Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
IYP Directory Scam Alert: MoreYP.com – More YellowPages, Inc
I received not one but three calls during the last week of January asking to confirm my listing for the Yellow Pages. Each time, the call attendant would assure me that I was NOT approving any charges as they talked over a computer response system. On the third call, I asked why they needed to call me 3 times and the Supervisor noted that the two previous attendants were not as experienced as he…(now I know at what). Apparently on the their third attempt, I did, unwittingly, approve a $39.95 charge to my monthly phone bill. I just received the written confirmation in the mail today.
For my (unauthorized) $39.95/mo here is what I get:
•Online Internet Yellow Page Listings – your business will be listed in over 40 directories
•Enhanced Listing – Nation Online take your basic listing and supercharges it.
•Search Engine Submission – As part of our program we submit your Website (or our local profile page…) to over 35 major search engines…
•Local Listing Portal – Easily update your internet Yellow Page listing in minutes with our secure online link. …
Their local Better Business Bureau offers up a rating of D on MoreYP.com – More YellowPages, Inc with this report:
Complaint Experience
Our file contains a pattern of complaints from consumers who allege they were contacted by this company and told “we are updating our records for the Yellow pages, and need to verify we have the correct information” Consumers state they were led to believe they were talking to thier current Yellow Page provider and were just verifying the address. During the verification process consumers state they can hear a recording in the background that they are unable to understand. Consumers state they are then charged an additional fee on their phone bill of $39.95, which they did not approve. The company responds to complaints by cancelling their agreement or an explanation of their sales process.
Well More YellowPages, Inc is nothing if not persistent. I guess you need to be if your business plan is predicated on this premise.
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Comments
27 Comments
LOL. I get quite a few of those calls from so many different businesses with different IYP names. (grrrrrrrrr)
Are you keeping the enhanced listing or demanding a refund? I tend to use at least 33 of the 35 major search engines when I’m looking up things on the internet.
Assuming you keep the service I can’t wait to hear what its like to be supercharged
I called and according to the person on the phone, received a refund. If I am going to fritter away $39.95 a month it will be on an iPhone 🙂
Mike
Thanks for the warning, Mike.
These folks are the lowest of the low…I wonder how many folks let the bill go thru on their phone bill and don’t notice for months on end?
Mike
Bill goes through on your phone bill???
Why does your phone company do business with these guys then? Wouldn’t it then be the phone company that has to forward them that money? If that’s how it works in the US.
I’d say it reflects badly on your phone line provider if they will put the payment on your phone bill. Complain to them and kill the scammers payment source.
Actually the local phone companies and in house or external billing companies for the land line phone companies all contribute to these scams.
Phone companies provide one of the worst billing experiences of any type of service, anywhere. So many line item charges, so much crazy detail, wierd taxes, wierd charges with incomprehensible descriptions. The complexity of the phone bill easily accomodates this type of sales phone scam.
Suppose you are a Verizon customer in their territory and utilize verizon YP and/or Verizons IYP. How many discerning businesses will pick up an extra line item…or two or three line items of wierd charges on a phone bill? Seriously how many might pick up the subtle name change difference between moreyp.com and something else with some sort of internet net.
Don’t kid yourselves. If the phone company picks up the billing and provides that service to the “slick” sneaky IYP with the slick name…..the phone company is making some of the monthly fee. Creating and distributing bills is a complex, and serious business.
I looked at one of our business phone bills for one simple recent month.
Not overly expensive or complex. About $400 for a recent month.
The monthly local phone bill was 20 pages long. 20!!!!!!
How do you like this. 3 pages were devoted to a “public notice” identifying how certain monthly charges are going up. It described all sorts of different “phone company” products. They all had monthly fees increasing. I couldn’t for the life of me, go through this description then back to my bill and figure out what kind of service we had.
The rest was 17 pages of teeny little detail for a small business with a few lines, a service that includes a so called “package” that gives us some free long distance calling and bundles service with purchasing high speed access internet access through the local phone provider.
I’d never know if some slick IYP scam service was being billed to us.
As much as the slick telephone marketing services for these bogus IYP versions are trying desperately to feed on one’s ignorance, the local providers and their billing components make it impossible to monitor what is occurring. The entire thing is a government “approved” opportunity to scam small businesses by attaching the billing to one’s phone bill.
Glad you are getting that service eliminated, Mike.
Eek!! I figured of course that the phone company was taking it’s cut of the fee but what you just described there was FAR worse than I imagined.
Ah Stever, welcome to the Wild West of modern day capitalism in the US….where is Judge Roy Bean when we really need him?
Mike
Seems like Bean is still live and well and running amuck.
A light sugar coating of socialism, like we have in Canada, is a sweet dish indeed. You should try it some time. A tad bit expensive, yes, but worth the price. 🙂
In wikipedia, he doesn’t sound much different than the just recently departed crew does he?
Does Canada need any Local Search experts?
Mike
My husband’s secretary got hit by one of these types of scammers. A big hint is that the perps ask to record the phone conversation. They invariably get businesses to verify their contact info, and after a series of ‘yes’ answers, get callers to agree to ‘renewals’ or other vague ‘verifications’ which are soon followed by bills.
Make sure to file a complaint with the BBB. The company I mentioned above had more than 700 complaints and ended up dropping the bogus billing after a stern ‘we’re on to you’ call.
Mike, we work on the interwebs, there are no borders.
@Cathy
Yes, I did the same, called and was immediately credited but….the scam works because it is 1)likely not caught a fair bit of the time and 2) as Dave points out, has the complicity of the bigger shysters ie Verizon…these folks (ie the telecoms) are so good at this game that they have managed to get immunity to their crimes retroactively…
I am glad to know I am not the only one…what was so incredible was that they failed and called back again…
@stever
There are if you want your kids to have a decent, free college education or free health care 🙂
Mike
I meant you can live here and still service all your US clients. Half my clients are in the US.
College and university is not free here but it’s heavily subsidized by the gov’t. Students pay about 1/3 the tuition costs. Foreign students studying in Canada pay full pop.
But were getting way off topic.
What a runaround. First Fairpoint (phone Co. said system was down and couldn’t explain.
Next contact 1 month later when charge had not been removed, fairpoint removed charge (they said) and suggested I call OAM who was the billing agent for More yellowpages.
When I call them and say this is a bogus charge, they say they can’t do anything. I ask for documentation that I am disputing their charge on my phone bill (either email or hard copy) and they say they can’t do that. Supervisor Cherry says the same thing.
I then call the number they give me to contact Moreyellowpages, and guess what? The number does NOT work.
Should we start a class action suit against OAM and More yellow pages for conspiacy to defraud us. Anyone know a good lawyer.
Warren
Sorry to hear that you were stung by these reprobates. I am not familiar with your options, although I would suggest small claims court as an avenue.
Dave?
Mike
Broadcast it in the local press and local tv news stations. Contact the better business bureau. Get it in front of your congressman. Those guys let the Verizon’s of the world get away with anything.
Seriously….escalate the problem into the local press and give the perpetrators a black eye.
Contact your telephone company and have a block put on your bill. All companies provide this service if you ask for it. The block keeps anyone from adding a charge for service or change in service to your phone without the phone company getting a signed document from you first. This will protect you and your company. Beware also of people calling from AT&T to give you an upgrade or discount. These people are not AT&T but will say they are. I actually spoke with the CEO of AT&T and he said that AT&T does not call you with these offers, they will always send everything in writing or wait for you to call them.
Just turned the call on them. I asked for the website because they call every day or every other day. He told me to google then quickly told me directly to there website (which looks somewhat legiate).
Anywyas google brings you to this page as the first hit now I see why they do not want to google moreyp.com
After that I read what this page said bout them and asked them to stop calling me.
Once these people called me and said (in a Paksitan accent) one guy’s name was Bob Smith and the other was Harry I was completely sold on being a scam.
actually the sales dept DOES state the 39.95 mo/ chrg in the 3rd party verification recording. it IS a 30 day risk free trial. but it does become a monthly service charge after 30 days. trust me its not a scam. just people dont fully listen to them rep when they call. and iff u dont want the service.. then hang up on them!! if u finish the call then yer gonna be signed up. just hang up on them! its that simple. Ask to listen to the recording and ull hear the person auth the acct. and just cause the rep is indian doesnt mean u cant understand them. the sales calls r graded very thuroughly. if they cant understand the rep or if he starts talkin too fast to understand him, the call is invalid and the acct is cncld immediately. Get your story straight before u accuse
James, I have my story straight. There was deception and deceit in the way that the call was handled. Both who the company was and why they were calling.
They had been calling our home phone number week after week for a bout three months and we could not get them to stop calling so I told them I was contacting the FTC. I got their phone number and company name and reported it. We’ll see if that does any good.
@Cathy
I assume that your phone number is erroneously listed for a business. To find out where, go to Google and search on 111 “123-3333” where 111 is your area code and “123-3333” is your phone number. You will see which lists have it listed incorrectly. Getting it corrected there will save you agro down the road
[…] the swirl of complaints about companies and can provide the consumer with some sense of whether a particular company has an unusual number complaints or perhaps has settled with the government so they are not […]
ATT is a party to this scam and needs to stop accepting unverified billing. of course, since the call is placed as a ‘verification’, there is never anything in writing from either party and they can say anything they wish. ATT is a predatory company and will use any reason to increase charges. Since they closed their customer service and sent those people over to sales, you can know what their goals are. We have had similar experience with cell-phones where they ship it to you and then start billing without your consent.
I called today to ask them to stop sending us bills because we were not going to pay, actually we have tried for the last several months to ask them to stop sending bills. “Tiffany” said we would get sent to the collection agency if we did not pay and that our subscription was auto renewed because we did not respond to their cancelation notice, what notice??? I asked for the contract, she said it was a voice contrqct, I asked her to find that voice contract and call me back, she said it would take several months to find, I finally told her just stop sending us notices. Well we will see!!!!!
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