Advertising [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]

Nicky70

I too have fallen for this scam, last November I accepted the chance to appear in a Police magazine, as I had been recommended by the local council (apparantly!!) I thought I was paying for a 12mth advert to feature in 4 x quarterly publications. I received a copy of the magazine, with my ad, but I did wonder where this publication actually get's circulated, as no one had ever heard of it. It was supposedly supporting the local emergency services?? but friends in the police, fire brigade and ambulance service had never heard of it. (The chap had a scouse accent and always introduced himself as 'Mike from the police' when he rang, who chased the business)

A couple of weeks ago, I received another call, I was a passenger in a car, it was diffuclt to understand the chap on the phone, but after correcting him that I was Mrs and not Mr, he confirmed my order details (I assumed the rolling 12mth order I had already paid for), but no, I received another invoice, for Active Magazine, the previous was Safeguard magazine!! The original publisher was Abington House, the name has now been changed to Vital Support Media (both based in Liverpool, both with the same bloke on the phone) However Vital Support claim they have never heard of Abington House??? I told them I do not require their services, and they now want me to pay a £100 cancellation fee for something I have not ordered!! I today received a voice clip of ONE of my telecons, poor sound quality their end, but I appear to be saying YES in all the right places....some careful editing me thinks!!! Be very careful of these people

euqi

Thanks Nicky70. Your story is similar to mine. I have checked on TAPA's web site and notice that Vital Support Media is not on their Ledger of Support Publishing Firms. There are a couple starting with 'Active' ....... probably linked. [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] Your comment re careful editing of a recorded message is exactly how TAPA informed us that these firms operate. Do not say Yes or OK to any callers.

paddyrg

Forged evidence won'stand up in court, in fact it would be criminal to submit faked evidence to a court, so would be tempting to let the try... It would only land them in trouble, and the courts are not stupid. So I suspect they're all just bluster and bullying. Bailiffs need court instructions, these guys just want you to be scared into giving them all your money from the sounds of things!

blue_banana

To TT and all others who may be panicked into paying these parasites, I would say this. Paying will mark you down as a soft touch and you will be plagued by many more of these people.

I would recommend sending a cease and desist letter as follows, tailored to your circumstances:

Re: Cease and desist demand <Date>
Dear Sir / Madam:
We have, this morning, received a letter from a branch of your organisation called>. We utterly dispute the amount you are claiming in respect of a so-called advertisement in a Support Publication . We never requested an advert, nor was any proof provided that such a publication existed, nor anything else in writing. I told a representative of your company that we did not request entry into any publication. I will contact my own local Trading Standards Office and the DTI to register complaints. Having received nothing from your company, I see no earthly reason to pay you any money. I would also point out that attempting to obtain money by deception is a criminal offence. I wish to have no more correspondence from yourselves. If any more correspondence is received, I will also report your company to my local police force.
This will serve as your legal notice to cease and desist all further actions described above. You are hereby instructed to comply with this letter immediately or face legal sanctions under applicable legislation.
I may utilize telephone recording devices to document any telephone conversations that we may have in the future if you fail to comply with this cease and desist letter. Please give this very important matter the utmost attention. I intend to keep a log of any contacts you make with me after you receive this letter.
Sincerely

Oopsadaisy

All of these scammers and scum are based in the manc/Liverpool area....when Trading Stds etc chase them, they just close the one limited company and open another.same staff, same address, same scipts, same scum, different [untouchable for 3 months or until TS catch up] legal entity.

sazza77

Hi We had the usual CF&L demand letters back at the end of October then nothing until today when a so called solicitor rang up. Unfortunately I did not take the call but they are threatening legal action and on about providing proof of the converstaion of the order that was apparanlty discussed!!, shall we again ignore these calls? Maybe next time I should ask them to hold the line whilst i get my tape recorder! i wonder if they will be at the end of the line when i get back!!!

trisontana

I have just checked that charity number and it's for the Disabled Adventure Club which it operates in the Midlands. It's a very small charity as the figures for the last three years show that both income and spending have been between £10,000 and £16,000 per annum.

Update.

I have just found this on another website:-

I'm having major issues with "Quality Care" who are trying to take me to court for the sum of £111 for an advert that I supposedly agreed to. The ad, which they sent with an invoice, looks like my mother drew it in Word. I have demanded to see examples of this wallplanner and asked for a recording of the telephone conversation that supposedly took place in June where I supposedly agreed to this and they've come back with nothing, yet they won't go away.

Even with Wirral Trading Standards, a solicitor and Consumer Direct on their backs they still won't leave me alone and are now threatening court action.

Be warned, "Quality Care" are nothing more than scammers who are using a fictious disabled childrens charity and threatening behaviour to fleece you out of money. They are nothing more than pond life.

Wirral Trading Standards are aware of these people and are currently investigating them so if you want to report them and hopefully get them locked up go here: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/wirral/ interestingly there is a warning about this incident on their homepage so it's obviously common.

isitascam

I have had the same thing - could somebody please confirm that this is a scam and that my feeling was right from the start.

We are a small business and back in Nov or Dec of 2010 I received a phone call from somebody claiming to have worked in the police department or something to that effect. They were asking did I want to advertise in there magazine that goes out to all the service men and women in the north west of England.
I agreed to take a quarter page advertisement in the Active Response Magazine at a cost of £324.50. The man who I spoke to said this was a verbal agreement and all calls are recorded. Once I agreed he said thank you to me and that the media group who deals with the artwork and wording would contact me to arrange the listing for me.

Either that same day or the day after, this man called from Vital Support Media Group Named: Mike.
I thought it was funny because he sounded just like the man who said he was from the police who originally booked the advert! This made me think twice whether to pay it or not and if this was in fact a genuine company!
He said I would have to pay by cheque or Internet / telephone banking because they didn't take card payments. he said he would send me out the paperwork in the next few days ''which never arrived''. For the next good few weeks they harassed and harassed my offices. calling sometimes up to 4 times a day.
This made me a little wary of them and also made my office staff wary.
This harassment continued on and off for 2 months on both my office number and my mobile number.

I received numerous emailed invoices saying that if I paid via Internet banking or telephone banking I would receive a 10% Discount and also if I paid by cheque within 7 days I would receive also 10% discount.

I really just wanted them to !!!!!! off and was sorry that I ever agreed to the advert.

I was very busy and just kept fobbing them off with excuses every time they asked for payment.

In January 2011 I received a letter from a debt collecting company from West Malling nr London requesting payment.
Receiving a letter from a debt collecting company made me wonder if in fact they were a genuine company and I thought I best just pay the money and get it over and done with.

I called the debt collectors and spoke to a man there and asked him if he had any details of what the money I owed was for. He replied: It wasn't him who was dealing with my account and that he would go and check. When he came back to me he said he was sorry and I would have to contact the company who I owed the money to to find this out.
I then asked why his company do not hold details of what the debts are for..... Next thing he shouted at the top of his voice DON'T YOU USE THAT TONE OF VOICE WITH ME YOUNG LADY........ I was absolutely gob smacked how he could speak to me like that. I asked to speak to his manager and he was a waste of time too.

To cut a long story short; I rang up Vital Support Media Group and just paid them the money that was owing to get this off my mind... I paid with a business debit card. I found it funny as last time they contacted me they couldnt take my debit card!!

What made me search the internet for this company is that I was at my office desk sorting through some invoices this evening and came across the invoice from Vital Support Media Group and typed in there web site address to have a look if there web site was up and running yet as last time I checked it wasn't fully functional. Surprise surprise, its still not working, all you get is a page saying ''We are currently developing our web site due to expansion in our number of services'' It's been like this for months!!!

Please if you can help me as this company has my debit card details and by the sounds of it ive been scammed!!!


Thank you.

isitascam

isitascam wrote: »

I have had the same thing - could somebody please confirm that this is a scam and that my feeling was right from the start.

We are a small business and back in Nov or Dec of 2010 I received a phone call from somebody claiming to have worked in the police department or something to that effect. They were asking did I want to advertise in there magazine that goes out to all the service men and women in the north west of England.
I agreed to take a quarter page advertisement in the Active Response Magazine at a cost of £324.50. The man who I spoke to said this was a verbal agreement and all calls are recorded. Once I agreed he said thank you to me and that the media group who deals with the artwork and wording would contact me to arrange the listing for me.

Either that same day or the day after, this man called from Vital Support Media Group Named: Mike.
I thought it was funny because he sounded just like the man who said he was from the police who originally booked the advert! This made me think twice whether to pay it or not and if this was in fact a genuine company!
He said I would have to pay by cheque or Internet / telephone banking because they didn't take card payments. he said he would send me out the paperwork in the next few days ''which never arrived''. For the next good few weeks they harassed and harassed my offices. calling sometimes up to 4 times a day.
This made me a little wary of them and also made my office staff wary.
This harassment continued on and off for 2 months on both my office number and my mobile number.

I received numerous emailed invoices saying that if I paid via Internet banking or telephone banking I would receive a 10% Discount and also if I paid by cheque within 7 days I would receive also 10% discount.

I really just wanted them to !!!!!! off and was sorry that I ever agreed to the advert.

I was very busy and just kept fobbing them off with excuses every time they asked for payment.

In January 2011 I received a letter from a debt collecting company from West Malling nr London requesting payment.
Receiving a letter from a debt collecting company made me wonder if in fact they were a genuine company and I thought I best just pay the money and get it over and done with.

I called the debt collectors and spoke to a man there and asked him if he had any details of what the money I owed was for. He replied: It wasn't him who was dealing with my account and that he would go and check. When he came back to me he said he was sorry and I would have to contact the company who I owed the money to to find this out.
I then asked why his company do not hold details of what the debts are for..... Next thing he shouted at the top of his voice DON'T YOU USE THAT TONE OF VOICE WITH ME YOUNG LADY........ I was absolutely gob smacked how he could speak to me like that. I asked to speak to his manager and he was a waste of time too.

To cut a long story short; I rang up Vital Support Media Group and just paid them the money that was owing to get this off my mind... I paid with a business debit card. I found it funny as last time they contacted me they couldnt take my debit card!!

What made me search the internet for this company is that I was at my office desk sorting through some invoices this evening and came across the invoice from Vital Support Media Group and typed in there web site address to have a look if there web site was up and running yet as last time I checked it wasn't fully functional. Surprise surprise, its still not working, all you get is a page saying ''We are currently developing our web site due to expansion in our number of services'' It's been like this for months!!!

Please if you can help me as this company has my debit card details and by the sounds of it ive been scammed!!!


Thank you.

I have since found out that this company Vital Support Media Group has a virtual office. I will be contacting the company who they rent there virtual office from and reporting them.

isitascam

Nicky70 wrote: »

I too have fallen for this scam, last November I accepted the chance to appear in a Police magazine, as I had been recommended by the local council (apparantly!!) I thought I was paying for a 12mth advert to feature in 4 x quarterly publications. I received a copy of the magazine, with my ad, but I did wonder where this publication actually get's circulated, as no one had ever heard of it. It was supposedly supporting the local emergency services?? but friends in the police, fire brigade and ambulance service had never heard of it. (The chap had a scouse accent and always introduced himself as 'Mike from the police' when he rang, who chased the business)

A couple of weeks ago, I received another call, I was a passenger in a car, it was diffuclt to understand the chap on the phone, but after correcting him that I was Mrs and not Mr, he confirmed my order details (I assumed the rolling 12mth order I had already paid for), but no, I received another invoice, for Active Magazine, the previous was Safeguard magazine!! The original publisher was Abington House, the name has now been changed to Vital Support Media (both based in Liverpool, both with the same bloke on the phone) However Vital Support claim they have never heard of Abington House??? I told them I do not require their services, and they now want me to pay a £100 cancellation fee for something I have not ordered!! I today received a voice clip of ONE of my telecons, poor sound quality their end, but I appear to be saying YES in all the right places....some careful editing me thinks!!! Be very careful of these people

Have you received anything more from Vital Support Media Group?? Its likely that if you don't pay it, you will receive a solicitors letter from Lasker Collections!! I will be going to the police and trading standards tomorrow to chase this up. I have fould out that there address is a virtual office owned by Regious !! Please let me know if you have any further info as i have paid them over £300!! See post below.