Throwing The Book At Business Directory Scams

greg24k

I got a notice today from BBB about listing scams. So I will share this here with you. As we all know there is a slowdown for many businesses because of the economy, so many businesses try to spread the word around to pick up extra work by doing more advertisment. Telemarketing scammers take this economy to theirs adventage and they are misleading lots of businesses and collecting lots of money for fraudulent listings or unwanted services.

One way of running the scam, is make a call to businesses with the purpose of confirming the address, tellephone number and other information, claiming it's for the free listing that your company has in yellow pages or else where. They then ask a serious of questions, that they tape record for your protection and quality purpose, and most times slipping in a confusing reference to the cost. The scam works because many under the impression that this call is only for verification purposes, and your company already has the free listing in that directory.

The directory company then sends urgent invoices for $500 or more and sometimes including the add. Most of the time this is all worthless. In many times the person who will pay that bill, not realizing that the company never agreed to pay the fee to the directory. But if the business resists, the scammers will turn up the heat by threatening collection or legal action to get a payment. They already have you on the verification tape as alleged proof that the company owes them money. These tapes may have been doctored or the nature of the transaction was rattled off in a way that no one can understand.

Many business directory scammers located in Canada but use P.O boxes in the US. Before paying anyone check them out with local BBB, Phone Busters, or Canadian police 888.495.8501.

If you get bogus bills, file a complaint with your BBB or let the FTC know by calling 877.382.4357.

There was a post here with the Blue Book, that he had a bill...I would check if that bill is legit, because you don't know who might be sending you that bill and having a logo on the bill of a well known company, means nothing. Invoice can be made with any logo in less then 5 minutes.

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steve_gts

Not as serious as this, but we had a similar call, someone gave out general info but not email addresses or even names. Within about a week we started getting 3-4 utility (type) companies calling us, saying they "need to register the meeter" which is something we had never heard of. I expect they are legitimate companies who just have unethical selling methods, but it's a bit of a pain!

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Steve

Construction Software UK | Sage 50 Accounts Shop

RCPainting

I have been signing up for a lot of free directories and get emails wanting to "upgrade" and always decline. The other day I got a call to verify a listing for local.com, which I just signed up, and they had all my info. Tried to upsell, said no, just want free. They said I could have premium listing for free for thirty days, they would mail me info packet with registration packet. At the end they had a recording verify who I was and that I authorize them to apply the 19.99 a month charge to my phone bill after 30 day trial! I said no and have not recieved anything.

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