yellow pages salesman lied to sell me product - where do i stand?? help!!!

brookiebroo

i run both mine and my partners business plus all our finances.

i took out 2 ads with yellow pages and when i was discussing payment and the actual add i told the person i have my own designs and showed him my cards and told him if they needed me to send over the advert to them vias email to let me know when they wanted me to do it.

he told me not to worry but to give him my cards and they would give my business cards to their arts team and they woudl send us the proofs. i thought great

they also told me they could garentee 10 extra customers each a day once again i thought great

the final thing for me to ask the sales person is that if i wanted to cancel the add how many days will i need to it before i got charged and he said the date and confirmed there woudl be no charge unless the actual advert went to print which was fair enough

my partner then signed it all for me on another date as i was working

we then decided we didnt need the advert so canceled it last september.

we have an invoice inthe post yesterday asking for £207 for artwork which has made me really cross as because he told me we wouldnt have to pay anything and i told the sales person we didnt have allot of money to spend on advertising which is why we make our own designs and were willing to email them over to them. he didnt say anything about a seperate charge for basicly copying my business card which by the way is my own personal design anyway.

i got the paper work sent to me and on the paper wotrk arts and design is added which i told him i didnt need in the first place and he didnt state was an extra charge but really i choudl have picked that up if id realised when he said for me not to worry but for me to give him my cardas and the arts team would sort it. but as i say he didnt state that would be a £207 charge otherwise i would have told him where to go!

im just wondering will i have anything to fight with them over the fact that he told me we woudlnt have to pay anything aslong as it didnt go to print????

supposudly it states in their terms and conditions on their website that i do have to pay but it doesnt state anything on my paperwork my partner signed to state that we get charged for artwork even if it doesnt go to print.

im just furious as the sales man told me we woudlnt get charged for canceling plus he didnt even tell me there was an extra charge for the copying my own design. i told him i could send over my pdf format and he told me not to worry about it.

i feel angry with myself too for not noticing the extra charge on the paperwork when it came to signing it but in my defence i also wasnt provided witht he fine print to check over as they state its on their website which i also cant find iv just had to request it in the post.

do i have anywhere to stand????? i mean the sale person did lie to me at the time of sale! and conned me good and proper!

sorry about my spellings as im typing super quick and sorry for the long message. thank you guys!

pitkin2020

Sorry but if you believed that yellow pages would GUARANTEE you an extra 10 customers per day your living in a fairytale. No one can guarantee anything like that your advert maybe no good, your services maybe no good so its never a certainty.
Anyway with regards to the artwork you need to fight it with, I designed my own adverts then the cheeky sods tried to charge me £300 for artwork, I dont think so. You need to go through all your paperwork and make sure you have signed anything stating the artwork would be charged for. On my paper work he crossed the charge out and put FOC as I was supplying my own.
Also check the proofs and see if there is any mention of cost on those either.

Hopefully all the paperwork will be blank for the artwork charge, get on the phone to them and tell them again that the saleman told you there would be no charge for artwork, he also told you there would be no charges should you cancel before going to print.

Play them at there own game as yellow pages seem to make there own rules, wheter the sales man did or didn't tell you about the artwork charge, its your word against his and you should tell them where to stick in the politest possible way.

For future reference if anyone in advertising tells you they guarantee a set amount of customers ask them to put there money where there mouth is, prove it and back it up. When I asked the yell salesman to do it he went a little white and didn't have much to say surprise surprise.

brookiebroo

thank you for your reply. i did argue with him over guarenties as i know they cant garentee it it just makes me mad that they say they can, surely that should be done for saying stuff like that.

iv been on the phone to them for an hour and they say it states it in their fine print on their website. it doesnt say it anywhere on my paperwork. obviously it does say the charge on the paperwork signed but no where does it state if i cancel my order i will have to still pay that charge

how do they justify charging £207 for using my own design i dont get that anyway and the fact i said i could provide my own artwork and he said 'dont worry we will sort that own just give me your businescards for us to copy' then didnt state the extra charge.

i personaly think they shouldnt be allows to do this to people and the watchdog should get involved. i wonder how many people get charged for arwork when they could have done it themselfs as i honestly didnt know there was an extra charge for it as he assured me there was no way he could make my package cheaper. i begged him knowling we didnt have much money and he said there was ntohing he could take off. how stupid was i!

pitkin2020

The charge for the artwork is unacceptable as you provided the artwork. They haven't actually done anything for you other than scan the card and make it print ready - 20 mins work. Did you sign the proof? That might be another get out clause if the proof is different to what was intended, esp if you didn't sign it. Other than that it maybe working speaking with trading standards maybe? they might be able to point you in a better direction.

olly300

OP as you are a business you are better of repeat asking your question on the small biz board. You will get practical advice on how to deal with yell.

sandiep

Hi

Most small business owners have been here with exactly the same situation. Argue the artwork charge, this appears to be something they invoice first and credit when questioned.

Re guarantees, assurances, and anything said by one of their salesmen. They will say anything to get you to sign up, basically, if it's not written in the contract it aint going to happen. And most of the assurances they make aren't in the contract that you sign, and so you won't get a refund.

Thirdly. Yell seem to have a wonderful way of measuring enquires. For the Term "house clearance girvan" they told me that the enquiry numbers weekly was more than it is annually for the national term on google. Push a bit deeper and it find out that the numbers that they quoted were for all enquiries beging with the term "house". which is a wee bit different.

Yell is pants. Everyone that has advertised with them becomes fully aware of the sales tatics after their first year of dealing with them. Whether or not it's worth continuing depends highly on the type of business you are and where your customers go to find you.

In many instances, spending the yell budget on an adwords campaign delivers a lot of better leads.

pitkin2020

Yell.com can be effective, I have found yellow pages themselves are becoming non existent. Again though depends on your business and customer base, if your selling stair lifts the book will work better than the yell.com site based on the customer base. Like already mentioned the cost they charge you could find a few other sources of advertising rather than putting that whole budget in the hands of one company.