Demand for Payment for Unauthorized Yello Pages Listing
Complaint
Tony Cooper
Country: United States
Unuathorized listing in www.goyellowpages.com
No physical address listed on their web site
Reverse lookup of 866-967-8205 reveals a company www.gafachi.com
Demand for $574 for A. C. A. Recovery Inc., 38 E.Ridgewood Ave., Ridgewood, New Jersey 07540 Phone 800 356 3713 on behalf of www.goyellowpages.com submitted with no proof whatsoever of the contract details.
No physical address listed on their web site
Reverse lookup of 866-967-8205 reveals a company www.gafachi.com
Demand for $574 for A. C. A. Recovery Inc., 38 E.Ridgewood Ave., Ridgewood, New Jersey 07540 Phone 800 356 3713 on behalf of www.goyellowpages.com submitted with no proof whatsoever of the contract details.
Comments
1) File complaints with FTC, as one of ACA's "internet directory" clients was sued by FTC and is subject to a federal injunction.
2) Your state Attorney General, since Attorneys General often respond faster to systematic fraud attempts against their fellow citizens and state residents than FTC.
3) New Jersey Attorney General, since ACA Recovery is located in New Jersey.
4) The U.S. Postal Inspector, for investigation of mail fraud, since it appears that the debt collector is aware of the fraudulent nature of the "debt" for which they just sent a fraudulent "collection letter" through the U.S. Mail.
5) www.ic3.gov, site for reporting internet fraud.
6) You regional FBI White Collar Crime unit. That has been the part of the federal government that has assisted in investigation of similar fraudulent telemarketing operations, and they should be made aware of "legitimate" companies who are assisting fraudulent ones.
Rather blatant (and stupid) to say they can just "serve judgement" against you, like they are some "court".
Could you post the exact wording of their threatening letter (leaving out any specific identification)?
==================================================
Yellow Pages Express is out of business.
This is primarily due to the bad publicity from working with ACA recovery in New Jersey. They have ruined our company and our fine reputation that we had built in over 6 years of hard work. We regret working with them and apologize to our customers for using them. We have tried to ask them to stop any collections on our behalf last year however they continued collecting on accounts that we placed with them. They refused to pay us or answer any of our requests after sending them a cease and decease letter. We do not have the financial means to go after them and we advice all our customers who had paid them to charge back if they can.
Here is my letter to the FTC explaining the scam that A.C.A. Recovery and Local US Pages are working on right now:
A.C.A.Recovery, Inc., a collection agency, claims that our company, XXXXXXX, authorized services from Local US Pages on January 26, 2010. They are claiming we owe A.C.A. Recovery and/or Local US Pages $774.95 for some type of business advertisement listing which we never authorized. This is the second time they have scammed us into believing we owe them money for this type of service. The first time this occurred was in 2010. Yellow Pages Online.net called my husband and offered free web page advertising and basically bullied him into believing this service was not going to cost us anything and we could cancel at any time. Eight months later we receive a letter from A.C.A. Recovery stating we owe $622.95. They played portions of a recorded message which had my husband's voice and approval to accept this free offer. Since we accepted this, we took responsibility and paid A.C.A. Recovery $622.95 on August 9, 2010. My husband and I agreed that we would NEVER accept this type of "free" service again.
I received another letter from A.C.A. Recovery on February 23, 2012 stating that we are negligent in paying for services from Local US Pages. We have NEVER even received a bill from Local US Pages. However, A.C.A. Recovery told me they had an invoice which they faxed to me. Since our previous horrific experience with this phone advertising fiasco we knew that this was fraudulent. Again, A.C.A. Recovery said they had a recorded message from my husband authorizing this service. When I asked them to play this recorded message from my husband, I believe it was the same message from January 26, 2010 but the company name was changed from Yellow Pages Online.net to Local US Pages. It took two days for them to "find" the recording which tells me they needed time to alter the previous recording. Also the recording was not very clear and only portions were played. We would NEVER authorize this type of service again because of our past experience. Our business does not even operate this way. We do not need to list our phone number for business. We work directly with a contractor and we are only a 2 person company. Our company cannot handle any more business.
I tried to contact Local US Pages and left a voice mail to call me back. No call back. I left another message asking them to contact me about advertising thinking they would call back. As of March 3, 2012, Local US Pages as not responded to my request. This made me realize that Local US Pages is also not a legitimate company. They are most likely working with A.C.A. Recovery trying to scam unknowing consumers to pay fraudulent invoices. When I research these companies online, I see the hundreds of complaints from people claiming the exact same scam. Please investigate A.C.A. Recovery for their fraudulent business practices. We have already been scammed once and refuse to be scammed twice.
I will tell you of my experiences working at ACA Recovery (which is at 395 W Passaic Street, Rochelle Park NJ -- 3rd Floor if anybody would like to drop in for a chat)
I have known from the first day, but as I need the work I must do data entry for them until I find another job (dont worry I am looking hard). They are part of an even larger scam -- as an unscrupulous collection agency that caters to bootleg, predatory online lenders and "advertisers", they are obviously only part of the problem you folks and probably millions of others are having. True, many debts are real and should be collected; however, this instance is pure larceny. To charge people $600-700 for so-called 'listings' that look like an 8 year old designed the webpage, and then the dubbed recording stuff, and the way the management has its staff working like dogs for nothing, treating them like robots chained to their desks making phone calls to bother people and what amounts to a shakedown, it is all WRONG. I really don't know how management sleeps at night.
For what its worth, you shouldnt be mad at the phone agents -- they are stuck in wage slavery amidst a sea of quotas that change daily, minimal commissions and even more minimal base wages (if you can call it that).
Okay I did my part, y'all run wild with that info.
Probably so none of them google their own company, lest they INSTANTLY see this site full of truth.
(another reason not to hate on the agents --- they are the unfortunate pawns of capitalism gone awry)
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nj/contact.html
ACA Recovery started contacting us via mail about a year ago regarding this fraudulent listing, I sent a cease-and-decist letter to them and also filed a complaint with the New Jersey AG. Now, a year later, they have started contacting us by phone.
I thought after I sent the cease and decist letter that all communication should stop? Now they're at it again. I've never seen anyone report that actual legal action was taken, just a lot of threats and annoying correspondence. Should I go through the motions again of sending the cease/decist letter, contact New Jersey AG....?? Just so sick and tired of all this.
In the end, that is the agency that will shut them down.
If they are sending you fraudulent invoices through the U.S. Mail, file a mail fraud complaint with the U.S. Postal Inspector.
This is ridiculous! It was so obvious the recording was altered.
!
If they are sending you fraudulent invoices through the U.S. Mail, file a mail fraud complaint with the U.S. Postal Inspector.
Very deceitful. First, they will tell you that they are calling you to cancel service with them. Then they will transfer you to their verification service to send you an invoice.
Do not give any credit card info. and do not pay any invoice.
Their "business" needs to be shut down!