Bait & Switch

ComplaintsInternet ScamsAT&T Advertising Solutions, YP.com

Complaint

0
PPS Plumbing-OC
Country: United States
Started an advertising program in July 2011 for a 6 month term.  I had requested OC area only.  Over the period of the 6 months, PPS did not receive 1 phone call from the OC area, all came from Semi Valley, and LA area-which we do not service that area.  My account sales person David Walker personal told us that he would keep an eye on our account and make adjustments along the way. I contacted him explaining what was going on with the area problem, and he said he was watching my account, and had been making adjustments, this was in August 2011.  I never received any additional emails or any communication from him until I contact him again in January 2012.  During this period I only receive OC phone calls from customers that were already established with our company.  ( I have proof us this by a list of calls we had received through the 6 mo. service).  This was a classic bait and switch!! When he finally responded to my email, I was told my account was transfered to Jennifer Bell, which I was never informed of this change, nor had she contacted me through the 6 mo. period.  She did pull my reports, and told me if I wanted to cancel this contract that is would have to be in writing, which I did immediately.  When I voice all my complaints, they said they would not refund any of the 6000.00, but would help me out with a new contract, but I would need to sign an additional 6 months.
I of course would not resign an new contract.  I have now lost the 6000.00, with not one new job from all the advertising by AT&t, they performed the classic BAIT & SWITCH, and by reporting this on every site I can, I hope this will help with anyone trying to make a decision on advertising with AT&T which now is YP Connect.
FYI: The addrss for the company that performed the BAIT & SWITCH is: AT&T Advertising Solutions, YP.com , 410 Exchange, Suite 100, Irvine, CA 714-730-1608, the 2 gentlemen that were responsible for my account were, DAVID WALKER, Sales Rep. and RICK
WHITE. If you are contacted by either of two--RUN!!
Please pass this information along,
Thank You

Comments

  • 0
    chel
    WOW, here I am surfing how hard it is to get rid of YP and it looks time consuming and stressful! I have chosen NOT to renew my yp advertising for the 2014-2015 directories and online after having spent over 45k per year for 10 years with them. I sent notification of non renewal and cancellation of order for the next year and I am still getting confirmation notices that I am in fact renewing everything and committing to another year (beginning march 1, 2014) of 4k per month for advertising that only produced 2k per month in the past 12 months! I have sent notifications via certified mail with return receipt, I have copies of all the email exchanges between my rep, mr. sharp and I last month when I decided to end our advertising with yp upon the end of our current term (which ends in February). I had read that you must give 3 months notice to "non renew" and that you must cancel any current order within 10 days of making the order--i cancelled the very next day via phone and email and Mr. Sharp acknowledged that email, then I sent ALL OF IT in writing 3 days later-certified mail with return receipt. The email and mail included the statement that I am NOT renewing any of our ad campaign in the coming year-thus giving not 3 months notice but SIX months notice before print. I felt that surely having covered all the bases that our we would not have a problem with terminating them at the end of our current contract. Yet, today, a month after sending those notices, I received a letter confirming my order/renewal for next year! I am livid to say the least! I am dreading this February as it is likely I too will be one of those small businesses owners that will have to FIGHT YP even though I covered all the bases to insure that our advertising with them is cancelled & non renewed for the coming year. Should that happen, they won't see my last month's payment as I will use it to obtain an attorney to deal with them. This is NOT our first problem with them, we have had problems with our online ad having lines through it, and one year to get us to renew they offered a program that guarantied a certain number of calls, when I got the confirmation in the mail that number was reduced by nearly half, when I called about it they stated that the rep was not authorized to offer that many calls and that their contract states that they can change the terms at any time...and it really does! It was beyond the cancellation terms when I got that letter so I was screwed for another year. When a business has to resort to such underhanded crap to STEAL from customers-there's something seriously WRONG with their product and/or their ethics and we should have quit them a long time ago!
  • 0
    David Walker
    | 1 reply
    This was an unfortunate situation for the advertiser.
    I been in this business for 23 years and have not had a customer complaint.
    In this case, the customer had an outdated website that was one page in length and was NOT "search engine optimized".
    This made it nearly impossible for their site to come up.
    Additionally the budget we were asked to work with for the plumbing heading was inadequate, to say the least.
    Granted the geography issue was real, however we made immediate changes to the program to rectify the issue.
    The customer was looking for copper re pipe jobs, which is an expensive keyword on such a small budget.
    I explained to the customer going in that we were looking for just one job for this to pay for itself.
    Unfortunately, the customer did not see their return on investment.
    My suggestion going forward is for the customer to hire a web designer to design a "search engine friendly" website and do not do a short term contract, which rarely is effective, since the first 30-60 days is the ramp up period, where the search engines are "getting acquainted" with the website.
    Unfortunately for the customer, this account did move down the channel to a premise rep 30 days into the contract, so I was not permitted to work with the customer any longer since the account was no longer assigned to me.
    • 0
      Jessica replies to David Walker
      It seems strange that a $6000 budget for a 6 months service is inadequate.  Would $250,000 have been enough for you to have done your job?  Shoot lets go for 1 million dollars while we're at it.  It seems unethical that you wouldn't have presented the actual cost of doing the service for what your customer wanted until you got them hooked in.  It also seems like poor business practice to not refund a customer for services that you failed to deliver ie location.

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