I need advise on a mis-sold service from Yell.com

[Ross McElroy-Gray]

Hi, I have posted this already in the SEO, PPC & Marketing forum on 16/06/2015. Long story short I feel that I have been mis-sold a 6 month service contract from Yell.com for the management of my Google Ad's PPC campaign.

I have a website with an online shop which I am very new to and has only been live since April 2015. As soon as it went live I set up a Google Ad words account and set myself a limit of £10 per day. Although I am / was a novice at the time I seemed to pick this up quite quickly and my Google campaign was effective and a good return on investment. At the same time I put a free company listing on Yell.com and while I was setting this up I agreed to a home visit from a sales representative to discuss what other services Yell could offer (no harm in listening, right?).
In the meeting my PPC Google campaign came up in conversation and after listening to the pitch I agreed to let Yell manage my Google campaign. It was sold based on the fact that Yell have “massive buying power” for key words and I would also get 25,000 ad banners as part of the package. This package would cost me £300.00 per month which was the same as my own daily budget and honestly the maximum I could afford to spend on the campaign. I thought that it would be a huge step forward as Yell are professionals and would use their expertise to produce a far greater ROI than doing the PPC’s myself. How wrong was I!!

Firstly I was under the impression that Yell would take my existing campaign and run with it, improving it along the way. Instead they make their own campaign and I get very limited access. In fact all I get is a monthly report showing the total number of clicks I have had.

Secondly I was told I would be getting personal service and could email any time. This is complete rubbish as the sales person only works part time and any queries I do have they send it straight to a generic email account for which I mostly get no reply.

Thirdly, (and this is the worst) I emailed my sales representative after Yell’s campaign went live to ask if I am ok to stop my own Google campaign as Yell’s is now live. I was told to leave it for the time being, which I now understand means I was competing with myself! And spending well over my original budget. After I realised this I paused my own campaign and guess what… Traffic went down, Enquiries went down and… Sales went down.

My statement for June 2015 reads that I have had a total of 158 clicks in a month - At £300 a month that is working out at £1.89 per click. On the contrary, I had 810 clicks in 15 days spending £174.28, averaging 22p per click and resulting in a lot more sales. My business can’t afford to pay for Yell’s shocking campaign as well as another £300 per month self-competing just to cover the sales lost.

I am now tied down to a 6-month contract and feel that I have been completely misled and mis-sold an awful service. If anyone has any legal advice or experience on this mis-selling it would be greatly appreciated.

Ross

 

[fisicx]

Why are you repeating yourself:
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/t...c-campaign-with-yell-com.344643/#post-2560388

And why has it gone from £1.69 to £1.89 per click?

Something smells a little fishy...

 

[RayLevy]

Hi Ross

The starting point for all claims is to check the small print. I'd need to see the contract you have with Yell and, firstly, see if we can find any breach of their obligations to you. Next, we need to see if we can claim the representations made to you by their sales representative are binding and can be relied on by you to break the contract (unlikely if they have drafted their contract correctly, but you never know). Finally, we need to see what remedies you may have for poor service, for example you may be able to suspend the contract until they get their act together in terms of meeting appropriate click thru rates and numbers and, finally, if none of that is useful, we need to see if we can get you out of this contract regardless of what it says in the small print, by some well thought out correspondence with the right people...

Ray

 

[Mystro]

Why are you repeating yourself:
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/t...c-campaign-with-yell-com.344643/#post-2560388

And why has it gone from £1.69 to £1.89 per click?

Something smells a little fishy...

Because this is probably the better place to get the right answers,

 

[Ross McElroy-Gray]

Hi Ray, When I signed up to this service I was never given a hard copy of the contract or the terms and conditions, nor did the sales representative recite the T's&C's to me at the time. I simply signed the Ipad at the time and asked about the T&C's to which I was told they would be emailed to me, however I haven't had them. I have found the T's&C's on their website though...

http:// marketing.hibu .co.uk /legal/sms-conditions/

(I'm not alloed to post links on here hence the large gap!!)

Ross

 

[fisicx]

So why not just do as suggested on you other thread and stop paying them. They my threaten but won't take you to court because of the bad publicity it will generate.

And apologies for my earlier post.

 

[RayLevy]

Hi Ross

I had a look at the Ts and Cs you referred to. However, these Ts and Cs are actually only 'background' terms which work on the back of a Contract which contains your main terms (for example a definition of what the Service is, what the Term is, the Fee, the Minimum Period etc). I'd need to see that document to know what your rights are here.

I suggest you call or write to Yell and ask for a full copy of your Contract and the Terms and Conditions (although they may point you to the website for the latter, which is fine - but I'd still like them to state that these ones on the web are your Terms, as it may be they have other terms applying to your contract, not the ones on the website which may apply to just listings with Yell).

Best of luck,
Ray

 

[Ross McElroy-Gray]

Hi Ray,

I have literally just had a response from Yell after requesting a copy of my full T&C's twice!
All they have sent me is a link to hibu(dot-co-dot-uk)/legal which is nothing!,

So... what can I do now?

Regards,
Ross.

 

[UKSBD]

Hi Ray,

I have literally just had a response from Yell after requesting a copy of my full T&C's twice!
All they have sent me is a link to hibu(dot-co-dot-uk)/legal which is nothing!,

So... what can I do now?

Regards,
Ross.

put marketing. in front of it.

 

[RayLevy]

Hi Ross

If you're in the middle of the contract ie you're still paying monthly for a service which is sub-standard, and the company is refusing (or negligently not complying with) your request to see a copy of your contract, then I would suggest suspending payment until it is addressed properly.

You can write to them informing them that you are not happy with their service and believe that you are not receiving what you expected to receive, and unless they can show you a copy of your actual contract you are suspending any further payments to them.

(Its better to say 'suspending', at this stage, rather than 'cancelling', as you don't want to give them a claim that you have unlawfully terminated the contract).

That may be enough to get them to start taking notice, and hopefully send you a copy of the contract, so you can see exactly what your rights are.

Ray

 

[LawHound]

You mentioned in the other thread that you had cancelled the direct debit back in June. What have Yell done since then to chase you? Suspending the contract and asking for them to email you the terms is reasonable and then take advice on the terms.

It's likely they disclaim anything said by their representatives but, as has been said above, all terms can be challenged on bad service. Keep in mind the costs level on this one 6 x £300 = £1800 is a small marketing payment and you can easily pay hundreds for the legal advice to tackle things so be commercial on what more you spend on this one.

The main focus here should be on getting your PPC campaign back to where it was performing when you were doing it and also being a lot more confident in your own ability to market your business than relying on so - called experts. Due diligence before you buy is the best pal you can make in business. We all learn this the hard way. Just make sure you only have to learn it the once.

 

[Ross McElroy-Gray]

Hi Ray / LawHound,

I have indeed already cancelled the direct debit and this is the Email thread so far between myself and yell...

Dear Mr McElroy-Gray,

Thank you for your e-mail,

Please follow this link, which will take you to the Terms & Conditions for the Pay Per Click service.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If you have any further queries, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Rich Websell
PPC & Display Executive
t: 0800 777 485


Please consider the environment before printing this email.
From: Ross McElroy-Gray
Date: 23/07/2015
Subject: RE: Top Shelf UK - PPC Campaign Manangement Refund



Hello,

I am still waiting for you to send me the full terms and conditions that I have signed. I have had no reply since the request on 15/07/2015.

Regards,

Ross.

On 15 Jul 2015, at 11:52, Ross McElroy-Gray wrote

Kate,

Converting traffic into sales is our responsibility which we understand. As you state below driving traffic to our website is YOURresponsibility which you are not and haven't been delivering for two months. Thank you for confirming that we have received 47 in the last seven days (at a cost of £70). As of the 06/07/2015 we restarted own Google campaign and have received 284 clicks in the last seven days (at a cost of £56.57). As a professional organisation specialising in PPC's why are your results 6 times less than ours?

Please send the full terms and conditions that I have signed.

Regards,

Ross.

On 15 Jul 2015, at 10:47, wrote

17199217- Top Shelf UK

Dear Mr McElroy,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with your campaign and don't feel that the advertising is converting through to business.

However please be aware as with all advertising, we are not able to guarantee any “phone calls” or business, we can just drive the traffic to your website and the rest is down to you.

I can confirm that you are unable to cancel at this point as you are still within the signed initial six month contract.

If you wish to cancel your campaign at the earliest possible point please make our team aware so we can action this.

Please note that cancelling your DD will not cancel your PPC campaign and you will still be invoiced.

As my colleague previously stated we can always look into making changes to the campaign, to try and boost performance, i.e amending keywords, is this something you would like us to do please feel free to contact our team.

Regarding the refund we are un able to refund you any of your payments as you have been receiving the service.
I would like to confirm that within the last seven days you have received 8,623 impressions and 47 clicks.

all of your statistics are available for you to view on: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

I hope this information answers your queries, if you have any further questions please contact us by e-mail at xxxxxx or call our Customer Services Team on 0800 777 485, Mon – Thursday, 8:30am – 6:00pm, and Fri 8:30am – 5:30pm.

Yours sincerely, [IMAGE]Kate Higgs
PPC & Display Executive

t: 0800 313 4991



From: Ross McElroy-Gray
Date: 14/07/2015
Subject: Top Shelf UK - PPC Campaign Manangement Refund

Good Morning,

I wish to let you know that I have cancelled the direct debit to Yell.com for the management of our PPC Campaign. I have complained twice before of the poor CTR's an the fact that your extremely poor quality management offers no insight and advice into our online marketing strategies. You have failed to improve this service at all and It is clear that you have not looked closely at our business and only picked the highest paid keywords. The fact that you have not even used our already successful Google campaign and built on that speaks volumes. I would appreciate it if you would;

1) Cancel this contract with immediate affect

2) Cease from trying to take any further monies from our account

3) Issue a full refund of £600.00 for the last two months

I look forward to your swift action in dealing with this.

Kindest Regards

Ross McElroy-Gray

 

[Dean Smith]

Hi, Ross. I know this is an old post but I'm going through exactly the same thing as you at the moment with yell. Could you let me know how things turned out for you.

Thanks

Dean

 

[Xtm_Mike]

Hi, Ross. I know this is an old post but I'm going through exactly the same thing as you at the moment with yell. Could you let me know how things turned out for you.

Thanks

Dean

If you're going through the exact same thing, cancel the direct debit and write a letter telling them why it has been suspended. If they're not delivering as promised and you have clear evidence like the OP that their work is poor, screw their contract.

Yell is an awful company, they have taken some of my clients because of their amazing promises but they simply do not deliver. One client, in particular, is now having a nightmare and can't even get them to change a simple price on her website. She regularly contacts me with their instructions that do not work.

They do their best to lock you in and prevent you from leaving.

I signed up for a free listing and was hounded for months for a meeting, after being repeatedly told no... they continued contacting me but suddenly the name and details had changed, they mixed me up with someone else... the company is a mess.

I digress, but my point is.. f$@k them.

Cancel, walk away, tell them why and prepare evidence in the event they come after you.

 

[Dean Smith]

Thanks Mike, been with yell for over ten years and they do this to a loyal customer. Unforgivable. So glad I didn't go for their website package too. Some people are stuck an expensive 12 month contract. Gonna see what my options are with trading standards and then go from there.

 

[Dean Smith]

Update on my troubles with yell.com:

I recently was conned into a six month PPC contract with Yell. After they refused to release me from the contract, they said they would reduce the payments from £192pm to £60pm. I have all the emails to prove it. But when I log on to my account, my payment schedule states that they intend on charging me for the 2 PPC accounts!
The £192 account was canceled, it even states this on my account but it looks like they are still going to charge me in 2 weeks for it again, as well as the new £60 contract. I am shocked that after over 10 years loyalty to this company, that I can be mistreated in this way. I have contacted them and I am awaiting their response but it looks like I am going to be stung by them again. Does anybody know if there is any legal action I could take against them if they don't rectify this?

 

[The Byre]

Yell are in massive difficulties and their ultimate demise seems to be just a matter of time.

 

[ste@DrVolts]

Hi I'm in a very similar situation. i have various products in my yell portfolio with a total monthly spend of over £1,400.00 I have been a premium member with them for almost three years.and 3 months ago agreed to yell handling my ppc adwords campaign with a budget of £1K per month. I was practically guaranteed by my "personal" account manager ( Verbally ) that they could generate a minimum of 4 to 8 K per month. to date the Adwords campaign is running a net loss of almost £2,500.00
I had no option but to cancel the direct debit as they have not been able to respond to either txt messages, calls or even emails in a prompt manner. the list of issues with the service grow long by the day!
can anyone help me with how best to seek a legally legitimate remedy to this nightmare?

 

[obscure]

I was practically guaranteed by my "personal" account manager ( Verbally ) that they could generate a minimum of 4 to 8 K per month.

"Practically" guaranteed or actually guaranteed? Do you have witnesses to this discussion or any written confirmation to prove that you were mis-sold?

I had no option but to cancel the direct debit as they have not been able to respond to either txt messages, calls or even emails in a prompt manner.

Does the contract include a clause that states a maximum time for them to respond? If not then cancelling your standing order is far more likely to put you in breach of contract and open you up to be sued.

the list of issues with the service grow long by the day!
can anyone help me with how best to seek a legally legitimate remedy to this nightmare?[/QUOTE]