[Helen]

Steer clear of Yell.com, they may miss-sell you advertising products!

I was cold called by a saleswomen from yell who sold me a try before you buy listing- where you get to have a listing for 2 months, and if you want to you can cancel and not pay a penny (I had just set the business, so a bit of free advertising was what I needed)

The next thing I know I got a letter stating I owe them £235.

So after many, many, maaaany letters from yell, and phone calls from me to them, they have now passed the matter on to a debt recovery company. GRRRR!

Needless to say, I am one very P***ed off Helen and I'm now seeking help through my solicitor.

Rant over - I just wanted to warn people if they get a call from Yell.com - be careful you actually get what you asked for!

[Mesa]

Good shout, or should that be yell? Thanks

[styledwebdesign]

Excatly the same happend to me they first said I could pay monthly in installments of £30 per month, but free for the first three months and I could cancel anytime... then send me a bill for £330! I haven't paid and sure enough the debt collecters letter came... they ain't getting a penny outta me...

[Duck]

I feel your pain!

The same happened with me, I went on a 'no commitment' 2 month trial then went to cancel it only to be told that I couldnt because I hadn't sent them the cancellation form - which they never sent me!

After emails, and threats from me they eventually dropped the £300 something bill they said I owed!


They are complete f'#kers and I would warn anyone off even doing a free promo with them as they will try and stick ya!

[djt992]

I'm sorry to hear that that has happened to you all

At least we know now for the future... are you sure these people were legitimately from yell?

It seems odd that such a big company could pull a scam pull a scam like this.

[STWebDesign]

I am very sorry to hear this news. I hope it all gets sorted for you. At least we know for the future not to use their services.

[Dave_Webb]

Thats bad

[nickyoung]

I just read the whole thread and I'm confused about several things...

1. What is yell.com? they seem like some kinda business directory listing. Saw the website.
2. What do you mean by cold called? Telemarketing? Spam? As a business or a person?
3. So then where does £235 come from?

[STWebDesign]

1. Yes its a Online business directory
2. Read this : Click here

[raybowls]

Helen, on Dec 19 2008, 15:47, said:

Steer clear of Yell.com, they may miss-sell you advertising products!

I was cold called by a saleswomen from yell who sold me a try before you buy listing- where you get to have a listing for 2 months, and if you want to you can cancel and not pay a penny (I had just set the business, so a bit of free advertising was what I needed)

The next thing I know I got a letter stating I owe them £235.

So after many, many, maaaany letters from yell, and phone calls from me to them, they have now passed the matter on to a debt recovery company. GRRRR!

Needless to say, I am one very P***ed off Helen and I'm now seeking help through my solicitor.

Rant over - I just wanted to warn people if they get a call from Yell.com - be careful you actually get what you asked for!

You are right about not using directories, skill and hard work are about the only things that work in the long run, trouble is we all spend money trying to find the "easy way".

[nickyoung]

Oh I see now. I'm surprised a company would go to such lengths to ruin their name. Thanks for sharing. I would stay clear of paid directory listings in particular...including anything with the word free trial. They never seem to bring about anything special to the table yet boast amazing statistics.

[traxor]

You should never ever trust anything from massive advertising companies, they're only trying to screw you over. What I tend to do if they give me a call, is to send all documentation with terms and conditions, ask for their name, write down to the date etc so that your bum is covered on your end too - you'll find that they're less likely to give you a package if you get smart about it, and they'll rarely call you back.

Personally, I'd refuse to pay the money that they said that they've owed you, tell them that you were sold the package falsely under the Sales of Goods and Services Act, and that you're going to take the matter to court. Phone up the citizens advice bureau for your area, see if there are any Ombudsman schemes that will aid you in the matter, and also phone up Trading Standards.

Just do everything to scare Yell.com, and don't be afraid to phone them up and ask for the number for the head office, because the people in the call centre don't really know anything about the company, they're centralized agencies who are basically given a script (someone I knew worked in one), so to get anywhere you'll need to speak to someone directly.

Very sorry that this is happened to you, there's nothing worse than someone disturbing your livelihood and asking for a lot of money, my father has been going through a similar thing with the bank Lloyds TSB; they really don't want to help you, when a bank removes a LOT of money from your bank without warning or reason and won't give it back, things get nasty

[Skysurge]

I also like how they've almost exactly replicated their favicon based on the yellowpages.com logo.....

[T_break]

Skysurge, on Dec 24 2008, 16:09, said:

I also like how they've almost exactly replicated their favicon based on the yellowpages.com logo.....

They are the online face of Yellow pages. Same company.

[bumfluff]

Which debt collection agency have you got?

[Helen]

bumfluff, on Dec 25 2008, 14:50, said:

Which debt collection agency have you got?

I think it was called NCO

[bumfluff]

Haven't heard of them, but they don't seem to have a very good reputation judging by the results of a Google search..

Lots of info on dealing with debt collection companies here.

The CAB were very helpful when I was having similar problems.

[MinatureCookie]

Sorry to sound repetitive and a bit of a short, useless message; but that's really bad!
Sucks that happens to people :-/ Worst thing I've had is people leeching credit off my phone, no £230 debts. I'll be sure to keep wary of such sites
Hope it all works out for you with your solicitors.

[MJHDL]

Hi

Just to let you know, that I believe I have successfully cancelled the advert with Yell.com. The woman I dealt with there is called Maria Bridgen, she's was very apologetic and accommodating.

It might be worth emailing her at Yell.com – I don't have her full details, but she can be reached through Customer.Service.Team@yellgroup.com and see if you have any luck.

I will of course be adding this my blog, in hope that it informs other people to be wary of their sales people.

Best of luck.

Helen, on Dec 19 2008, 15:47, said:

Steer clear of Yell.com, they may miss-sell you advertising products!

I was cold called by a saleswomen from yell who sold me a try before you buy listing- where you get to have a listing for 2 months, and if you want to you can cancel and not pay a penny (I had just set the business, so a bit of free advertising was what I needed)

The next thing I know I got a letter stating I owe them £235.

So after many, many, maaaany letters from yell, and phone calls from me to them, they have now passed the matter on to a debt recovery company. GRRRR!

Needless to say, I am one very P***ed off Helen and I'm now seeking help through my solicitor.

Rant over - I just wanted to warn people if they get a call from Yell.com - be careful you actually get what you asked for!

[Dorset Web Designs]

Hi,

Try giving OFCOM a call, they are the industry regulators.

""The Ofcom Advisory Team is open Monday-Friday between 09:00 and 17:00.

* Our phone number is 020 7981 3040""

[Ace Design Index]

The exact same thing happened to us. When I received the bill I phoned to tell them I was offered an introductory offer of 2 month free with the option to cancel without paying a penny only to be told They don't have such an offer and have never had one.

The good thing is they called my office phone number and all calls a recoreded and stored on a hard drive so I could prove this is was I was offered.

I believe its the tactics of the telesales people who must earn commission for each sale they make which is not something you would expect from British Telecom (The owners of Yell.com and Yellow Pages)

[Ace Design Index]

raybowls, on Dec 21 2008, 17:37, said:

You are right about not using directories, skill and hard work are about the only things that work in the long run, trouble is we all spend money trying to find the "easy way".

Dont agree with not using Directories as such the key is to find a category or industry specific directory. Our company owns a number of differant directories which are very popular. These are only popular because each directory site deals with only one industry such as http://www.AceDesignIndex.co.uk only deals with Web Design and Development. there are others dealing with other industries.

I totally agree that directories such as Yell.com are not very effective yes they receive a lot of enquires but the conversion rates are much lower.

[Dorset Web Designs]

Ace Design Index, on Mar 7 2009, 17:25, said:

I believe its the tactics of the telesales people who must earn commission for each sale they make which is not something you would expect from British Telecom (The owners of Yell.com and Yellow Pages)

British Telecom sold The Yellow Pages back in 2001.

The best advantage of being in online directories is for the external links so long as they are direct.

[BlueIce]

Have had a few calls from them actually in the past, found them quite pushy. Has anyone paid for yell.com and found it worth the price?

Helen, on Dec 19 2008, 15:47, said:

Steer clear of Yell.com, they may miss-sell you advertising products!

I was cold called by a saleswomen from yell who sold me a try before you buy listing- where you get to have a listing for 2 months, and if you want to you can cancel and not pay a penny (I had just set the business, so a bit of free advertising was what I needed)

The next thing I know I got a letter stating I owe them £235.

So after many, many, maaaany letters from yell, and phone calls from me to them, they have now passed the matter on to a debt recovery company. GRRRR!

Needless to say, I am one very P***ed off Helen and I'm now seeking help through my solicitor.

Rant over - I just wanted to warn people if they get a call from Yell.com - be careful you actually get what you asked for!

[BritZin]

Helen, on Dec 19 2008, 15:47, said:

Steer clear of Yell.com, they may miss-sell you advertising products!

I was cold called by a saleswomen from yell who sold me a try before you buy listing- where you get to have a listing for 2 months, and if you want to you can cancel and not pay a penny (I had just set the business, so a bit of free advertising was what I needed)

The next thing I know I got a letter stating I owe them £235.

So after many, many, maaaany letters from yell, and phone calls from me to them, they have now passed the matter on to a debt recovery company. GRRRR!

Needless to say, I am one very P***ed off Helen and I'm now seeking help through my solicitor.

Rant over - I just wanted to warn people if they get a call from Yell.com - be careful you actually get what you asked for!

It's a very common problem with Yell I've heard.

[ngillard]

If my experience is anything to go by DON'T USE YELL.COM. They signed me up but the service went live, it just did not work as it should (won't go into that now as it's complex but suffice as to say that their search engine logic sucks!). I discussed this several times on the phone but no-one ever got back to me. I refused to pay the initial invoice as it had never worked and I had requested it cancelled almost as soon as it went live but they refused to cancel the contract and got a debt collection agency onto me! Nice one Yell! Great way to get a good reputation. This debt agency was actually very reasonable and when I detailed the case in great length to them by letter, they said they would get back to Yell and I never heard from them again. Some months later I then get a letter from a different debt agency announcing they are proceeding with court proceedings. In all my days in business I have never dealt with a company as heavy handed and threatening as yell.com. I'm sure many people are lucky and never have the need to cross them but I can only offer my caution to look at other alternatives. Whatever they say, Google utterly dominates the internet search market and I would always suggest putting advertising budget there. Unlike Yell.com with Google you only pay for results!

[Sam G]

I recently got a free listing in their website and sure enough someone phoned up about a week later trying to flog me £400-ish worth of advertising, even the same "offer" that they made to Helen.

I politely declined as what they were offering me wasn't worth it IMO. Good thing I said no as I didn't read this thread first - I perhaps would not have even got their free listing (which incidentally has generated NO new leads LOL)

[KevBrad]

completely off topic, but Helen you need to fix the broken link to the helenguttridge.css file on your site. it's no fun when the css ain't working

[bocaj]

KevBrad, on Apr 14 2009, 00:03, said:

completely off topic, but Helen you need to fix the broken link to the helenguttridge.css file on your site. it's no fun when the css ain't working

haha, i think she forgot after naked day, or maybe she's taken easter weekend off

[M8 INTERNET]

As a business customer you don't have the protection that you would have as a retail customer
I've looked at the current rates at yell.com, they are not easy to find, but they are there
As always, ask for them to send out details which you can view, read, and THEN sign

Which package were you "mis-sold" :
http://rates.yelldir...ernetRates.aspx

Prices vary from £90 to £300, although I did find one that was £950

[SEO Positive]

I have heard alot of bad stuff about yell.com over the past year or so.

Their problem is, they have lots of young sales people trying to hit targets mis-selling to get as much money as they can without thinking of what they are doing to people at the other end (the customer).

[Helen]

bocaj, on Apr 14 2009, 00:12, said:

haha, i think she forgot after naked day, or maybe she's taken easter weekend off

Indeed I did.... and the wifi at the caravan site was playing silly buggers, so I couldn't do anything

On a positive note, my problems with yell.com were solved so.... I'm a happy bunny now, but I do urge others to check, check and check again

[cafeolai]

Hello all,

I am having the same problem with YELL as we speak. I am new company and got caught by a YELL sales person who said I was entitled to a 8 weeks trial on their marketing tool. I cancelled before the 8 weeks as it generated absolutely NO CALLS.. they said I couldn't cancel and owe them £478 .. I never paid and emailed many times to explain. the sales person keeps saying don't worry all is ok.. and today I am receiving a letter from a fund collector.
I am very upset and not sure what to do next as I cannot afford a solicitor and also I am French and reading a contract in English is not that easy for me.

Any help would be very appreciated.
Thank to all

[Helen]

cafeolai, on 28 September 2009 - 04:16 PM, said:

Hello all,

I am having the same problem with YELL as we speak. I am new company and got caught by a YELL sales person who said I was entitled to a 8 weeks trial on their marketing tool. I cancelled before the 8 weeks as it generated absolutely NO CALLS.. they said I couldn't cancel and owe them £478 .. I never paid and emailed many times to explain. the sales person keeps saying don't worry all is ok.. and today I am receiving a letter from a fund collector.
I am very upset and not sure what to do next as I cannot afford a solicitor and also I am French and reading a contract in English is not that easy for me.

Any help would be very appreciated.
Thank to all

Have sent you a PM with some information that may help

[Hado]

Oh Boy! I have been scammed too! I got collared into yell 118 24 7 in September. One of the sales reps phoned me and told me that I can have a 2 months free period and even showed me an example (over the phone) of what sort of ad I would have including up to 20 photos but in order to be able to upload pics I would have to confirm 2 letters of a password (2nd and 4th letter). He said that he was sending the order via email right now and to go on to yahoo and keep pressing the refresh button and let him now when the email comes in and as soon as it did he said great quickly hit "reply" and email back the 2 letters.

At no point did we discuss a 12 month contract or payment terms the only thing he mentioned was after 2 months they will send me a direct debit mandate for me to fill in if I wanted to carry on.

Unbeknown to me by hitting "reply" I had agreed to their terms and conditions. None of which was discussed prior!

I was very surprised when yesterday I received an order for £524.

I phoned up their customer services and spoke to a very unhelpful lady who wouldn't budge and told me that having sent back the letters I am legally bound. I insist I was tricked into this contract!!

I have complained to trading standards about this.

Has anyone had any success in getting these contracts null and voided?

[serpico]

Hado, on 18 October 2009 - 04:16 PM, said:

Oh Boy! I have been scammed too! I got collared into yell 118 24 7 in September. One of the sales reps phoned me and told me that I can have a 2 months free period and even showed me an example (over the phone) of what sort of ad I would have including up to 20 photos but in order to be able to upload pics I would have to confirm 2 letters of a password (2nd and 4th letter). He said that he was sending the order via email right now and to go on to yahoo and keep pressing the refresh button and let him now when the email comes in and as soon as it did he said great quickly hit "reply" and email back the 2 letters.

At no point did we discuss a 12 month contract or payment terms the only thing he mentioned was after 2 months they will send me a direct debit mandate for me to fill in if I wanted to carry on.

Unbeknown to me by hitting "reply" I had agreed to their terms and conditions. None of which was discussed prior!

I was very surprised when yesterday I received an order for £524.

I phoned up their customer services and spoke to a very unhelpful lady who wouldn't budge and told me that having sent back the letters I am legally bound. I insist I was tricked into this contract!!

I have complained to trading standards about this.

Has anyone had any success in getting these contracts null and voided?

@ Hado, I am in exactly the same boat. However my bill is for £749. Looks like I should have cancelled at the end of August. I was expecting a phone call to review the service before anything else happened.

Please please please! Has anyone got any advice on this. Is there anyway to get out of this or at least reduce my cost???

[Aaron]

My boss hates Yell aswell. he made a site recently not sure if im allowed to post it. Its better than yell

[taylor223]

As a Yell shareholder I have to say i'm not surprised, although theres a few more of you that seem to have had problems than expected. The issue is that Yell went through an aggressive expansion plan that involved buying similar paper/online directories world wide.

Now they have huge amounts of dept and are also transitioning from primarily paper based advertising to eventually primarily online based so there's a lot going on at Yell HQ. On top of that you've got generic (and unsympathetic) telesales people under extreme pressure to meet targets no matter what. oh, and the recession doesn't help; the ad industry has suffered quite a bit.

Have to agree regarding the online searching, it's not very good and only just about gets the job done. Its still in transition so will improve; it has to for survival.

Personally, I would go for a more targeted advert in a mag or popular site where a variety of businesses are likely to look. Yell is ok but pricey for what you get and is better for those 'joe bloggs' type things such as minibus hire, finding tradesman, etc. Thomson local is pretty decent.

PS- I do not represent Yell in any way and what I've said is my own opinion. I cannot provide anyone with any kind of in-roads or help contacting Yell. Sorry, I'm just an investor (cha ching)

[karmafunk]

Yep, same happened to me. I got one lead from Yell. It doesn't rank well in google and I can't remember the last time I saw an advert for them.

Best advice, steer clear.

[MandyNo12]

serpico, on 02 November 2009 - 10:46 AM, said:

@ Hado, I am in exactly the same boat. However my bill is for £749. Looks like I should have cancelled at the end of August. I was expecting a phone call to review the service before anything else happened.

Please please please! Has anyone got any advice on this. Is there anyway to get out of this or at least reduce my cost???

Hi

Exactly the same has happened to me only yesterday. They called me asking if I wanted to try it for 6-8 weeks. The rep even said to me, we will not be taking any bank details, so you won't be charged. Thats the only reason I went for it, lulled into a false sense of security that they didn't have my account details. At no point was 12 months ocntract discussed either. Again, he sent me through a dummy ad, to show me what it could look like, and quickly asked me to go straight to that page and sign it off. So I did. Not realising I had entered into a contract.

I received an invoice for £960 yesterday and was shocked. When I called up customer services they just kept saying I signed the contract. I am not denying I did, but I was unfairly mis-led. I then spoke directly to the sales rep who said he said nothing of the sort about a free trial. I explained the situation to him again, at which point he said he got our wires crossed and that he would see what he could sort out with Customer Services.

I called up again this morning and he told me that he will be sending them an email so that they could set up a direct debit payment scheme so I would not have to pay the full amount. I told him I even refuse to pay that. This matter he said, had to be dealt with with customer services. I then emailed him and copied in customer services saying I want this matte dealt with as I was mis-led and mis-sold, else I would go to head office. He replied back saying: "As per conversation, i am a bit confused as to how yesterday you mentioned that we seemed to of got our wires crossed and now you seem to imply I have mis lead and mis sold you, all the calls are recorded which is why I know I didn't mention and don't mention as there is no trial period. I have sent an email across to head office to give you a call today."

I have also called up trading standards and they have given me two options:
1: Pay under protest. Then claim the money back from them
2: Send a recorded letter outlining in detail why you were mis-led and the all events. Also ask for telephone transcripts.

I think I am going for option 2. Once I hear the transcripts I will know whether or not he mentioned anything about a 12 month contract or not.

It all happened so fast, I feel like such an idiot for agreeing in the first place.