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Yellow Pages Network Lies about "updating" a business listing, verbal contract, charges $500 New York, New York
Yellow Pages Network misrepresents its B2B listing services, tricks people into agreeing to verbal contracts, then sends its collections agents after you for the invoice amounts. Any attempts to cancel the service are defeated. They are NOT affiliated with Yellow Book or the "Yellow Pages" that you're thinking of.
Takeaways: Make SURE to get a cancellation number! Do not agree to anything while being taped! Never say "yes" or "agree" or anything of that nature; other online sources report that they even manipulate the audio recordings.
11/8 - Someone calling himself RICK SMITH, but having a very thick Indian accent, called our office and asked if I could authorize an expense, $500 to "update" a business listing. I told him I could not authorize an expense and asked him to hold for a moment so I could ask a superior. At this point, he stopped me and said, no, you're not MAKING a purchase, you're simply updating the listing and RENEWING a service that your boss (he knew the name) has already agreed to before. At that point, I foolishly agreed. He said somebody else would call in to confirm.
At this second call, CASSANDRA EDWARDS read me back our company information and asked if I was authorized to make the purchase. Having been successfully tricked by Rick, I said yes. This entire phone call was recorded - this is the crux of the scam.
I then spoke to my superiors and they told me I had been scammed, and to call and cancel. I did a little research online and became sick to my stomach at what I discovered.
Minutes later, I called the customer service number, and talked to a CHAD CONNARS. I told him we were not interested in the service, I told him we wanted to cancel, I asked him if we would receive an invoice, or go to collections, and to place us on a do-not-call list. He agreed to all of these things. He also said he put a note on our account that it had been cancelled. Satisfied, I hung up.
12/14 - Clyde Smith called about an unpaid invoice; we had NEVER received one, one way or another. I told him no, I cancelled the service. He asked for a cancellation number. I told him I did not have one. We argued for a while, but the I told him to cancel it now, we are not interested. He said he would. I told him that I expected no further calls from his company and angrily hung up on him.
12/19 - Jason Stafford called our company about an unpaid balance going into collections. By the way, this balance was different from the one I was quoted 12/14. I informed him of everything up to this point, but he mocked me and said that I liked to buy things and not pay for them. He also dangled a $65 late fee in front of me, saying that if I cooperated today, he wouldn't assess it. I was bounced around to several other useless people, including Rick D'Orio, Credit Assessment Manager, and Steven Meadows, ID 6046314, in customer service. I tried to get in touch with the original salespeople but was informed that Chad Connars was no longer with the company, and that the sales department was outsourced so direct contact was impossible. Speaking with Clyde Smith, he finally mentioned a "7 day cancellation period", which was the first I'd heard of it. Finally with Steven Meadows I argued about how his side failed to provide a cancellation number, and I didn't even know that I should ask for one, when he said to me "How do you not know to ask for a cancellation number?" At one point he also said "Do you really expect that we can get in touch with the sales department? You yourself said it was outsourced."
I've spent too many hours trying to resolve this. We are an ACTUAL business providing service of ACTUAL value. We will not have our credit rating damaged because of these dishonest business practices. At many points along this process I mentally noted how an actual business would have responded differently - for them to say that they could not stop the process because it was already in their internal collections is ludicrous. Never once did I hear mention of a 7 day cancellation period until over a month after the fact. There is indeed a tape of me, agreeing to this purchase, but only because I had been tricked into thinking it was something other than it was.