Complaint Review: 411.ca - Internet

To everyone that has been conned by this company, I encourage you to file a report with crimestoppers. I believe this company operates in a criminal manner.

As for my case, I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones. I signed up for the advertising service in April 2012 with a prepaid credit card. I believed that I was paying for a listing and wouldn't be listed otherwise. Shortly after my listing was posted (less than a week after I signed up), I realized that my non paying competitors were also listed, at which point I called to cancel the service, and asked them  why was I paying a monthly fee for a service my competition was getting for free? The rep told me that I had added features like pictures that my competitors didn't. I didn't think these added features justified the cost so I demanded immediate cancellation. I suppose if my prepaid card hadn't been depleted, 411.ca would have continued to charge it, but they couldn't.

I had continued to operate as normal believing my account to be cancelled. I continued to get marketing emails from 411.ca, but no invoices by mail or email. What I didn't know was they were continuing to charge me for services, but not sending me any documentation.

Fast forward to April 2013 (yes, one year later). I received an email from a collection agency claiming a balance owing to 411.ca, and threatening to report to the credit bureau if I did not pay. I called the agency, left a voicemail and received no call back, and sent an email disputing the charges. Two weeks later I received another email from the agency with an additional $100 in charges. This time I was even angrier because my previous attempts to contact them were ignored, and more charges were being alleged. I was able to make contact with one of the agents. I told him that I didn't know what these charges were for, that I hadn't received any invoices. He claimed they had been sending them by email and wondered why I hadn't received them. He then told me he'd send me an invoice which detailed charges from April 2012-April 2013. Again, I wasn't aware they were continuing to bill me after April 2012. He told me that was unfortunate, I still owed the money, and that it didn't matter whether I was aware that they were continuing to charge me, or whether I received an invoice or not, if I didn't pay he'd report it to the credit bureau. He then told me he'd do me favour and reduce the balance by 50% if I paid immediately. I didn't feel like this was a favour and declined. Eventually I became quite angry, and told him to go ahead and report me to the bureau and he hung up on me.

I then called 411.ca. I was basically given the same drill. No record of cancellation, only this time the representative told me that the invoices had been sent by snail mail to the address on file. The address on file was correct, but I did not receive them. I don't believe they made any attempt to notify me of the continued billings or the alleged balances owing. I then said I better not see any more charges, and he told me that I would have to pay in full first. I told him that was nonsense, he couldn't extort payment from me by threatening to continue charging me more. I kept asking for a straight answer that there wouldn't be any further charges, and he kept beating around the bush, basically implying that if I didn't pay off the alleged balance, there were no guarantees. He finally committed to no further charges.

I believe that my account should have been cancelled with my initial request in April 2012. Instead of that, they didn't cancel it (and claim to have no record of my request) and continued to charge me without notifying me. If I had received a bill at any time between then and April 2013, I would have contacted them to find out why my account was still being charged and reaffirmed my cancellation request. Instead they continued to bill me in a sneaky fashion for a whole year before notifying me.

This is clearly a scam. If you don't pay your phone bill, they shut your phone off. If you don't pay your satellite bill, they cut your satellite off. But not 411.ca. They'll deny that they ever received a cancellation request and allow that alleged unpaid bill to continue to appreciate without you being aware of it so that they can then forward it to third party collections. They will then threaten your credit rating in an attempt to extort moneys from you. When you tell them you'll hire a lawyer to defend the action, they'll ask you why because it'll cost more than this bill.

I expect that 411.ca will reply to this detailing how they are not responsible and everything is my fault. It's always the customers fault isn't it with this company? 52 complaints with the Better Business Bureau, but I'm sure it was always the customer to blame. Numerous reports detailing the lack of ethics of this company, but it's always the customers fault. The customer just doesn't get it.   Really, it wasn't us angels at 411.ca, it isn't our fault, the customer didn't hold his mouth right and spin around three times when he cancelled.

I truly believe this company operates in a criminal manner. I ask that anyone that feels the same way take action to help prevent 411.ca from doing this to others.