The Advertising Protection Agency

beany2012

dimar123 wrote: »

Two years ago we stupidly signed up with these people, what a mistake. They cold called us to offer services to stop nuisance calls. We paid a one off payment for a year. The calls which we were being bugged with were, which we have now recently learned, were from companies which were run by the directors of TAPA. We did not renew the contract after a year. In the past month we have been plagued by calls from TAPA asking for us to pay off the account before cancelling???! eh?? We are plagued several time of the day, every day, we now just hang up, but he leaves messages. He uses the number 08443573311 and 07715104932 HELP!

had the same happen to me Phil is his name ,,,,,,,,,,phil youre
a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

beany2012

busy_bee42 wrote: »

I am in the same situation having paid a year to TAPA and now they are on the phone for me to renew. Not sure what to do and they are calling back on Monday to see what I have decided. One part of me says not to renew and then I don't want the bother of them constantly calling or threatening me. They are always friendly. I to had the problem of giving to a charity to help school safety and then had loads of other charities on the phone. Once bitten! Did not realise TAPA would come along, are they really as bad as everyone makes out?

tell them to p..s off that should do it !!!!!!!!!!!!!

beany2012

chulzers wrote: »

My husband had a job working for these guys. The owner is nothing but a conman who threatened his staff. I know exactly the companys real address (not the london based one on the website) if anyone wants it.

is that philip medhurst ??????
very rude and a bully ????

GraceCourt

Weiserbud wrote: »

It is possible to check whether a VAT registration number shown on an invoice is valid.

It's far simpler than this... anyone can use the Europa VAT Number Validation site to find out to whom any VAT number issued by an EC country is issued.

You can find this at:
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/vatRequest.html

You don't need to fill in the second part (the VAT number and issuing state of the requestor) - the reason it is there is that if you are a VAT-registered trader, by completing all of the details you get a "proof of validation" to prove that you checked the other number before making a transaction to avoid fraud, even if the other trader subsequently disappears.

beany2012

abdsltd wrote: »

I have a very similar story to others. About 2 years ago I was duped by a company asking for support on a local advertising campaign for safety at schools. Stupidly I agreed to part with my money only to realise later that is was a common scam. I was so incensed that I contacted Trading Standards who advised that I should just learn my lesson. Not satisfied with this approach I started to trawl the internet and found The Advertising Protection Agency. As an aside my impression of the website was that I was reviewing a company that had some form of Government backing. Others must have formed a similar opinion as complaints were made to the ASA on the following grounds:-
1. three complainants challenged whether the website implied that The Advertising Protection Agency (TAPA) had official status; and

2. three complainants, who had registered with TAPA through their website to prevent nuisance calls, challenged whether it was sufficiently clear that TAPA charged for its services.
The Ajudication in January 2012 stated in part:-
"Although we noted that some aspects of the website indicated that TAPA were not an official body, we considered that, in light of the name, service and content, the overall appearance of the site could lead users to infer it was an official government service and therefore concluded the ad was misleading."
(I state this as I received further phone calls from Tapa on 2nd July 2012 suggesting that an earlier statement I had made was incorrect and was invited to withdraw my statement - clearly they read a different report to me!)

I replied to the email enquiry page on their website and very shortly received a telephone call advising me of all the benefits. I was advised that the minimum contract period was 12 months and duly impressed paid a registration fee and completed a Direct Debit Mandate. On receipt of payment I then received a glossy welcome pack. Sure enough the marketting calls stopped but after a short spell I began to question myself what the company physically did. Notwithstanding this I knew I had signed up to a 12 month contract and therefore kept on paying the monthly fee until the end of the 12 month contract period and then cancelled. It was at this point when my problems started. After approximately 3 months after I thought I'd cancelled I started to get phone calls from either David Overton or Philip Medhurst. To begin with I was quite polite but when the phone calls became more threatening I told them to go away and put the phone down. They use exactly the same tactics as others have described. They tell you that you haven't followed their cancellation procedure on their website (if you follow the cancellation link on the website it doesn't take you anywhere!) I have cancelled by email, fax and post (recorded delivery) and yet still they tell me I haven't cancelled. I've advised them in writing that I don't believe they are a legitimate company and requested (again in writing) on numerous occasions that if they feel that they have a claim against me that they should write, and in doing so copy me any outstanding invoices they feel they may have raised - My first request was in March 2012 and I'm still waiting. My own feeling is that try to use bully tactics in order to convince people into giving them their debit card details so that they continue with their scam. I cannot write on this post what I think should be done with this pathetic people. Stay clear!!!
As of 2nd July they continue to claim that they are building their case against me - It must be a complex legal case!
I have now involved the police and will be following the matter up with trading standards also.

I have just had an arguement with Philip Medhurst which was swiftly followed up by a phonecall from a scottish fella telling me they are taking me to court !!!!! oh well we shall see what happens next !

beany2012

chulzers wrote: »

My husband had a job working for these guys. The owner is nothing but a conman who threatened his staff. I know exactly the companys real address (not the london based one on the website) if anyone wants it.

how do i get these people off my back ??? pls help

Dan_da_Man

Hi All!

Okay, we instructed TAPA around 12 months ago now as we where on a daily basis getting ten-twenty calls a day saying we owed money for advertisement we had not done!

Our TAPA 12 months subscription is coming up for renewal and we have told TAPA that we do not think we will continue with there service, around 30 minutes after us telling them that we started to get a couple of sales phone calls for advertisement.

Personally I think that TAPA are also linked to these publication companies etc and either way there getting some money from you, thats either a 12 months subscription to TAPA or they threaten you that much you pay the invoices they say you so called owe them through other companies!

Best thing would be too do, register on TPS website free of charge and report to TPS any unwanted calls free of charge and have them deal with them.

Dan_da_Man

beany2012 wrote: »

I have just had an arguement with Philip Medhurst which was swiftly followed up by a phonecall from a scottish fella telling me they are taking me to court !!!!! oh well we shall see what happens next !

I have just cancelled our service with TAPA so I would say that I will shortly be receiving a phone call from them also lol! you know what I will be telling them to do? Shove the phone ermmmm, where the sun can't shine =] TAPA is defo a scam and as stated above, they use the same tatics as the other companies use which TAPA claim is illegal etc etc etc..

Dan_da_Man

Anyone thought of reporting these guys to Watch Dog?

Chordeiles

alex_neil wrote: »

I have checked the TAPA VAT number on the European Union online checksite and it is a valid number. It also confirms their London address. Hope this helps.
Alex

Sorry if this late post is confusing, I'm actually replying to a post on 29-04-2012 (see #68 on page 4). I realise this is a very cold topic on this forum but TAPA do still seem to exist and their website still quotes the same VAT registration.

Now 2 years later in 2014 that VAT number still checks out as THE ADVERTISING PROTECTION AGENCY. However, running that company name through the search at Companies House shows no registration. Not even "dissolved". Also tried "TAPA", just found a bakery in Glasgow.

Not sure how a non-existent company can have a valid VAT registration ? But maybe I'm just showing my ignorance of what type of institution can be VAT registered.

I was fascinated by the computational method of checking VAT numbers offered by "Weiserbud", it actually works for my own (small) company and a few others I tried, but maybe not in every case.

The TAPA website has loads of "news" stories telling of scamsters that have been brought to book, usually with the law enforcement agencies allegedly receiving assistance from TAPA. Now employing the same tactics of looking up (at Companies House) some of these companies that the law has supposedly stopped trading, I can't find any of them listed either !

However, a "publishing" company that scammed my wife (at the turn of 2011/2012, into buying advertising space in a non-existent publication) are listed on the TAPA register of "bad guys" (under two different names they used) along with three other firms that used the same (forwarding) address. Not especially useful as they all seem to have stopped trading long ago (listed at Companies House as "dissolved"), but at least seems accurate information as far as it goes.

Not quite sure what to make of this. Our rule since being scammed is simply never to talk to cold-callers.