Legal Advice on Yell.com(hibu)

Janexoxo

Hey everyone

New to this website I need some advice regarding Yell(hibu):

Three years ago I signed up for a website with them, paying an initial fee and then making monthly payments for the upkeep of the website. The problem is that only a few weeks ago I realised that a very important function of the website has not been functioning at all; the email address shown on the contact us page has not been set up properly therefore if anyone had sent me an email it would just fail and I would not receive the email. There's also a form which customers can fill in on the contact us page, that has been functioning, and I was under the impression that the emails I have been receiving was from both the form and the email address, but it has only been the form which has been working.

Now over the past three years I have spent at least £4000 on internet advertisement, and I guess many people would go on to the contact us page and use the email address which does not work, so I think I have made quite a substantial loss because of this.

I am thinking of taking them to Small Claims Court and sue for £10000 losses, but I am not sure if it's going to be worth my time and expenses, therefore could you please kindly provide some advice as to if you think I have a case or not?

Many thanks in advance
Jane
X

phill99

How do you arrive at £100000 of losses?

Janexoxo

Well as I mentioned I have spent £4000 on internet advertisement, which would lead to many people visiting my website, there's a good chance that many people would try and contact us by sending an email, now if they're unable to contact us if the email address leads to nothing that would mean I have lost a potential regular customer, regular customers spend about £500 per year in my line of business, even if I were to lose about 10 potential regulars per year that would be more than £10,000.

phill99

But you can't quantify these losses. Your losses have to be qualified. You have no idea how many people would have contacted you.

Your loss can only be the difference in cost if a website WITH an email facility and one WITHOUT it. At most, thats probably a couple of hundred quid over the 3 years.

You will also find there is a non-consequential loss clause in the contract with Hibu, so that they aren't responsible for anything beyond your ACTUAL loss.

I have a Hibu website and in the last year or so their customer service has hit rock bottom. I have had problems with their email facility on the website and now check it regularly by getting a friend to email me. I'm surprised you haven't checked this on a regular basis, or at least when it first started!

Aquamania

Janexoxo wrote: »

Hey everyone

New to this website I need some advice regarding Yell(hibu):

Three years ago I signed up for a website with them, paying an initial fee and then making monthly payments for the upkeep of the website. The problem is that only a few weeks ago I realised that a very important function of the website has not been functioning at all; the email address shown on the contact us page has not been set up properly therefore if anyone had sent me an email it would just fail and I would not receive the email. There's also a form which customers can fill in on the contact us page, that has been functioning, and I was under the impression that the emails I have been receiving was from both the form and the email address, but it has only been the form which has been working.

Now over the past three years I have spent at least £4000 on internet advertisement, and I guess many people would go on to the contact us page and use the email address which does not work, so I think I have made quite a substantial loss because of this.

I am thinking of taking them to Small Claims Court and sue for £10000 losses, but I am not sure if it's going to be worth my time and expenses, therefore could you please kindly provide some advice as to if you think I have a case or not?

Many thanks in advance
Jane
X

You need to refer to the terms of the agreement you entered into

I would be very surprised if it does not have a term limiting liability e.g. limited to the cost of the service purchased and excluding all consequential loss as permitted by law

RuthnJasper

They would have sent you a form at the beginning of the agreement containing the details (presumably as supplied by you) to be displayed, which you would have had to confirm.

At some point in the process, therefore, you will have clicked on/signed something saying that you were happy with the information.

If it is the fact that the details are displayed correctly but that clicking on the email address fails to bring up an email message box (and you are sure that the email address isn't for copy/paste/information purposes only, like the 'phone number), then I would imagine Yell's first question would be "Why didn't you let us know sooner?". Three years is a long time.

Vectis

It's taken you three years to check that your website is working?

As others have said, you have to show what loss you've suffered. You can't simply pluck a figure out of the air.

Have you contacted Yell? I'd suggest the best you can hope for is a few months free advertising.

Slightly off topic, but is Yell the best place to advertise? What service are you offering?

Vectis

Also, before you go steaming in with threats of Court Action, it might be worth considering whether the email link has only recently become broken. These things happen occasionally.

cleaninggenie

Its a very unfortunate situation you find yourself and and as some posters have indicated, it is partly your responsibility to make sure that you are getting what you are paying for, and that you test everything works as it should.

Anyway all that is besides the point as you are in the situation already. Have you tried approaching hibu and trying to get it resolved? As a side note if you fail to get things resolved with hibu, my advice would be to move your website away from them because paying for monthly website maintenance if you are a small business is not necessary and its nothing anyone can do with the right training.

All the best in getting this resolved.