business and 2 entries in Yell and YP are just unaffordable.
Wish I'd read this forum 1st !!!

99steve99

I also feel I have been mis-sold. I placed a free advert on Yell.com and was contacted with an offer to upgrade for £400. I told them the borough that my little company worked in and was told that the domestic cleaning category in my borough were getting 600 hits a month. Sounded good. Went through the same as most with the return email containing the 2nd and 4th letters and waited for it to appear. However instead of it appearing when a search was made on the category and borough, we only appear on a category and sub section of the borough search. (hope that makes sense) When i complained the original seller is always on answer phone and the customer service woman - will only say, YOU CANT CANCEL. But if i wanted the advert to be borough wide (as they intimated it would be with their facts and figures) I would have to pay another £160-00. I said id cancel the direct debit and see them in court but wanted some advice first if anyone can help

mandi

For the last 2 weeks we have literally been " bombarded" with calls from Donna at Yell , promises that we would call her back fell on deaf ears as she persisted with the harrassment .

The origional package of £1,500 was gradually reduced to £160.00 as Bf kept saying it was too expensive .

The last call from her was on friday lunchtime , which again was ignored .
No contract has been signed , or confirmation verbally or through the account , yet an e mail arrived yesterday thanking bf for his recent purchase for Yell , and an a buisness entry placed on the Yell directory :mad:

A call from a freind of mine who is litigation solicitor , will be made 1st thing tomorrow

Berry7

Berry7 wrote: »

Bit late to post on this thread but I have just had to write a strong complaint to the Yell group on account if being mis sold a £5000 ad! Last year the rep visited us in our first few weeks of business and signed us up to a year with yell.com at about a grand. He tried to get us in the book but it was too expensive. He offered to reserve us a spot in the next year's issue with a BOGOF offer and then if we did not want to proceed with it, to just not confirm the order. We didn't really want to reserve a spot but he made out it was good for us (in case we had a storming first year) and good for him and he'd been pretty helpful so we just did it. We were stupid and signed a form.

The new book has just come out with our ad in it and they have invoiced us for nearly 5K! They have a signature and that's that apparently. The new sales rep (surprise surprise) was unflinching when she told us yesterday. You signed it, you pay for it. That's it.

Obviously we are a bit naive but it's a total killer for a small new company. I'll be fighting it. I'll let you know how I get on. No idea if anyone else got their money back but here's hoping.

Sorry to quote my own post but figured it would make more sense. We got our money refunded for this after strongly complaining direct to the CEO.

john.condron@yellgroup.com

He has a team that pick up direct complaints. I was incredulous about the service we recieved but in fairness they refunded us the full amount with no questions asked. My letter was pretty clear about the situation though so I figure they realised how bad it had been. We also complained about the rep who visited us second time (not the one who mis sold us) as she was so unhelpful about the whole thing and incredibly rude. "You signed it, you pay for it." Their customer service team said the same. "Anyone else here will tell you the same thing. You have to pay."

Well we didn't have to. Like most things, it's just a case of getting past the idiots on the front line and speaking to someone with a brain. Just a real shame they hide these peope so far away.

Good luck to everyone. Hope you get your cash back.

heretolearn_2

I'm thinking about the 2 months free line they are using...

Wondering...

a lot of business direct debit administration companies, are switching from 12 equal monthly payments on a years contract, to 10 months. Don't ask me why, I've tried to find out, and got lots of different answers.

But we offer our clients the chance to pay by dd, used to be over 12 months (made sense), now it has to be 10 months. Also just renewed a couple of contracts we have, that we pay by direct debit, and those have also been changed to 10 payments instead of 12.

So..in a way, you are getting two months 'free' of payments, but not actually free. I wonder if the reps at yell are misusing this to sell - you are signing up for a year, the years fee is spread over 10 payments, and they are saying the first two months are 'free' (because there's no dd payment due).

Does that make sense to anyone else?