AT&T YellowPages.com does what they want
Complaint
James
Country: United States
Hello,
A warning for anyone that gets a telemarketing call from AT&T YellowPages.com. My wife and I own a small mom and popbusiness and my wife received a call and listened to the person go through their services, but when he gave my wife the pricing she told him that she would speak with me and he'd contact her the next day. When the next day came she told him no not now.
They proceeded to bill us and said that from part of the conversation they consider it an ok for the expensive but totally useless service. A billion dollar company screwing over a mom and pop. Know they are trying to sue us for failing to make any payments in a service which we did not want.
I guess billion dollar companies and their lawyers think it's ok to screw mom and pop stores and my guess is that the idiotic court system will probably side with them since the supposedly have a voice recording, but coincidently without the end section nor the day after part just cut down to what the contracted telemarketer (who no longer with them for some undisclosed reason) are using as the ok. I guess that since they can no loger use their marketing tactic on people now they have started on mom and pop's.
Jim Tabele
A warning for anyone that gets a telemarketing call from AT&T YellowPages.com. My wife and I own a small mom and popbusiness and my wife received a call and listened to the person go through their services, but when he gave my wife the pricing she told him that she would speak with me and he'd contact her the next day. When the next day came she told him no not now.
They proceeded to bill us and said that from part of the conversation they consider it an ok for the expensive but totally useless service. A billion dollar company screwing over a mom and pop. Know they are trying to sue us for failing to make any payments in a service which we did not want.
I guess billion dollar companies and their lawyers think it's ok to screw mom and pop stores and my guess is that the idiotic court system will probably side with them since the supposedly have a voice recording, but coincidently without the end section nor the day after part just cut down to what the contracted telemarketer (who no longer with them for some undisclosed reason) are using as the ok. I guess that since they can no loger use their marketing tactic on people now they have started on mom and pop's.
Jim Tabele
Comments
tdwclark@gmail.com
I called to complain and the 'Customer Rep' told me that unless I had talked to someone in 'her' department what I was told was not legitimate. She then told me that in order for me to cancel my Yellow Page ad I had to send a CERTIFIED LETTER(!!) with very precise information. However, she said I still needed to pay for this year's ad.
I asked her to provide verifiable proof that I was ever informed that I needed to send a certified letter to cancel my ad. She said that there was information on the ATT webpage stating that. I pointed out that that isn’t legal. Was I supposed to intuit that my personal contract information was on a website? Did ATT just assume that everyone has computer access?
She also stated that I had agreed to my ad through recorded telephone verification with ATT. I asked her why ATT could verify something over the phone and could not. She didn’t have an answer.
Of course, she could not ‘locate’ the recorded phone conversation that I had last year. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She said ‘they don’t do that anymore. Each customer representative is trained to take care of anything that comes up.’ This is an interesting new ploy. If someone is not having a satisfactory conversation with a representative that’s just tough. There’s no recourse.
I asked if ATT was going to reimburse me for the cost of sending a ‘certified letter of cancelation.’ She said they would not.
My question is – has anyone started a class action suit against these illegal practices? If not, it’s time that we do.
1) Over 600 + people per month in my area were looking for my services.
2) I would also be placed in over 150 internet directories
3) The program works and I would have my listing in the top three. The highest program you can get.
4) These 600 + are not doing searches on YP.com because they are browsing. They are on there to do business.
I said wouldn't Google be a better place for me to put my hard earned money.
Response: Google is for people looking for and browsing for stuff. Not for people ready to BUY a Service or DO Business.
Had over 6 phone conversations with sales person. They answered all calls back and the followup was amazing.
Sales rep even went over numbers on the phone with me and stated that I should easily get 8-10 new customers per month with this ad program. I should get at least 20+ calls per month with this ad program.
Now, After making the order I expected to get something from ATT like a contract, terms, cancellation period information.
I then after placing ad spoke to my uncle who also had an ad with ATT the year before. He stated he will not renew the ad that he did not make any money from the ad. He stated he got no business from it and will not use YP.com again.
I called my sales rep to cancel my program. This was on the 6th day. No return call. I then called again. No return call. I then on the 10th day at 8:05 AM Emailed the Rep to cancel. I also asked for a return call. I received an email back on the 12th stating it was too late to cancel and I was under contract. I never received this contract with any cancellation details in a timely manner. As a matter of fact, I never received anything stating the cancellation period. I tried to cancel but the rep would not call me back. I did not have any information on who to call, where to call. Only his number and his managers number. I left 4 messages with the manager and still over 30 day's later have not had a single call back from any of my messages. My funds were pulled from my bank account over 20 day's after the ad was placed. Over 14 day's after I called asking to cancel. Over 10 day's after I emailed due to the NO Response to calls. Nothing was live, Nothing was Done. No AD other than the basic free one I had built myself on the ATT YP.com site.
I received my contract on November 20th in the mail. It was dated November 17th. More than 2 weeks after the cancellation period ended.
I have emails from the REP that clearly state that some ads will not work. Why does ATT sale these ads that do not work? He states because they are placed too low... Mine is the highest under one category and the very next level under another category, Oh yea, the 600+ people looking for my services was only for ONE category. My other category has literally Thousands every month looking for that service. But Not 1 Phone call.
I have been on the phone now numerous times with customer support trying to get this resolved but since I'm under contract they will not cancel.
The sales rep did however finally email me back and stated the ad will work and that I should give it at least TWO months to work... Why two months? I'm already at the top. Why would two months make a difference when it's listed at the top Now and has been?
That was 16 day's ago. Still, with my 1st place ad in my category, and supposedly over 600+ people searching for this service per month I have not received a single phone call. Not a ONE call. I have received 4 calls in the last two weeks for this service that att stated over 600 per month were looking for and all four found me on Google Places. So, he lied about Google, Lied about the number of business I'd get, Lied about basically everything. I do not see these 150+ directories He stated I'd be placed in.
ATT took my money. The REP has lied to me about its true value, expected results but yet they lock you up into a contract that they do not have to show performance for. They use numbers as part of their sales practices that are not real numbers. I have a link from my business website to my yp.com ad. I visit the site every other day to figure out why it's not working. They built the ad, not me. I think these numbers, 600+ are mainly made up of other people looking at their own ads or their competitions ads.
Good luck if you deal with this company but they have no RATING Stars on their website so potential customers can see how they really treat their CONTRACTED Clients.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
Federal Trade Commission. Start here people. There is no bigger free hand that will help you other than the Feds. These are the ears that need to hear our voices. Fill out the form and pray for the rest. Hopefully enough people will start flooding their database with ATT as a headline and that will get their attention.
https://www.bbb.org/
These people are unethical crooks and scammers.
Business has been bad and NO calls from the yellow pages , so I was going to cancel . I knew the contract ended at the end of January, so I called to cancel and "Oh didn't you know, that is an 'automatic renewal'. You are 'automatically signed up' till 2013 !" ALSO, they extended the contract 2 more months AND increased the monthly amount !
The only time I have heard of "automatic renewals" is with credit card scams. I do believe that this is a scam ! At least with paying by credit card, I could hope for some help from a BIG company ! This time I'm (we) are on our own.
Today I got a bill for $1,140 ($95 per month). I called and told 'Brian' that I did not agree to any advertising. He told me that when the monthly charge is less than $100, no sales representative will call. THE CONTRACT RENEWS ITSELF AUTOMATICALLY. It becomes the advertiser's responsibility to send a registered letter to a certain address in order to quit. As a courtesy, Brian offered to cut the bill in half ($47.50 per month). He warned me this was a one-time offer.
What should I do?
This is the attorney you can get in touch with who’s filing the class action against yellow pages. I hope this helps, (I know I might be a day late and a dollar short, but I thought I’d get the word out if it hadn’t been done already)
paulperkins@lynchlawyers.com
Good Luck!
David Anderson
Chief Web Consultant
DavidWA@CMSexpress.com
314-713-1253
If you need a quality website for a one time fee that will generate results, (No Contracts) check us out at CMS Express and then call myself, David Anderson @ 314-713-1253
Look forward to hearing from you.
David Anderson
CMS Express
St.Louis, MO
Thanks
These people are all incompetent to my needs and I was transferred to different people/departments, just to be told yea we will have someone contact you after 48 business hours. I am tired of hearing that.
I am thankful that my contract is ending in July 2013. However I have had issues from October of 2012 and still nothing has been done. I have gotten as high as the director and even his poor lack of communication proved just because you have the title Director in your position does not mean you will fix what harm has been done. I asked please can you kindly downgrade me or put me on a lower plan. Since the price of $115.00 was nearly too much for what I was being offered. I was told " well Phil we can make you a logo you". Like WTF I am a graphic designer I can make my own logo. This is the worst experience ever and is there anything that anybody knows what to do to fight against these crooks, would be greatly appreciated.
Lastly I closed my bank account and told this air head rep change my account and what do you know they deducted money from my closed checking account and put it into a negative balance now I have to pay that just to bring it back to $0.00 again. These fools kept beating around the bush until they finally got it right and added the correct card!!
I could go on and on but you get the idea. Horrible service!!
DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH ATT ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS!!! BEWARE