Complaint Review: Island Yellow Pages - Tampa Florida

*Note that this is not a rant (I actually sleep better at night knowing I don't work at this place anymore) but just me breaking down this scam and showing it's true colors, from an insider's prospective.*

Hello everyone.  I am remaining anonymous to protect my identity from my previous employer, Island Media Advertising or as you may know as the "Island Yellow Pages."  I had a very strange feeling about the job when I first got it, and I only lasted 2 weeks (they turn over employees every month or so, so they don't learn too much about the company.)  I got hired on to do web design and was terribly disappointed when I found out what the job was about.  However, I stayed there long enough to warn everyone in the Caribbean Island to be on the watch (or listen I suppose) for "Your local yellow pages."  They even have a fake address in the Virgin Islands to trick you even more.

The owner of the company is David Philips and his right hand man is Mark Nelson.  If you call for either of them they will not talk to you.  Mr. Philips sits in his office all day avoiding calls from the labor board and all kinds of other departments because of how screwed up this place really is.  If you want to speak to either of them you must threaten legal action upon them and then they will all of a sudden become available to talk.  I worked the front desk and when I got hired I was told to tell anyone who called for either of them they are in a meeting and to take a message.

Here's how the scam works.  There are sales people who all sit in their desks with real phone books, each having their own island to call.  They make calls to every business in their phone book and when someone finally gets on the phone they go into their script.  Now I know they change their script every so often to avoid detection but it will always be similar to this:

"Good day, my name is _____ and I'm calling to update accurate information for your yellow page listing..."

They then quickly breeze by the cost of the service.  They are trained to do this.  Currently the cost is $954 USD a year, saying that the site (http://www.cbt.cc, which is poorly designed btw) gets around 10,000 unique hits per day and about 50 million hits per year.  Now even a normal person would think, "Hmm that is A LOT of people."  I have owned websites before and I know how hard it is to get even 500 unique hits per day.  They cannot prove this claim, mostly because it is false.  When you search on google for island yellow pages, it doesn't even come up as the first listing!  Don't you think a site with 50 million visitors a year would be at the top?  Anyway moving on.  Most of the people they talk to barely speak english or are busy while on the phone and are barely paying attention.  Note that they prey on these kind of people.  Always be aware when you are on the phone, especially with someone who sounds like they are reading a cheesy script.  They take down your information on a piece of paper and then tell you that they are going to put you on the phone with a verifier.  You get transferred to whoever the verifier may be, it may be the sales manager or someone in collections.

Once you are on the phone with the verifier this is where you get completely screwed.  They tell you there are no written contracts, they only go by verbal authorization.  Then they tell you to state your name to verify the information is true.  Most of the time the verifier will "forget" to reitterate the cost of the service to you.  They are trained to breeze through the verification process.  Once you are verified you enter a verbal contract with them you are now bound to the price of the ad.  You are being recorded the entire time you are on the phone, from the time you pick up until the time you hang up.  They do not tell you you are being recorded, which from what I understand, they are supposed to.  They will use this recording later on against you.

Then they tell you to have a great day and someone from the Help Desk will be contacting you in 48 hours to set-up your ad.  The salesperson gets commission and all that jazz.  I'm sorry about the caps but I just want to get this across.

THERE IS A 24 HOUR CANCELLATION POLICY.  IF YOU CALL THEM WITHIN 24 HOURS OF YOU TALKING TO THEM YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CANCEL.  AFTER THAT YOU ARE SCREWED.  THEY MAY CHANGE THEIR NUMBER ONCE THEY SEE THIS ON THE WEB BUT IT'S 813-933-5206.

Now I worked the "Help Desk" as well as doing all the receptionist work.  What the help desk does is creates the ad for you.  The sales people claim that your ad will be submitted to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  They DO NOT do this.  All they do is create meta tags (which anyone can do themselves) and that is it.  Honestly, you ad may never be seen and you are paying all that money for exposure.  Also, your "free website" isn't even a .com, it's yourname.cbt.cc.  You're paying all that money and you don't even get a real domain??  It's insane, I know, and it only gets worse.

The sales people claim that a "professional webdesigner will be helping you set-up your ad and *free* website."  This is also a false accusation because they will hire anyone for help desk.  You don't have to know what HTML/CSS is to get hired because all they do is use an editor and type into it.  They can't even make color changes on the ad for you.  You can put a 300x300 picture on your ad and some text for a company description and that is it.

I know this post is already very long but I know that if I was investigating this company that I would want to know every detail about it.

Now the Help Desk person does what they call "demos."  That is when they call you and get you in front of the computer so they can "set everything up," even though your ad is already made for you before you even see it.  Most of the time the person won't even make the changes you want to your ad.  They take you to the site manager and have you type in your username and password.  That will take you to the terms and conditions.  READ THESE.  Note that once you are at the help desk phase that there is the bullsh*t NO CANCELLATION POLICY in effect.  After the process is over, the help desk person is then required to ask for payment from you.

I talked to many people going through economic hardship and I could only sympathize with them.  This is what caused me to lose my job.  They told me I let too many people reject their demos and I wasn't making them any money.  I wish I could have cancelled all of their accounts, but the money hungry scammers who work at this company have no remorse.  You could tell the most heartbreaking story to them and they would not change their minds.  They are out to get your money and that is it.  After I was done my training, I realized what a scam this place was and told myself that I would not collect a single dime from people.  I still did the required asking for money at the end of the demo, but I told the people they could just wait on payment and sent it over to collections.

Now collections at this place is ridiculous.  This is where the other alias of this company comes into play.  They have changed their name a couple times.  Currently their name is Stone, Thomas, and Goldburg.  First of all, the actual Island Yellow Pages collector tries to collect your money.  If you ignore the payment for a few months, someone from Stone, Thomas, and Goldburg will be contacting you "on behalf of their client, the Island Yellow Pages."  However this is not a real company!  The sales people are in the next room over!  The guy/girl who is collecting your money doesn't even clock in, they only get paid commission and every employee there is 1099.

They will threaten legal action on your if you do not pay them and use the initial recording I talked about in the beginning of this article against you.  I would suggest getting an attorney to be on the phone with you.  If people just knew their rights, so many people wouldn't get screwed out of their money.  This place is notorious for credit card fraud.  However, people don't realize it and never take action against them.  For example, an employee of this man's company used his credit card without his consent and then Mark Nelson threated legal action against her when he was the one who ran the card without his consent in the first place!  They are thieves and will try and trick you into getting your money from you.  They are very deceitful and that is how they make their money.

And, when this is all said and done, they will automatically renew your contract after your 12 month term is over.  You have send them written consent that you don't want to renew after 11 months of your term.  I would send it at your 10 month point just to make sure they get it.  Keep some kind of record of you sending it.  When I say written, I mean actual snail mail writing.  They make it inconvient so they can automatically renew you and charge you the reduced rate of $714 USD per year.  You are not getting what you are paying for so why would you renew?  That's the whole trick about it.

This place makes at least $5,000 USD a week from scamming people.  That's over a quarter of a million dollars a year or more!  Don't fall for this scam, and if you have been a victim I would suggest getting an attorney because that is the only way you will be able to save yourself some money.  They will call and harrass you until finally you just break down and pay them.

This is the end of my article, I hope this is useful to someone.  Thank you for reading.