Emails sent to DMC Director Caroline Roberts 19 Feb & 7 March 2010
Emails from one of the complaining Yell Your Town advertisers to the DMC
Email Dated 19 February2010:
“Hello Caroline,
Thank you for your email of 14 December and the report, appeal and adjudication based on the Appeal Commissioner John Bridgeman’s assessment.
You did say that you would be writing to us formally, but I have not received anything. Also I have been checking the DM Commission website regularly, and there still is nothing about this appalling failure by Yell. I note that there are updates regarding meetings that were held in November 09 & February 10 – but none for December.
It is hard to see why the DM Commission is so slow to report on its website an outcome that was finalised in December and I personally am disappointed. The breaches were serious and it has taken such a long time to get the DMC to apply reason.
Could you please let me know why the Report has so far not appeared, and when it will be online?
Also, I would just like to comment that it seems bizarre that Mr Bridgeman decided not to uphold breach of 3.22 of the Code. Quite how Yell, which clearly failed to fulfil its contractual obligation – and consistently denied doing so for many months to all of its customers with all evidence to the contrary- did not bring the DMA and marketing into disrepute is beyond comprehension. The question as to whether a particular Code has been breached it would seem can be interpreted any way that those assessing choose to apply to it, no matter how illogical.
The final outcome was a great improvement on the original outcome – but it deserves to be made public on the website, as you said it would be. Almost 9 weeks on from your email, and we are still waiting for the reports to appear on the Website.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
……………………………
On behalf of YYTLDAAG”
Email dated 7 March 2010:
“Dear Caroline,
Thank you for your reply to my email of 19 February in which I queried why the outcome of our complaint about Yell and then Appeal has not to date appeared on the DMC website. The whole saga has I am sorry to say, been somewhat of a farce from beginning to end. Quite why you seem to think that it is acceptable to send us an email on 14 December stating that the outcome would appear on the DMC website and then to take this long to seek legal advice as to the precise wording is beyond comprehension.
You say that 3 letters were posted to myself, Simon Roberts and to Howard Jacobs by first class post the week of 14 December. I have checked with both Simon and Howard, and neither of them received your formal letter. This seems to indicate that either they were not sent, or that a sack of mail was not delivered by the Royal Mail. I don’t doubt that you thought that they had been sent. In the same way that Yell maintained that they successfully delivered 19528 Yell Your Town Directories – against all evidence to the contrary.
Yell did not fulfil the contract – quite simple. The DMC has taken a ludicrous amount of time to make a judgment on our complaint and appeal. The report by Mr Bridgeman has some strange turns of phrase without any explanation. I would suggest that the DMC has a duty to present his report as it appears in the letter sent to us. What could you possibly be afraid of? Is Yell likely to sue the DMC for exposing the fact that it failed to fulfil its contractual obligation to over 130 business advertisers?
I emailed the DMC months prior to the initial outcome saying that the only sensible / rational basis for a decision was “on a balance of probabilities”. Yet the so-called expert chose to apply a wholly irrational basis – categorically one way or the other. I apologise if this email is a bit off the cuff. I am past wanting to look back over all of the old correspondence. It is only the fact that we were not willing to let the whole thing drop, that resulted in the DMC bothering to look at the detail of our complaint.
Had Yell given full refunds when they had the opportunity, we probably would have not pursued any complaint. The least that the DMC can do now, is to get on with it and publish the full outcome as contained in the attachment of your email in December to me.
Conclusion Four and Five
The Appeals Commissioner heard no additional evidence that had not already been provided to the DMC. This is quite frankly rubbish, and just a way for the DMC to try to pretend that a judgement had been made previously that was wrong due to different evidence – rather than incompetence. The DMC had exactly the same evidence. I raised the question well before the outcome about the only rational basis for a judgment being “on a balance of probabilities”. Yet the DMC came to its judgment using the wholly irrational “categorical concluding”. This is just one example of unintelligent rationale.
As Mr Bridgeman quite rightly concluded (5. “The requirement to conclude categorically whether or not there was a failure to complete the contract was an inappropriately strict test for the Direct Marketing Commissioners to apply”. Not even a court of law could have based a judgement on the test that the DMC sought to apply! It doesn’t take a legal expert to work that one out.
Conclusion Nine
“The Direct Marketing Commission might well have found a different view of this case had the evidence been collected, analysed, presented and considered in a different way”
Just what is this supposed to mean? Why is there no qualifying of the statement? We have never seen a shred of evidence of distribution either from Yell or as a result of the DMC’s or the Appeal Commissioner’s report. Yell was unable or unwilling to provide any actual evidence of any teams of distributors. They held to their ludicrous claim to have distributed 19528 (PAF file figure= 100% of addresses at the time of the designated postcodes and refused to give full refunds. This was a cock-up by a large organisation which has still managed to hold onto advertisers’ money, and in some cases continuing custom – despite a clear failure to fulfil the contract.
But this is by the by – you told us by email dated 14 December (and letters just received) that this outcome would appear on the DMC website. If you do not have the confidence that the outcome is right – after all this time – it would suggest that you are going to whitewash the affair and to play safe because the DMC is afraid that Yell will take you to court for some sort of defamation. Yell did not fulfil its contractual obligation to over 135 customers in the Lichfield area. They also quite clearly failed to fulfil the contract for a similar number of businesses in the Cannock Your Town directory. I saw the evidence, and it would have proven beyond all doubt that the Cannock directories were not properly distributed. No advertisers, that we are aware of in either publication received a directory in a door to door distribution. This does not just suggest that the contract was not completed, it suggests that if there was any distribution at all, it was random and small. Also surveys carried out by advertisers of their customers, staff, friends, family etc revealed no evidence of any receipt. The grounds for complaint have been clear from the outset.
So the comments in Mr Bridgeman’s report about Yell acting in some way honourably, I am afraid do not hold any water.
The original complaint for the Lichfield Yell Your Town was submitted in its entirety I think sometime around December 2008.
15 months later, and the DMC is still mincing around trying to come up with a form of words to save face for Yell and for the DMA.
It should not take you 3 months from an outcome to get legal advice about the form of words. What is the DMC afraid of?
Why did you not consider informing us of the reason for the delay, since you must have been aware of it since as early as January? Do we not merit some consideration?
Regards,
……………………………
On behalf of YYTLDAAG”