My experience with Yell.com

[candidrachel]

Be very careful when being approached by their sales people! Back in Septomber I was cold called by one of their team after registering on-line for a free listing he told me I could upgrade for 2 months free and even showed me on google a similar ad. I thought "great try before I buy" type thing. He said that in order to upload up to 20 images I would have to think of a password, something memorable for me and he said he would email me the order straight away and for me to go onto my email and keep hitting the refresh button and let him know when the emai comes through so lo and behold it came through so he said "great email me back the 2nd and 4th character of your password and that will allow you up upload your photographs.

Unbeknown to me and what was not discussed was that by emailing back those 2 letters I inadvertently entered into a 12 month contract. I didn't know any of this until I got an invoice for £524 in October

I phoned back and got nowhere with their customer services to explain the fact that I was conned, tricked and mis-sold advertising. I contacted Consumer Direct who in turn contacted Trading Standards.

After MANY letters and phone calls I received a letter from Yell today stating that they take these allegations very seriously and have immediately cancelled the invoice that had arisen from the order

Moral of the story: be very careful and NEVER agree to advertising over the phone without reading terms and conditions in printed format!

I did a search on Mis-sold advertising and there are many people out there in the same boat as me.

I'm glad I stuck to my guns and was not going to be bullied into paying for something that I did not agree to.

Oh yeah and apparently no such offer exists with a "free 2 months offer".

Check this out:

BEWARE - Yell.com - Web Design Forum



ps My user name is Hado

[sk66]

I would never sign up for any "yellow pages online" type of thing.

Almost no-one uses them. If you have a name and number in the regular directory, it will eventually show up in the usual search engines. Even better if you have a SEO website.

These days, even "paper yellow pages" are questionable as to their value. I would only recommend paying for a business listing in your local directory, then maybe the yellow pages (paper). On the other hand, if your business is legit then all of these expenses are deductible.

I get calls from YellowBook, wedding websites, and other wedding related publishers all the time. If it isn't free forever, don't do it.

One lady called and tried to get me to advertse in a little wedding booklet that goes out to all the bridal wear and tux shops. I told her $700/year was way too much money. She said my competitor didn't think so (which is 120 miles away), and that they bought an ad. I laughed and said "Good, I hope the rest of their business sense is that bad, because they won't be my competitor for long". She hasn't called again

[OsmosisStudios]

Cold-call = cold-shoulder.

[candidrachel]

The most annoying thing of all was that they don't keep recorded transcripts of the initial telephone calls! If they had have done then it could have easily been proven who said what to whom.

Anyway, I've drawn a line under this whole incident and I called the lady at Trading Standards who was lovely to thank her for her help and she said that she hopes I haven't been put off by Yell. She said that as its such a large organisation sometimes a bad apple slips through the net. I told her that it only takes one rotten apple to turn the whole bowl bad so no I won't be using them again.

I registered at the same time as yell with Thompson Local and have had absolutely no trouble with them. They've been great.