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I signed up for a free trial of Agora Business Publication because they’ve advertised their offer as risk free. It was mentioned that cancellation period is 30 days so I expected that there is loads of time to avoid charges. Instead of that I got charged straight away and they refused to refund me.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
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I have also become a victim of this Company. After agreeing a free trial I agreed to the one year. Then I was sent TWO IDENTICAL copies every month and two invoices; one marked me as Manager and one as Systems Manager. I was taken to a debt collector for refusing to pay for the second copy. The subscription detail is on their website and isn't mentioned when they ring you, but worse still is the idea that they can send you two copies and charge for both!
Agora Business
Dear Sirs.
Customer number} [protected]
I was persuaded to go to Wndows 10 because it was free, I now wish I had stayed with Windows 8.1 as i have had nothing but problems with it. Not least your "Windows 10 Perfecly Mastered" which I also thought was free as have had no price list or quote for its supply. I dont intend to pay your invoices which arrived. Please stop sending me "Windows 10 Perfecly Mastered" . If you want the copies you have sent me, which I found of no interest, Then let me know.
Yours faithfully
A King
Agora Business llp Skipton Yorkshire Customer number ([protected]) Please be aware of this company and never have dealing with them in anyway. Last year I started to receive a few copies of a news letter from out of the blue, I tried calling them but alas no one ever answered. I then contacted the citizens advice/trading standards who also told me to report this to action fraud, after speaking with them they told me to ignore them and report back should this company continue sending these publications. earlier this week my place of work receive a demand for payment and that debt collecting agencies are no involved. After having also been in contact with there service manager (Eleanor Singleton) she tells me that numerous reminders/invoices etc have been sent along with a number of publications. This I have never received so I asked her too provide evidence of this (sending/receiving this information) I have contacted action fraud, trading standards the local MP and even forwarded my details to Watchdog & Rogue traders. The next thing I am waiting for is a demand to attend a civil court where all this mess can be brought out into the open and sorted out. Personally I believe I should receive compensation for the embarrassment/stress this has caused myself. I thought any form of contract has to be in a agreement ? (meeting of minds) I have never agreed to anything like this and never would ! Rip of company #SCAM BEWARE. report to all authorities and have these people highlighted for the crooks they are
What has happened since?
I mistakenly clicked on Free 30 day trial and was subsequently billed. I called to explain the situation politely and the lady put a note on the system. Still sending bills with threats of admin costs! Called them today and they are obviously very used to dealing with complaints of this nature. They are out to con people and do not even try to solve the situation. Well pxxxxx off!
Our company has also fallen victim to this scam company. We feel we were mis sold the health and safety magazines as we were not told that we would be sent further copies and invoiced for them, only told of a free copy. We have no intention of paying so don't know where this will end up!
So I didn't sign up for a trial...I thought it was information. They refuse and emailed staying I still have to pay. Surf this is wrong!
I can sign anyone up and they are eligible to pay?
All I need is their details!
We just became subject to this too. What do we all do?
I dont have any emails from them and have just spoken to a really rude lady on the phone - can we all make a formal complaint against them?
Hi Alexii,
I am sorry to hear that one our advisers has been rude to you. Please contact our Customer Service Manager on 01756 693180 and she will be able to assist you and also see which agent it was that you spoke to so we can take the appropriate action.
Many thanks.
Customer service? I note the job title is "customer compliance", make sure the customers comply.
Call this number to report them
To report a fraud using your telephone please call:
[protected]
Text phone users:
[protected]
I he fallen victim and have complained to Yorkshire Trading Standards. They phoned me and I did not want to talk so the lady said she would send the details by email which she obviously did. I did not read this email, I have communications weekly from HR companies and I do not have time for all this. Then I started receiving newsletters and thought no more of it till they stared demanding a subscription fee. I wrote to them and phoned them and eventually was told the mere fact of receiving an email was evidence that I had signed up to the subscription and had not cancelled it in good time. I asked why I would cancel something I had not taken out but got nowhere. Trading Standards are aware of them.
Today I have received another demand before it goes to a collections agency.
I will have to pay - this is a fraud and a scam and should be stopped. I have not signed for anything - I am furious at these devious [censored]s.
Are they even real?
BEWARE OF THESE SCAMMERS! Agora tried it on last year with my company, claiming we had made a subscription to a publication we hadn't and attempting to con us into paying a few hundred pounds. I contacted Citizen's Advice who told me to request copies of any signed paperwork, phone records etc that proved a contract was entered into. We did so and rather than coming back to us with solid proof, Agora claimed their sales call didn't meet their 'quality control standards' and so they would write off the invoices. Convenient eh? Then, lo and behold, earlier this year they attempt the same scam targeting a different staff member! We are now being hounded AGAIN by Allied International to pay money we don't owe and my requests for physical evidence of agreements seem to be avoided. I have now reported them to Citizens Advice (again) and the Insolvency Service in the hope that they will conduct an overdue investigation. If anyone from Agora Business Publications LLP is reading this - your conduct stinks and you don't have a leg to stand on kids!
Thank you for your review. We note that this is the same as your Google review and looking at your account, we can see that this matter was escalated to our Head of HR & Customer Retention who investigated your concerns last week. We hope that their response was satisfactory and answered your query.
Many thanks.
Finance.uk@welding-alloys.com - We had the same experience from Agora Business and advised them as soon as the invoice was received. But they cancelled the subscription for the next year but said we had to pay the subscription for the current year. They refuse to credit it and now threatening to hand over for collection. Definitely not an honest way to do business.
I also have just received a payment statement saying I owe money. I clicked on a link for FREE GPDR info a while back and now they want £84.78.
I will not be paying for this and asked them to remove all records of me from their systems as per GDPR protection.
Lets see if it happens.
How did you get on David? I am having a similar issue with Agora...
Poor business practice. Was phoned in May asking if I wanted a free copy of Data Protection Adviser. No mention was made about paying for future payments as I know my company would not pay. I basically said 'yes' to the free copy to get the guy, Jon Pattison, off the phone as very pushy. Now receiving invoices from Agora for £84.78 which we have no intention of paying. When I finally got through to the company on the phone she was very quick to reduce the invoice total down to £21... Obvious they have a poor track record and are facing these calls every day. The 30-day opt out is 3/4 of the way down in the email they send you but never mentioned on the phone. Stay away from this company and their hard sell tactics.
Agora Business called me in June, I always tell cold callers to email me the information just to get them off the phone, I don't have time to listen to people trying to sell me something I don't want or need.
I completely ignored the email and thought nothing of it. I received an invoice in the post yesterday advising I owe approx £90.00, the invoice has been shredded so I do not recall the exact amount.
I have emailed Agora Business to advise them I did not agree to anything and will not be paying, I have also requested they remove all of our details from their system and to not contact me further. I have been told my subscription is in the process of being cancelled and will be cancelled upon receipt of payment; which will not be paid.
I have had the same problem, when you sign up I received no information via email about any costs, I signed up thinking it was free but these scam artists are now trying to send letters to my place of work! steer clear of these people and their website. It's lucky my relative is in the law business, so for principle I might just drag them through the dirt with the hope that somebody will shut these con artists down! health and safety awareness my foot, more like scamartists.com!
So how do we stop this happening. We have had en employee sign up for free trial then leave our company. He never cancelled the free trial and now we have the bill with a small discount on it and now extra admin costs cause we havent paid... We are not using it and think that the business practices that they use are very unfair and inflixible and I wonder how people want to do business with a company like this .
Long story short, I have the same problem with the scammers from Agora business. They now passed my details to a debt collection agency. Without going to court and without getting a legal enforcement paper for recovering the so called "debt". This is harassment. If you are selling something you have to ask for a payment method first and make the buyer aware they are actually buying something. I will set up a Facebook page where everyone who's harassed by this company can join and I am sure together we can do something aboit it and make others aware of the way this company. Once the Facebook account will be created I will post it here so all can join.
Absolutely disgusting and unethical way of conducting business.
You are told the service is free, then they send you invoices and aggressively chase for payment because you didn't cancel the free service.
Have nothing to do with the company, they are complete fraudsters.
They gave none service but keeping send the invoice ask for money. every one should be ware of them. they are still not give up and send the invoice to me. I don't know how to stop them.
I received a call from this company saying we could receive free H&S magazine issues to see what it was about and if we wished to become members we would have the opportunity to do so. At no point on the call was a subscription mentioned and I advised that working in a small office our H&S needs were minimal and therefore we most likely wouldn’t look to become members but by all means to send free issues. There was no mention of being automatically signed up to anything, and there had been no email (despite me sharing my contact details) to say we had entered into any form of agreement. I received two magazines and I receive many free subscriptions in the post (of which as I had predicted was not a worthwhile magazine for our business).
I then received an invoice for £84.78. I advised the reason why we would not be paying and a customer service adviser said "I can confirm that your subscription has now been cancelled with immediate effect as per your request. No further issues or invoices will be sent. The closing balance on the account for issues up to this point of cancellation is (...£...) (a credit note has been requested for the balance removed)."
Thought the situation was resolved, only to then receive another invoice for £21.19. Again, customer service adviser said "I am sorry for the confusion I can confirm that your subscription was cancelled on the 3 June 2019 with immediate effect, as the cancellation was outside the trial period and 1 chargeable issue had already been dispatched we reduced the invoice to reflect this. The balance outstanding is £21.19, I have requested a credit note to reflect this."
Only to AGAIN receive another 'Overdue Debt' invoice for £21.19 and this time the SAME customer service adviser stated "As stated in my email below as the cancellation was outside the trial period and 1 chargeable issue had already been dispatched there is £21.19 outstanding. Upon settlement of the outstanding balance, your account will be up to date and closed."
We are a small business and this incompetency is wasting my time. However I refuse to pay for something I did not agree to pay for, and the more time I waste on this the more I want to stop this company trying to trick businesses out of money.
caution cheats ! I am a sole proprietorship, they sent me [censored] and now they make me pay £90, 18 - I didn't sign anything ! I didn't accept anything ! now the debt collection company wants money from me -- I won't pay it !
I am in the same situation. I think people are unwilling to go to court and fight them. They need a court order before a debt collection agency are able to enforce payment. I want them to take me to court and try and enforce the debt. I have a lawyer. And their history! Needless to say I will be counterclaiming.
Underhand scammers who target junior members of staff to obtain telephone orders.
Avoid like the plague, warn staff members about this kind of scam.
These people are dishonest and use deception to con people out of their hard earned money. It's all pretty much a scam. They draw you in with a free 'opt out' publication knowing that virtually nobody reads pages of small print Terms and Conditions.
The overall rating says it all and they obviously don't care because there are lots more people out there waiting to be ripped off.
A decent company simply wouldn't do this.
After calling me for a free trail of a worthless publication pertaining to the care sector they send me couple of free editions. And then after the trial period suddenly started invoicing my company
Very pushy salesperson calls me to say she has some literature to send me free of charge.
I say not interested they send anyway then send a invoice.
I go onto review sites and see there are many others who have experienced this also.
SCAMMERS avoid.
This compony is a con, read the Trustpilot reviews. I didn't no i was signing up for a paid subscription it didn't say and i didn't give my bank details. check the reviews they do this to a lot off people. As long as i keep getting bills i will make it my mission in life to warn people on every platform that this compony is a con.
Agora Business Publications are chasing me for a subscription scam that is well known to Trading Standards but still appears to be taking place and is passed to CCSCOLLECT who have doubled the charges and must be fully aware of the reputation that Agora have,shameful.