scoobe Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 I'm going to phrase this very carefully, and I hope all replies will do the same. I wouldn't like the thread deleted for being libelous. There is a company currently selling advertising space in the menu of a local restaurant. The idea being the restaurant gets free menu printing, paid for by the advertisers, and a copy gets popped thru the doors of all the homes in the area. It looked like a good idea, so we signed up. On signing the contract, some of the wording worried me, we had talked about x amount of copies being printed, the contract said "upto" x amount. I pointed out that that meant contractually they could print 3 menus, and have satisfied their part of the contract. They insisted that all would be printed, but I asked them to delete the "upto" as I wasn't happy to sign it, which in absolute fairness, they did. After the wording worried me, I started to look into it. There were a couple of menus that they show you for existing businesses, so you know what the finished article will look like, and they looked good. They wouldn't leave one behind, but I copied a couple of pages to show a colleague who wasn't there at the time. I checked out some of the businesses that had advertised. Although they were real businesses, and fairly easy to find on the internet, they weren't in the town, or even the same country, that the adverts said they were in. I rang the company who are selling the space, but they wouldn't give me the phone number of the salesman who is currently on the island. I told them I had now realised that the sample menu was a mockup, and would they give me the name of a current satisfied customer. Due to Data Protection, they couldn't. They suggested I look at their website, which rates restaurants, and see if I could find one myself. I had a look at the website, and found the restaurant who's menu it was supposed to be.I rang them, and they said that they didn't use this company to produce menus, they printed their own. Now, all thats fine, obviously an advertising mockup, and although thats not what we thought it was, perhaps the conversation was unclear, perhaps we didn't hear, perhaps that was our fault etc etc. I then rang one of the companies who had an advert, getting their actual details/phone number from the internet, and explained myself. They had no idea that their advert, with the town name changed, was being used for "display" purposes, but they had indeed advertised in a menu in their own area a couple of years ago. They told me that the promised doorstep delivery to all the homes in his area, never happened. They also said that they had been told there would be x amount of copies printed, and that the actual number fell far short. He also said that in the second year of advertising (you sign up for one menu this year, one next year, all paid for within the next few months) that his advert disappeared altogether. He also said that he had heard the very same story from a number of other businesses in his area who had also advertised. Having found this much out, I decided to cancel my own cheque, a personal decision that I would not necessarily promote to others. I just want to warn businesses to make sure they are in full possesion of all the facts they need to know before they sign up for anything. I am sure that this company is a completely legitimate enterprise, and they didn't realise they were using the details of a disgruntled customer for display, and that nowadays they keep all their promises, and that they have thousands of satisfied customers. Its always a good thing to have all the information at your fingertips though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Old Git Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 Are they based in Blackpool? We had a run in with them a few years ago. They lied to get us to sign up, we didn't pay them, they threatened to sue. I told them to go ahead, but it would be an abuse of process, and never heard from them again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobe Posted December 14, 2005 Author Share Posted December 14, 2005 Are they based in Blackpool? We had a run in with them a few years ago. They lied to get us to sign up, we didn't pay them, they threatened to sue. I told them to go ahead, but it would be an abuse of process, and never heard from them again. coincidentally, yes, they are in the blackpool area..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 I had a run in with a similar ad firm, I think that was blackpool way too. they were selling advertising space on the back of taxi cards. They lie and say anything to sign you up, from lies about the amount of cards to be printed, to the amount of cards that will have your advert on - none of that was contained in the contract I signed. It was fairly cheap, at about £100 for a year, payable in £20 installments. After giving them a cheque for the first installment and signing the contract, they took my signature, paired it with the cheque details to make a standing order form, and set up a series of standing orders from my account for £200 each time. Obviously I cancelled it straight away the first one left my account, but as far as the bank were concerned they had a valid SO form, so we lost out on the money. After further enquiries we discovered they'd done the same thing to at least another 30 firms - and that was just those firms with an account at my bank (they [my bank] told me who else had been stiffed, probably breaking many rules!). Some firms had been stung for up to a grand, so I counted myself lucky. So from that one weekend over here they probably amassed more than £20K...not a bad little earner. Needless to say, the cards never showed up either. Furtherly needless to say, Trading standards/OFT said.... "Oh deary me...." Best they could do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manxchatterbox Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 trading standards / oft are usually pretty good at getting warnings out into the press...maybe someone just nodded off.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheTool Posted December 14, 2005 Share Posted December 14, 2005 Do what i do when these leeches contact you for advertising, just say you have ceased trading and you will never get bothered again. Sorry to here you got ripped off but when you have been in bizness for a bit you know when to say F*ck off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobe Posted December 15, 2005 Author Share Posted December 15, 2005 Do what i do when these leeches contact you for advertising, just say you have ceased trading and you will never get bothered again. Sorry to here you got ripped off but when you have been in bizness for a bit you know when to say F*ck off ah so thats how you deal with IOM Newspapers, thanks for the tip! Seriously, we haven't been ripped off, luckily, but as this is happening this week, I thought I would say something whilst anyone else contacted this week still had time to do something about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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