Yell.com Ignoring letters of complaint and charging for cancelled service?

Trout69

Hi All,

I'm having an absolute nightmare with Yell.com. Heres the story...

Around July last year we opened a business bank account with which we received a FREE yell.com business listing.

We sent off the form with the details we wanted to be shown, and all was well so we thought...well until the phone calls started (not from customers from Yell). We were being called upto 3 times a day trying to convince us to upgrade our advertising to a premium package (which would apparently place us at the top of search results and allow a link direct through to our website) as well as a larger ad in the yellow pages itself.

After a number of weeks we agreed to try the yell.com upgrade and the larger advert in the yellow pages. The latter we have no dispute over whatsover.

After a couple of weeks of this upgrade on Yell.com, we had received no calls...and upon checking Yell.com had changed the details on our listing to a complete different company, in a different service sector and hence the current listing had no relevance to us bar our address and telephone number.

We called and advised them of the problem, to which they said they would rectify the problem, it took a further 2 calls to get something done. However, the ad wasnt fixed it was removed completely from Yell.com.

So another call was made....we advised them that we wanted this premium ad cancelling and to go back to our original free listing. (We checked their terms and conditions and could see nothing advising this couldn't be done). The sales person on the end of the phone advised us to leave the ad running for another month to 'give the ad time to work'. As the stats we had been given regarding number of calls and click throughs prior to upgrading, had no reflection on the lack of calls we had received.

After just 2 more weeks we called up again and requested this cancelled, to which the sales person became quite abrupt and advised that he didnt think that was possible (even though he never mentioned this before, and that the ad had actually been removed by Yell.com accidently previously).

Needless to say the ad was not removed after our request, we wrote a letter of complaint to Yell.com which was ignored. We then received a letter from a solicitor appointed by Yell.com, to which we forwarded our letter of complaint and advised we did not dispute the cost for the Yellow Pages ad, but we disputed the charge for the Yell.com ad.

To which we received no reply...we then had a further letter from a debt collection agency, which we forwarded all the previous letters too and also sent them again to the solicitors...again no reply. These were all sent recorded delivery so there is no question as to their delivery...

Then this morning we received another letter stating that this matter was going to court...

As we stand now, we still have an advert on Yell.com, now surely this should have been removed as we are not paying for it? We have had no response dispite quoting their own terms and conditions, and sending evidence of similar complaints and also proof of that their stats were in correct.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Does anyone know who we can bring this matter to the attention of to make a formal complaint, as complaining to Yell themselves is of no consequence?

Regards

Donna

Kingsd316

Hi, sorry to hear about your problem, i have a good friend who is high up in the Yell organisation, i will see what he thinks of the whole situation if you dont mind

Trout69

Kingsd316 wrote:

Hi, sorry to hear about your problem, i have a good friend who is high up in the Yell organisation, i will see what he thinks of the whole situation if you dont mind

Thanks Kings,

All i want is some sort of acknowledgement...as we feel like we were bullied into the premium package...we even asked them to look back through their phone records so they could see how many times we were called and what was said...but we just havent recieved anything back from anyone...

The letters we are receiving are as if we havent been in contact with them at all...

The only error i think we have made is not putting it in writing that we wished to cancel...but then through experience would they have even responded to this?

Thanks for any help or advise you may be able to give.

Best Regards

Donna

Astaroth

As a business your rights are much lower than those as a private individual and "bullying" tactics are considered more acceptable as a business should be able to handle these things and will typically have a solicitor etc to provide advice before signing on the dotted line.

Trout69

Just an update...

We spoke to a very nice lady at the the company who was dealing with the apparent court action, who advised us that Yell.com aswell as the solicitors annnnd the debt collection agency have written down that our last correspondance to them was in Sept 05.

Considering we have replied to every letter sent to us is this a case of conveniently losing the letters we have sent? The lady asked us to forward her copies of the letters, yet prior to doing that we received a letter yesterday advising that if we pay £130 a month for 3/4 months the matter will be closed..

So as i see it, they are now accepting the minimum payment for the yellow pages ad (around £400) and accepting that we are not willing to pay for the Yell.com ad.

Which i find strange considering they never received any of our letters?

Is this really what business these days have come down too....what happened to customer service?

Best Regards

Donna