The Phonebook is dead
Posted on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 in Scammers
The phonebook is dead! I know this for a
fact
because the
tactics
they use to get new paying customers are
lies
and
deceit
and this is exactly what happened to me.
August 5.
I get a call from Trine Jensen from De Gule Sider. The first thing I say is:
I don't want to buy anything
She then tells me that as a new thing they now also list companies web addresses and asks me for my company web address which I then tell her is grepmasters.com. Note that I specifically stated that I didn't want to buy anything nor did I agree to anything.
August 7.
I receive an order confirmation for a company listing on De Gule Sider. WTF! First line on the order confirmation reads:
As agreed on the phone I here by send you an overview of your adds...
I didn't agree to anything, so WTF? Further more it states that
If we don't hear from you within 8 days, we'll consider the advertising agreement as approved
This is the the way hustlers work, they figure that a small invoice like this one will just slip through and not get noticed before it is too late. - Congratulations you just got your company listed with url in a paper1 phonebook and on a site no-one will ever use to find a company like mine. If people want to find my company by name, they'll typically use google.2
August 17.
I finally get the time3 to call De Gule Sider4, I get transferred to Trine Jensen who at first plays hardball and tries to convince me that it is too late and that the 8 days had passed already5 and that I have to pay. I didn't agree to anything and wasn't informed that I had to pay to have my company url listed, a service I neither need nor want. I can't see why an arbitrary 8 day response time even applies to me since I didn't agree to anything! I insist that I'm right, she talks to a supervisor and she finally agrees to send med a cancelation of the order.
September 8.
I receive an invoice for DKK 1.118,75 — I'm now truly pissed! 6
So now I have to waste even more time7 wrestling with De Gule Sider, damn scammers... Fortunately the ombudsman has already made a statement that says that De Gule Sider have to prove that an agreement was made, which they can't do since I didn't agree to anything either verbally nor in writing.
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Stop killing trees! Nobody want your damn analogue phonebook anymore. ↩
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Which will find it as the first hit - can't get any easier than that. ↩
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Yes I could have called them sooner, but why should I have to? I didn't agree to anything and didn't order any services from them. ↩
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This is the 8th business day since the first call ↩
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Which it had if you also count the weekends. ↩
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As if I wasn't pissed off before... ↩
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Time I just might end up invoicing to De Gule Sider ↩