Yell.com = Yell.con = Yell.scam – Hard Sales, False Promises & Offensive Staff

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Today, Yell.com are in the spotlight.  Now, at DPS, we thought that the Yellow Pages (and therefore Yell.com) were attempting to run an honest, reputable company?  Turns out, that everything isn’t as it initially seems.  And it appears over 3 million other businesses and individuals agree with us, according to Google.

We recieved a telephone call at the office today, from Yell.com, initially fairly pleasant, although at the same time fairly annoying (like most marketing calls).  However, we had recently (last night) signed up for a free listing on Yell.com, so of course, calls from Yell come with the territory on this and that’s fine.

He introduces himself and claims to be “an expert in IT and Computing within the North West Area working with many of Yell.com’s technology companies based in the North West”.  We seriously doubt those credentials, as we’ll find out later, however we did verify that the number calling us was indeed Yell.com, so he’s a Yell.com employee but also a scammer.

Moving on, the usual sales guff.  Pay us £400 over 1 year on a contract, you’re a special customer, we’ll do it interest free, you’ll be top of the world in no time yada yada yada.

By this time, I’m already nearly completely switched off as I my “crap-o-meter” is working overtime.

He has discussions with us for 20 mins, detailing all the possibilities and what work we could get by advertising with Yell.com.  Then, the call started turning sour.  As I was questioning some of the things he was saying, he did seem to be becoming more a more irate, that we did actually have a point, and some of the things he was saying were far fetched or basically, bare-faced lies.

Let’s move on to some of the comments, statements and questions he made and asked in the next 10 minutes and analyse them in detail.

“Yell.com is more successful than Google” – say what?  Are you being for real?  You’re a “computing expert” talking to someone who actually is a computing expert trying to tell them that Yell.com is more successful than Google.  Firstly, whatever you are smoking is really starting to affect your grip on reality.  Second, do you think you are really going to be able to con us with such a blatant lie?  I mean, we’re not your average potential customer, we work in the industry that you are trying to con us about!

“Nobody uses Google to search for web design / web hosting, they all use Yell.com” – well, as if the first lie wasn’t blatent enough, he then follows it up with an absolutely outrageous claim!

David Smith, owner of DPS Computing Limited, has been regularly searching on topics such as web design and web hosting for around 15 years.  In this time I have also used it to find companies that I want to buy these services from.  Please note:

I have never, ever, ever, in this entire 15 years, used Yell.com for one single search with regards to web design and web hosting.  In fact, I think I’ve only used Yell.com once or twice to search for ANYTHING.  

“Yell.com will get you 5-10 calls per month with an average job price of £200-£300” – and you would be privy to this information how?  Let’s turn it on its head.  You’ve just made up these figures to get a contract signed and get your commission.  That practice itself is outrageous, but I dare say that over the course of this phone conversation isn’t the first time you’re going to break the Trade Descriptions Act.

“What is your problem?” – Well, my problem is you’re rude, arrogant and a liar.  From the information you have provided your computing “expertise” stretches no further than a GCSE in IT.  And from your general demeanour and social skills, we would be absolutely amazed if you have had any formal education.  Obviously I didn’t say any of this to him, but this is most definitely what I was thinking.

“I don’t see the issue, people like me have responsibilities like a mortgage, people like you don’t have any” – Erm, excuse me, now you’re being personally offensive.  And how do you know what responsibilities we have.  The fact that anyone gave you a mortgage with that attitude is quite frankly surprising.  However it does make sense why you’re so rude and obnoxious now, considering you’re probably on minimum wage, you need my money to pay your mortgage.  So please don’t bang on to me about responsibility.  People like me are paying your mortgage and we’re doing that because you are scamming us.

“Well why do you have a problem with contracts?  You might have a mobile phone contract, a car lease, a mortgage – they all need contracts” – Let me analyse this carefully – hopefully he’ll come back and read it, as he evidently had cognitive issues processing what we were saying.

• We have no problem with contracts.  We have a problem with scams – and believe me you’re about the 5th person this week to ring us up and attempt to con us into needless contracts with false promises.
• Please note the following as well Yell.com sales – with a mobile phone contract I can definitely make calls, with a car lease I can definitely drive my car and with a mortgage I can definitely live in my house.  If these contract providers failed to provide these basics, I would have the right to terminate the contract.  With Yell.com, they’ll carry on fleecing you no matter how poorly they are performing.

There are some more important things to note.

1. Companies “bigger than Google” do not have to have an extensive sales department.  People ring them, they don’t need to ring people.
2. Companies that aren’t struggling don’t have to resort to the hard selling (and by that also read mis-selling) of their products.
3. The only thing this guy was an expert in was being a con artist.
4. Companies that are selling genuinely good products and services allow you to think about it and ring back – they do not insist that you pay now.  After all, if the product or service is so good, you’ll be back paying them before long.

Everything we have written in this article is our genuine experience and 100% the truth.  But don’t just take our word for it – Google “yell.com scams” or “yell.com complaints” and you’ll quickly find out just how reputable they are.

One of their favourite numbers to use is 0800 108 579.  Unless you want your good day to turn into a really bad one, it’d be a good idea to reject this call!!

You can find similar horrendous experiences with yell.com at YellScam.wordpress.com, WhoCallsMe and many many others.  Just Google for more information!

Some particularly insightful comments have been ones such as:

“0800 108 579 is Yell.com, or Yellow pages calling to “check on personal details.” Told them that they were beaking the law calling a TPS registered number and voice phishing.”

“This number belongs to Yell.Com. They are a complete pain as they falsely advertise online you can have a FREE listing which is absolute RUBBISH. THERE ARE NO FREE LISTINGS FROM YELL. it is a cheap trick from them to get any small business to give out personal details which they use in THEIR ADVERTISING & believe me they wiill continue to pester you by email post & phone no matter how many times you tell them you are not interested.”

“My company advertised on there about 6 years ago, but I told them 4 years ago that the company doesn’t exist any more, so I’m not quite sure what they think calling me would achieve.”

“Im telling them Im out of business.  And do they have any open positions in their place coz I fancy a job being an ars***le”

(Credit: WhoCallsMe)

And believe me this is only just scratching the surface.

What do think of Yell.com’s conduct in general?  Is it what you would expect from a supposedly ‘reputable’ company?.

There’s even more scandalous practices and nuggets of information being given by this company.  We’ll probably cover this in Part 2: The Yell.com con!