Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Online Public YellowPages - Frauds

Posted by Reverend Ref + at 5:26 PM

My parish was hit with real life spam today.  No, not the deliciously wonderful meat-in-a-tin, but an obnoxious and harassing company.

A month or so ago, maybe a little longer, our Parish Administrator received a phone call from a company about listing us on their online yellow pages.  The call was recorded for "training purposes."

They kept asking her questions about it, she kept trying to tell them we weren't interested, and I think she eventually hung up on them.

We received an invoice last week from Online Public YellowPages based out of Mooers Forks, NY, for $627.

Today we began receiving harassing phone calls from their collections department and have threatened to sue us for breach of contract.

After trying to talk to their rep (becauseyoureallycouldn'ttalktohimbecausehekept
talkingovermeabouthowthiswasacontractverballyagreed byourparishadministrator
andifirefusedtopaythebillweweregoingtobe....) I finally also hung up on him.

He called back, and I hung up again.

Then I called a lawyer friend and submitted a grievance with the Oregon State Dept. of Justice.  I also googled Online Public YellowPages and was not really surprised to see that 99.7 percent (I'm just taking a rough guess on that figure) of the listings that came up were complaints about this company

So, if you get a phone call from Online Public YellowPages, know up front that they're a bunch of con artists trying to get your money through bullying and threats.

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8 comments:

Lady Anne | 9:00 PM, August 08, 2012  

I don't know if it was this company or not, but we got a call at our church wanting to know if we wanted to "renew our Yellow Pages Listing from last year"? I told them I wasn't authorized to to this and neither the rector nor the treasurer were available. We went round and rounnd - the guy would NOT take No for an answer - and I finally asked him if he was a Christian. (He was obviously from India.)
"What does that have to do with it?"
"Because if you are, you know *exactly* how much authority a Sunday School teacher has."
And then I hung up.
Oh! Look out for the voice that asks "I need you copier model number", with no other info. You will recieve an invoice for some outlandish amount of money for a single ream of paper that you hardly remember receiving.

Melissa Moore | 2:28 PM, August 27, 2012  

You are not alone! We are a small church in Sequim, WA and currently dealing with this same problem! I've filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York as well. I've decided that I am not answering phone calls from "Out of Area" or Online Public Yellow Pages toll-free number. They did call today and leave a message stating they wanted to offer us additional rebates to get our account resolved and it would be beneficial for both parties! What a scam!!!

Reverend Ref + | 9:52 AM, August 28, 2012  

Melissa, in addition to that, I would also file a complaint with the USPS (if you received a bill through the mail) and the US Dept of Justice.

If enough people do this, we might finally get them shut down.

Anonymous | 11:46 AM, August 31, 2012  

Been there, done that. I, too, did some searching. The company is apparently based in Netherlands and operates from there as well as England. There have been complaints made to the Federal Trade Commission, and there has been a court injunction against the company. I like the USPS complaint idea; I was wondering if this constituted mail fraud, which it might.

Main thing: let other churches know about this. This company seems to target churches and other non-profits. And while one commenter noted how much (or little!) authority a Sunday School teacher has, I also suspect that there are a bunch of smaller churches that will pay simply because the bills seem to be legitimate and the bill-payer doesn't know it's a scam.

Randy
Pastor in Northern California

Anonymous | 4:49 PM, September 21, 2012  

Crystal

I just want to let everyone know that a guy named Richard Ross has been try to get money from my company by saying he was with the yellow pages wanting to confirm our ad then he asked me a bunch of yes no questions and doctored a recording to make it seem like I agreed for the service. He is now trying to threaten us with a lawsuit if we dont pay him 654.00 by credit card but he wont send a invoice by mail just fax so he is a scam artist trying to steal money from hard working people so dont fall for his trash just hang up on him.

Anonymous | 4:17 PM, September 28, 2012  

Same thing happened to my work place. They called and said they had us deliquent and if we didn't pay that day, they were going to pursue legal action and send it to a collections agency. They had me on a recording approving this charge, but you could tell that the recording was pieced together to simulate a real conversation. We paid them, but them after research, we realized it was a scam. So, we canceled our checking acct since we could not simply cancel that check. They have called several times since then asking for our correct account info and I won't talk to them. Today someone called saying they were from their legal department and they wanted to try to get us to pay one last time before they took action. I have filed with the FTC, Attorney General's office and also the US Postal Service for fraudulent mail. I have been assured several times that this is a scam and that we should in no way speak to them or give them anymore info.

Anonymous | 5:56 PM, October 01, 2012  

We are in this, too. All of the stories are like ours. I filed a complaint with our Attorney General's office today (WA) and appreciate the suggestions to file elsewhere. The cost to me - a pastor of a small church - is in time and energy lost that should have been spent in ministry. Looking for perspective today. Pastor Cathy, Tacoma

Anonymous | 5:08 PM, October 11, 2012  

Your not alone! I am from a small floral shop in woodland wa and I just recieved some harrassing faxes along with some phone calls a few days ago. they just wont let up!! I too took their call back in june and i told them i wasnt interested as well but had answered yes in the beginning when asked if this was danas classic floral. I figured it was a customer wanting to verify they called the right place. THEN they stated where they were from. saying yes that one time they copied it and used it after every question that i was asked. i contacted the better business bureau and the federal trade commission. i was told by both that there was an ongoing investigation to shut them down and that i was to ignore them. aparantly they tried this a few years ago and got caught and shut down!

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