YellScam.org

I was contacted recently by a Yell representative who stated this:

Finally, our legal department has asked me to discuss your website (http://yellscam.org/) with you, which falsely describes Yell’s actions as a scam.  I hope that this letter has resolved your concerns and that you will now remove the website.  However, I am happy to discuss this with you if you would prefer.

Definition of Scam:

• victimize: deprive of by deceit;
• a fraudulent business scheme
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

My belief is that Yell has fundamentally changed the way their adverts are displayed, they have changed the system. I believe that they are now charging more for a service which advertisers were previously entitled to.

In short, I believe I was sold something, part of which is no longer being provided but I can pay more to get it back.

Does that sound like a scam to you?

As you may already be aware from checking out my communication history with Yell I emailed them on the 22nd June 2009 asking some specific questions  relating to my ongoing dispute.

Well, as of 16th June (today), I’ve still not had a reply! You can see a summary of my email conversation with them here.

I’m not sure why the subject of their emails changed to ‘Unregistered Advert’! Perhaps they’re getting me mixed up with someone else (data protection!) or perhaps they have classed my advert as unregistered.

I’m also not sure why I have been contacted by 3 separate people – it seems that there is no single person dealing with this issue, rather it is being dealt with by a group of people.

Either way, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to cheekily ask them about their response times since I’ve been waiting 4 weeks already!

John Condron, Yell’s CEO earns nearly £1 million per year according to Business Week. He also has a large stock portfolio which gives him a gross compensation of over £1 million!

It’s a pity that as CEO of Yell Group PLC, that he isn’t taking a more direct approach at resolving some of the issues facing the company.

I read a post today about another customer having problems with Yell, you can read more about it here. This customer was told they were getting an 8 week free trial, then sent a bill for nearly £300! Not exactly ethical business Mr Condron!