ripped off by yell.com

[jamieyoung]

Hi guys, im new to this so would appreciate any help you can give me, i have a small business, i usually advertise thru yell.com, and over the last 8-9 yrs have gradually increased my budget, last year was approx £3500 pa. after the slump i notified my local rep i wanted to wind down my advertising, because, to be honest the paper wasnt as effective as it used to be and the yell.com search engine dosent hold a candle to google ! she sais she would sort it, get me the best deal, blah blah blah, and thats the last i heard till last month, where i got a bill for £9000 !!!! i have tried contacting yell.com and asked for invoices, they have passed me to there debt recovery office who are just as helpfull promising legal action , yet i still have no invoices..am feeling a bit david against goliath here ! any help from anybody who has been in this position would be greatly appreciated, cheers, Jamie

 

[E Storey]

1) Stay calm

2) Ask them for written proof you ordered the goods. (Put your request in writing and send it to their legal deparmtent recorded delivery)

3) Also state in that letter that you phoned requesting they reduce your account.

 

[Kernowman]

And don't forget to name the local rep who promised you so much

 

[Wee Print]

I advertsied with yell. Biggest waste of money and I was told alot of lies. I was told I would get a trial month at a reduced rate and then if I wanted to continue I would enter into a year contract. I have absolutely no business from yell and it was hard enough to find my own ad. I contact them on several occasions saying what a waste of time it had been and they shouldn't tell lies. I then recieve a bill for the next month.
I phoned them up telling them I am not ina contract with them and had told them that I wasn't want to advertise with them. They said that I had to submit it in writing and by a phone call.
That was another lie, I had sent them several emails saying how disappointed I was with teh service and I had told them several times on the phone when they were trying tosell me an upgrade.
It was an absolute joke. Luckily I didn't have to fork out anymore money as they conviently found all my email I had sent them once I had sent them my copy.
Thats my rant over, i hope noone has to go through what I went through!

 

[florenceij]

I am sorry to hear about your experience. Try the above suggestions and hope it works out for you. For these reason I would recommend freeindex and if your a tradesman or provide a service look out for mytaskangel.

 

[That Guy]

Make sure you keep all further communications with yell and the debt collection company in writing only so you can keep a full record.

Don't agree to anything over the phone, if it is just verbal it aint worth anything.

 

[gordano]

I too have had problems with Yell for a property maintenance business I used to own. Basically they tried to lock me into a 12 month contract for close to £1000 and said that it was in the small print of an email that once I reply to accept on the email I automatically sign up to their terms.

I was saved by the fact I had copies of prior emails with a sales rep who confirmed my request for a "one month trial".

My experience was that Yell delivered only 2 enquiries in one month, so £1000 for 24 enquiries per year! Google adwords is far more cost effective.

I am sure Yell may work for some businesses but they no longer have the market share, the internet has changed that for good.

Going back to your problem with Yell, ask for a copy of your signed contract, keep copies of all communications and diarise phone calls. If you check all communications you may well find a clause somewhere that helps you to mitigate the fees levied by Yell.

 

[Wholesale-Suppliers]

Oh that's so bad i am really feeling bad for you well you have to contact them and try to convince them you didn't order may God will help you

 

[Mustaka]

I had a very pleasent experience with Yell.com just this morning

Put the rep on hold saying I need to find the right person. Kept her on hold for 18 minutes.

Not my best time but was an enjoyable experience.

I would suggest this for anyone who gets calls from them.

 

[E Storey]

I don't know if you'd also want to contact the office of fair trading.

It seems to me that there are A LOT of people complaining about yell.coms trading practises. I doubt they will do much, but if everyone at least logs a complaint eventually it must add up.

 

[littlelady]

I had a similiar thing happen to me and I had to prove I had canceled with a photocopy of my telephone bill, I felt like giving up on it and because my ad was in the book wrongly advertised i might..still wanted me to pay something at this point ...no I stuck to my guns and refused point blank to pay for shoddy goods. so get on to customer service threaten them with exposure and bad publicity after clearly calmly stating your case and believe me itll be worth it.

 

[YellCS]

Hi, I'm from Yell's Customer Services Team. Sorry to read about your recent experience - I would be happy to talk about your Yell.com advertising further with you. If you (or anyone else on this thread) has queries about their account, please do contact us on 0800 028 4924.

Alternatively, please respond to my PM with your details and your preferred method for us to contact you.

 

[the locksmith]

Having read all of this it prompted me to email my local rep to make it quite clear that I did not want to proceed with my YP book entry this year. I had in fact signed up earlier in the year for a deal with YP , Yell.com and 118.247 + some weird adword package, but after reading various other threads on here I decided to cancel.

I also got an email from Yell HQ confirming the cancellation, so hopefully there will be no nasty surprises. Understandably the rep wasn't best pleased as no doubt there was a nice bit of commission in it for him.

I used to get a lot of business from YP but over the last couple of years it has dwindled to perhaps 1 or 2 converted calls a month at best. I think they are on the way out, which to be honest is a bit sad. However I think they have an attitude problem. For the last couple of years I have had reps round who have just been too pushy and more often than not have tried to tell me how to run my business which is always a bad idea !

 

[LJatSpear]

They're watching us!!! no-where is safe