{text removed by MSE Forum Team} Firestyle Magazine ( and others )

johnyjharris

Hi guys, not sure if anyone else on this forum has been cold called about advertising in a publication called Firestyle Magazine to support the fire service services.

It {text removed by MSE Forum Team} not just relating to the fire service but also the police and others. I unfortunately succumbed and am posting on here to warn others.

They are targeting small businesses and call from a withheld number. Initially the caller will tell you all about how many issues are printed and that they go out doctors surgeries, dentists, hospitals waiting rooms. They say that by advertising with them you will be helping to support which ever emergency service cause they happen to touting.They also told me they would upgrade my ad to 1/4 page free of charge.

Next a call from someone pressuring you into paying now by offering a further 10% discount.

I also did receive a magazine with my ad in it through the post. When I looked through the magazine there was a couple of articles for Cheshire Fire Authority, however the articles seem to be put together from publicly available press releases from fire authorities own websites.

{text removed by MSE Forum Team} there is a post on Cheshire Fire Authority own website about them claiming they a bogus and they have nothing to do with them. (I would link but this is my first post and I can't post links)

There are also many threads on FreeIndexes site about them as they seem to be targeting their members too.

Just a heads up. I {text removed by MSE Forum Team} won'e be entertaining them anymore.

I

fewgroats

No one should be pressured to buy a magazine to get their work published.

Majestic12

This scam has been going for so long. Always magazines, and the culprits are almost always based in NW England. I.e. manchester, liverpool etc..

James317

Definitely a scam.

Also avoid Tiber Design or Consumer-Rights.org as its all the same people.

jamesperrett

We had approaches in Hampshire too. Seems to have been running for at least 20 years.

angryparcel

I had a similar experience about 30 years ago when i started a foto glazing business. I got cold called from a guy who was selling adverts in local hospitals where i could place business cards in a holder.
This was £50 a month.
I got proofs and agreed and true to his word the advert went up along with about 20 other adverts, so i would pop done on a regular basis to topup business cards. 2 months in and i got a call from hospital to say they were taking the adverts down as they had not been paid by the company and could not get through to them. I tried and the same, so i called a few of the other advertisers and it was the same story, so we as a group contacted a solicitor who did checks and then told us to stop the DD with our banks. We went to the hospital with the info we had and took down the advertising board ourselves and kept our own individual adverts.
It turns out he did the same in various areas around the country

trailingspouse

Used to happen all the time when I ran an Art Gallery/Craft shop in Northumberland. I always refused to discuss anything until they'd sent me a copy of their publication and details of circulation. That usually shut them up.

Rebec91

I received telephone calls from Firestyle stating that I owed them money because they created an advert for my small business in their magazine. I had never given them permission to do so and also noticed that they had used pictures from my facebook and other social media platforms. Now they are sending me letters chasing me for money owed with threats of intended court proceedings. What an absolute SCAM! How do I get them to stop??