Mis sold a product, where do I stand?

[MattASR]

Hello everyone,

First time poster here, I hope everyone is doing well.

So I’ve been advertising with Yell for the past 5 years, I feel I get some leads from using their vip advert service so this is why I’ve stuck with them. I had a rep come round and offer me a website package. I originally used 123 reg and built my own website which was sufficient but I felt I could really have a go at this and throw a little bit of money at it to get the ball really rolling to generate more leads and get above my competitors on search engines.
The salesman did his job extremely well, he told me my attempt at a website looked great but they could improve the search engine optimisation and they would build the site from the ground up so there were no errors within the site. He showed me a rating of my site on a site identical to nibbler, it gave a score of 7.9 which I thought was quite good. He then went on to comment about the errors on the web page and said the reason for this is because I was using a standard web building service and the the code on these website builders will always get flagged by google. This installed confidence, thinking they would be creating a website from scratch using html code with their own designs so search engines could read my site better and I’d be able to compete with my competators in the local area on the front page of google and other search engines so I went for it. £385 for the building of the website (yes ouch) and then a further £40 per month (double ouch). When we got down to actually throwing around ideas for the site and them explaining I could edit the site myself I got a little suspicious, by this time I’d already agreed for them to proceed. Then came the realisation I’d been had, when it came to my website going live Yell had trouble with the domain, they asked me contact 123 reg and get them change some stuff on their end because yells web builder is the same as the web builder 123 reg use (these were the exact words that the web team representative used so this should be recorded by Yell).. great, so they’ve charged me £385 to create a website using the same website builder I used to create my site for £11 a month. Then they set up my reputation manager (which I’m paying a further £40 a month for, another load of money that may just be a total con) with all my social media so I can control it from their manager, the girl who I was dealing with showed me how I could edit my website myself and then left me to it.. I sat down and had a play with the website editor last night and sure enough, it’s 123 reg but with Yell user interface. I did a rating of the site on nibbler and it came back with the same rating and errors as the site I created, course it did its created on the same builder!

I’d love to know where I stand with this, I feel like an absolute fool for falling for this, I’m not a complete novice when it comes to computers and web design but my business limits my time available to create and keep on top of my online content, Im a one man band car body repairer so I’m constantly at the unit trying to earn an honest living to provide for my family so getting time to sit in front of a computer for hours creating online content is tough.

I’ve always tried pushing for google reviews and I have the highest amount of 5 star reviews for my field in my area which I’m very proud of but I feel these are being wasted because there’s companies with not so good reviews above mine on the google listing which I couldn’t get my head around. www .autossmartrepair. co. uk is my business if you’d like to check it out.

Any advice is welcome, I just feel like I’ve been mis sold a product and not really sure where I stand legally. I’ve been in contact with my Yell representatives to voice my concern and I’m waiting for a reply.

Thanks for reading

Matt Burrows

 

[The Byre]

I didn't read all that, as it was (a) too long and (b) nearly all in one lump without paragraphs. I wish some people with problems would just stick to the facts and bullet-point them in short sentences!

Anyway - trying to get a response from Yell, is like trying to train a haddock to walk to heel. It ain't gonna happen! They make vague promises and stay within the terms of the contract. i.e. the money's gone.

You have now learnt a valuable lesson and for a relatively low cost - other rip-off companies will sting you for thousands!

 

[MattASR]

I didn't read all that, as it was (a) too long and (b) nearly all in one lump without paragraphs. I wish some people with problems would just stick to the facts and bullet-point them in short sentences!

Anyway - trying to get a response from Yell, is like trying to train a haddock to walk to heel. It ain't gonna happen! They make vague promises and stay within the terms of the contract. i.e. the money's gone.

You have now learnt a valuable lesson and for a relatively low cost - other rip-off companies will sting you for thousands!

Thank you for your response, if you did read the big bulk of text I explained my situation in detail which I don’t think yells water right contract could cover, this is why I’m asking for some advice. Hopefully someone can come up with a solution.

 

[Mr D]

Avoiding much of the big block of text - Yell tend to provide exactly what they are contracted for. Even if its not what you want or need.

Your best bet if feeling you were mis-sold something is take the contract and all your relevant details and spend time with a commercial solicitor. How much do you fancy spending on action?

Do not expect much from the Yell representative.

 

[MattASR]

Avoiding much of the big block of text - Yell tend to provide exactly what they are contracted for. Even if its not what you want or need.

Your best bet if feeling you were mis-sold something is take the contract and all your relevant details and spend time with a commercial solicitor. How much do you fancy spending on action?

Do not expect much from the Yell representative.

Clearly the big block of text is an eyesore, I was just trying to explain my situation in as much detail as I could.

Short of it is the salesman blatantly lied about the service he was selling or didn’t have a clue what he was selling. Then the web builder rep even said that they use the same builder as 123 reg so what’s the justification of the high website build price?

 

[Newchodge]

Clearly the big block of text is an eyesore, I was just trying to explain my situation in as much detail as I could.

Short of it is the salesman blatantly lied about the service he was selling or didn’t have a clue what he was selling. Then the web builder rep even said that they use the same builder as 123 reg so what’s the justification of the high website build price?

£385 for building a website is peanuts.

 

[The Byre]

Short of it is the salesman blatantly lied about the service he was selling or didn’t have a clue what he was selling. Then the web builder rep even said that they use the same builder as 123 reg so what’s the justification of the high website build price?

1. You had a B2B deal. There is no consumer law protection. It is therefore a contract between equals.

2. Salesmen selling dodgy products like Yell lie all the time. It's the contract that counts.

3. You agreed to the price without doing any research. One post on this forum or indeed on any business forum would have told you what the score really is!

 

[Mr D]

Clearly the big block of text is an eyesore, I was just trying to explain my situation in as much detail as I could.

Short of it is the salesman blatantly lied about the service he was selling or didn’t have a clue what he was selling. Then the web builder rep even said that they use the same builder as 123 reg so what’s the justification of the high website build price?

Its not an eyesore, its just darn hard to read.

High website build price is that they can persuade you to pay a high price. Doesn't mean they have to spend a lot of money on it unless its in the contract.

 

[MattASR]

£385 for building a website is peanuts.

Not when I could have/already done it for free myself using a website builder from 123 reg.

Why do you think I went with the £385 for a website build that got promised would be from scratch..

 

[Mr D]

£385 for building a website is peanuts.

Hmm yes. I've seen people spend £10k plus on a website for basic online selling - a £385 website would suggest someone put it together in their spare bedroom in a couple of hours or so. Or something that average business person can put together themselves in a week or two.

 

[NickGrogan]

Nibbler seems like a very poor tool for assessing a website, as it places high importance on linking to twitter and FB, which is pointless for most sites.

£385 is not going to get you a decent hand coded website, and realistically you don't need one, there is nothing significantly wrong with the site you got, given the price you paid.

You should optimise the images, this will cut the load time significantly and boost your rankings.

 

[MattASR]

Its not an eyesore, its just darn hard to read.

High website build price is that they can persuade you to pay a high price. Doesn't mean they have to spend a lot of money on it unless its in the contract.

So lie about their product to get your money then give you the same product for £40 a month which you can get for £11 a month AND you have full control over your if you pay a cheaper price.. I have no idea how this is allowed, why are businesses not protected from this? As I see it, it’s fraud because they’ve mis sold something and made you sign a contract with the beliefe of something completely different.

Have any of you guys heard of a company called online content management? They pretty much did exactly this and got shut down. They harassed me for months saying I owed them money, I didn’t pay and in the end they gave up and at a later date I found they were shut down for fraud.

 

[MattASR]

Nibbler seems like a very poor tool for assessing a website, as it places high importance on linking to twitter and FB, which is pointless for most sites.

£385 is not going to get you a decent hand coded website, and realistically you don't need one, there is nothing significantly wrong with the site you got, given the price you paid.

You should optimise the images, this will cut the load time significantly and boost your rankings.

Thank you for your advice! This is great

 

[Mr D]

So lie about their product to get your money then give you the same product for £40 a month which you can get for £11 a month AND you have full control over your if you pay a cheaper price.. I have no idea how this is allowed, why are businesses not protected from this? As I see it, it’s fraud because they’ve mis sold something and made you sign a contract with the beliefe of something completely different.

Have any of you guys heard of a company called online content management? They pretty much did exactly this and got shut down. They harassed me for months saying I owed them money, I didn’t pay and in the end they gave up and at a later date I found they were shut down for fraud.

You do get protection. You have a contract.

As a consumer you are treated like a child that must be protected from businesses so as a consumer you get additional rights. That's for consumer purchases.
As a business you are treated like an adult. You sign something you have agreed to it. You don't get the same protections because you are quite capable of agreeing contracts yourself.

Nothing to say they should charge lower - do they charge what they say in the contract / paperwork?