AT&T review: beware of this scam 38

I have also had terrible experiences with yellowpages.com since May.

In 2004 smartpages.com (owned by SBC) bought out yellowpages.com and merged the two sites together. Up until that point, I had a great relationship with yellowpages.com. I was notified of the merge and promised that it would not effect my national premium listing. I was told my position and rate would remain the same. When the merge took place, my ad dropped in positioning with them and our logo disappeared.

I called up the new yellowpges.com office to request that they repair these issues. They did put up our logo, however I would have to pay a HUGE increase in monthly advertising costs to to get our positioning back. I was very upset, however they refused to do anything about it.

08/2006, Vic Deverian (sales rep) offered me a 3 mo. contract to try a national tile ad for $4,126. 01/2007, I then called back to take advantage of this offer. I was then told the offer did not exist and I would have to purchase a 12 month contract at an even higher rate. After going through about 6 offices and many more reps, I called the Yellowpages.com Presidents office. I spoke with Rita Haynes (Executive assistant [protected]). Rita took my complaint and assured me someone in her office would contact me to resolve this issue. The call never came. I called several more times and nothing.

05/08/07 Rita gave me a call to tell me that the offer never existed and more importantly my account was now past due. First, I was unaware we even still had an ad. My understanding was I cancelled in 01/2007 to negotiate a bigger ad. However, they did not cancel and kept billing me. Since her call, I sent in two payments. What I would like to know, is why would an executive assistant to the president be calling me to tell me this? They do have a collections department.

My ad remained up until 06/29/2007. HERE"S WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW. 06/29/07 yellowpages.com launched a new interface. This means they now had development costs to cover. So, for any reason possible they dropped tons of ads from their listings. WHY? - to force you into higher contracts and lock you in for 12 months! Tssk Tssk! This should leave you with a couple questions. 1. For a company who boasts about how many visitors it's site gets, why would they feel the need to lock you into long term contract? 2. Is yellowpages.com guilty of unfair business practices? - YES!

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
1. Immediately file a complaint with the Pasadena Better Business Bureau. www.labbb.org

2. File a complaint with the Dept of Consumer Affairs. www.consumeraffairs.co.la.us

3. File a complaint with the State of California.
www.usa.ca.gove

4. Post complaints with consumer Blogs everywhere! Continue to revisit them for updated information. WHY? - CLASS ACTION MAY COME UP

5. Call Rita Haynes in the Presidents Office. She has since become a "Executive Manager". [protected]

6. Send a certified letter to the presidents office requesting immediate solution.
Yellowpages.com
7 North Fair Oaks Ave #200
Pasadena, CA 91103

I am asking anyone who has had a bad experience with yellowpages.com to contact me directly at selina@wellkneadedmassage.com. I will be posting formal yellowpages.com consumer blog.

I am having almsot the identical problems as Selina above. It all started at the same dates... To make matters worse, even my priority placement is gone...so when a potential customer does a standard search, I am now at the bottom of the list...

Tried calling customer service, got nothing but a run around. Crummy rep tried to tell me that it may be that suddenly every other firm in my heading changed there contract to priority placement. (all 9, that's amazing salesmanship by ATT or just plan BS)...

Been waiting 2 1/2 months for them to update my add..they keep losing by logo and text... Still waiting on my account rep to fix all this... It has forced me to daily check the status of my adds... My advice is to think twice about placing ads with yellowpages online...

So far the return has been miserable, I get much better service and ROI from other internet sources.

THEY'RE A COMPLETE SCAM! SAME PROBLEMS AS Selina.

I signed up with yellowpages.com may of 2007. From the very beginning, my ad was never right. My ad rep was sexually inappropriate after I had already signed up indicating he might have gotten a young ad rep co-worker drunk and taken advantage of her. When I tried to make changes to my ad either by phone or e-mail I never got a response back. My ad rep was fired and I did not find out for 6 weeks. I tried to reach anyone who could help me and I reached another ad rep and he said he would help me and would call me back on Sept 28th at 4pm to fix the problems, still no call back and when I would call or e-mail messages I would get no response. The ad had wrong prices about my business which upset customers and and the ad also had my home address instead of my business address which is 25 minutes away which customers that called didn't want to drive that far. Also, massage is a business that can be dangerous because of the Asian "happy ending" massage places giving a bad name. I did have a guy actually show up at my house wanting a massage one day and it scared that daylights out of me. I pretended that he must have made a mistake. The guy was creepy and I had been afraid to be in my house alone and I make my husband answer that door now. I am very disappointed in that way I was treated from this company, especially the fact that I was paying $2000 a month and no one even bothered to reassign me a new ad rep or return my calls or e-mails. What if I was raped or killed?

I got a goodwill adjustment on my ads and did not fax it back on time. They never said fax it back by this date to avoid collections... they never warned my, but because i did not fax it back fast enough they sent me to collections. My Rep Jennifer Wolfe admitted the Ads were not up to par anymore since the SES campaign used Google for forever and recently the Google placement was not happening and they, AT&T, were doing busness with lower Search Engines...dogpile, lycos and lesser Search ENGINES. I paid $1529.00 a month to advertise with Dogpile? Why? Thanks AT&T it must be great to change the quality of your product and then send your customers to collections after you ignore dispute over ad dispute.
P.S. It makes sense AT&T sells to anyone and Google realized the lack of quality of business advertisers AT&T brings was hurting Google. Yha, AT&T will sell ads to anyone and Google cut-em off. Google calls who they want to advertise now...based on your Google performance and if people like you. At least, Google has scruples...AT&T could learn a lot from them.

Selina Garrison, get your facts straight. First off, SBC/AT&T never offered 3 month contracts. We only offered 12 month contracts but for certain circumstances, mangt did approve 6 months contracts, especially for customers like yourself that were interested in a national placement, or had an existing national placement. 2nd, I had tried in vain with you and your partner to renew your advertising before the rates were to increase. Both you and your partner ignored my voice mails, and when I finally got you on the phone (your personal cell phone), you told me to call your partner and then hung up on me. When I finally reached your partner, he hung up on me as well. How many times dose a sales rep need to contact an advertiser before they give up? 3, 5, 10 times? 3rd you had a past due bill which customer service gave you several chances to get caught up, but after several broken promises by you and your partner, your advertising was pulled down from the site. It was after your ad was pulled that you started to call me, my manager, customer service and so on up the food chain with your story growing larger as you went. When I finaly heard that you were offered a 3 month contract I had to laugh because we just don't do that. Basically it was such an obvious lie, that your claim was vapid and could not and would not be taken seriously. It's to bad for you Selina, because when I had pulled your tracking reports for your national ad, you had well over 100,000 hits. Needless to say, your advertising program was a good investment simply based on the strong response from the tracking numbers. Why a business person like yourself Selina wouldn't renew their program is anyone's guess. In the future I would like to pass on this advice, before making bogus claims about myself and my company, pay your bill. Your claims might hold a little water if you didn't lie about what was offered to you and display the actions of a deadbeat. AT&T is now the most used online yellowpage site in California and the nation.

I can certainly afford the $350 a month I am paying..., however their program has never resulted in more than one phone call in over 4 months now. We track all calls in and ask how they found us, we then log it into our "call sheet". We have had no emails as of yet that said they saw us at Yellowpages.com..., although those are tracked as well.

After my expierences with Yellowpages.com sales reps and what they promissed me, I would take Selinas side ...not good old "slick Vic" and his words of wisdom. Since I am doing fairly well in my business and I have two Lawyers now, I think I will see what can be done. If I cannot get Yellowpages.com to cancel my remaining few months, then as a webmaster I will certainly do all I can to create a heave Anti-Yellowpage.com ad campaign. Since they are totally online, and thats my playing field, we will see how it all turns out in the end.

Since I plan to step REAL HARD on their neck, I will not use my name... just yet.

Wow, Vic. (wish I saw your e-mail earlier)
A for effort my friend.
F for providing facts.

Indeed, you did try in vain to get us to renew to a 12 month agreement at an OUTRAGEOUS inflated price. This would only benefit you. Naturally, we were not going to do that. WHY? Well, b/c...

#1 - you do not provide the volume you promised and indeed if renewing would have pushed our placement back up to get more calls...we wanted proof. Therefore, we were only interested in a trial period of which you DID offer b/c you wanted the contract so badly.
#2 - you provided no where near the hits you claim (yes we have our own hits tracker)

You know very well there was no reason to renew Vic. Yellowpages.com provided month to month for years after the initial 12 month contract. We had been much farther behind in billing and caught up as promised. We were no where as far behind in our billing when yellowpages.com chose to drop our listing. THIS WAS PURLEY A UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICE BY AT&T. Your company is pathetic and will pay back the public.

WE ARE WORKING IN NUMBERS & WE WILL MAKE THE DIFFERENCE VIC!AT&T's DAY IS COMING! ...and you nasty sales people will be forced to play fair!

(Lesson to learn by large corporate America - the Internet is uniting people in a way you are unaware of. Be wise!)

Thank you to all the smaller & larger business that have joined forces with our team!

Vic,

I would also like to point out that your "customer service" HAD NEVER ONCE CONTACTED US ABOUT A PAST DUE BILL!

Who is the liar?

I'll tell you why they didn't...

Previously, Mini in customer service was our contact for making payments. Mini was great and we MADE ALL PAYMENTS AS AGREE WITH HER.

When we contacted you to engage into the 3 month trial, we then cancelled the existing listing. Oh but OOPS! AT&T yellowpages.com didn't cancel it. How incredibly surprising!

Suffice to say, the ad remained, but we never got one call about a past due bill. WHY? - B/C AT&T new what they were doing. They were allowing people to get past due to have a reason to drop their ads and force them into new agreements.

Huh, is it a coincidence that our ad dropped the exact same day yellowpages.com launched a new interface? Let the public decide.

TO THE PUBLIC...

HAVING PROBLEMS WITH AT&T Yellowpages.com? Address them to their "Senior Attorney".

AT&T Advertising & Publishing
Gretchen Emge - Senior Attorney
One AT&T Center
Suite 3600
St. Louis, MO 63101

Phone: [protected]
Fax: [protected]
Email: gr5785@att.com

An AT&T rep tell a lie? Ha Ha Ha! HE HE HE!
* They are trained Sick Willie's.
* They are the used car sales people of the advertising industry.
* However, their day is coming & the end is in sight!
* There deceptive practices are causing a snowballing reaction from the public.
* The people are angry.
* Small business simply want fair & ethical treatment.
* We want advertising that works.
* We don't want to pay for it when it doesn't work.
After all when AT&T purchases a product or service & it doesn't work they want their money back right.

We where told by an At&t rep that for web advertising to be productive we had to be on the first page. To get on the first page we had to purchase points, 1400 points at a cost of $434.00 per month. When the ad came out we where on the second page. The sales person was intentially deceptive. As of today 5-months later we have received a grand total of one call. That one call cost us $2, 170.00. HELLO, AT&T YOUR WEB SITE IS NOT WORKING. Your sales people are lieing just to make the sale. I know this is falling on deaf ears & I know you don't care. I also want you to know that I will make every effort to tell everyone about my personal experience. The internet reaches untold numbers of people.
WAKE UP AT&T !YOU COULD SCREW PEOPLE IN THE PAST & GET AWAY WITH IT BUT IT IS A NEW WORLD TODAY. THE INTERNET PUTS THE GOOD & THE BAD IN THE SPOTLIGHT.

Wow, I looked at the first post and thought I was reading a play by play of what's happened to me since I started advertising through AT&T. The sales rep all but guaranteed I'd see an increase in business. I'd say since October (when my ad went live) I've gotten 2 calls in response to my AT&T ad. Then I read down further and nearly fell over at how many people have had the same horrible experience. Seems that AT&T don't bat an eye taking advantage of small businesses.

I have seen my poor brother-in-law get scammed by these people for the past 8 months. I have evidence that a ton of click fraud occurred, and they posted his advertisements 1000s of miles outside of his geographical location, though all he asked for was within his immediate area (a small county).

I still don't understand why Yellowpages.com is in business. The net is full of complaints like this. I just hope enough people spread the word to keep others from joining on. What a bunch of crooks. Over the course of a $2400 contract, my brother in law got one call for a plumbing job, and it was from a confused customer on the other side of the country! That's it. I have given him a better chance through posting craigslist ads and adding some SEO to his website.

If I ever see the slick salesmen who stopped by at my house while he was working there, I will throw eggs at them. What a bunch of liars. The reason that people don't get calls is because they do the following:
- Have people perform click fraud for them (my opinion and I can only partitially prove this through IP records and mathematical probability)
- Serve ads way outside of the target area, and even in foreign countries
- Serves ads on spybot style pages that are just heaps of crap that pop up and get ignored or closed

The AT&T yellow pages are guilty of misleading & deceptive trading practices.
If they where not so asurb, it would be almost comical.Those old enough remember Lily Tomlins Ernestine the Bell Phone Company swith board operator. Her responce to complaints "We don't care. We don't have to. We are the phone company!
It seems things haven't changed with the new owner AT&T. Their patent responce to complaints is "Sorry You're Under Contract.
Through research I have found that complaints are so acute that some industry experts are recommending AT&T customers concider dumping AT&T.
J D Powers reports that AT&T plunged from a 4 of 5 rating in 03 to a 2 OF 5 rating this year.
In addition the MSM web site reports The AT&T Corp is in an deteriortating financal condition & recently fell to a junk bond status. Could not have happened to a nicer buch of guys.
I personally will dedicate every spare moment of my time to tell everyone about my negative experience with AT&T.
If you are concerding doing business with The AT&T Dream Crushers think again. People these days get refferals from friends & relatives for products or services or they go to the internet.

I have had a year of many calls to the yellow pages to tell them I was scamed by the salesman I didn't even order the internet or any extra advertising. After reading the many other complaints I realise I was scamed and my bill is so high, I have not been able to pay. Now they have turned it over to collections.They too have been caught not being truthful. Has any body been through this that can give me some helpful advice ?pS I NEVER GOT EVEN ONE CUSTOMER FOR THIS ADVERTISING.

I've had similar issues with AT&T and Yellowpages.com.

In April 2008 I've bought a platinum advertising space on Yellowpages.com. As I started realizing that I wasn't getting any calls, even though it was pretty much the most expensive type of ad I could get from them, I started to feel cheated and I wanted to terminate my submission. But as I called the Customer Service I found out that I was bound to the contract for a WHOLE YEAR and was supposed to keep paying until April 2009.

According to them, there is absolutely NO WAY of getting out of the contract before that date. I thought that was strange and terribly inconvenient for me, as I wasn't getting any ROI out of this deal. Then I call Customer Service again after a couple of days and another of their so called "agents" now tells me that I will be able to get out of the deal earlier than April 2009 if I disconnect my phone line. I thought that's a strange way to end a contract, but I did it nonetheless, on July 9th.

According to them, I would be charged 28 DAYS AFTER DISCONNECTION even though I obviously would not get ANY calls since my phone was disconnected, so basically they'd charge me for nothing. I said okay, instead of paying until 2009 I will pay the 28 days and terminate the account (less money spent with this awful company).

A couple of calls later (previous calls were just me being LIED TO MY FACE by their agents that I need some sort of disconnection notification from my phone company, then their own people saying that I, in fact, don't need this letter and SUPPOSEDLY their agent went ahead and marked my account as terminated), so I called Customer service again and I get this lady saying that my submission was not marked as terminated and in fact she needed to call my phone company to "find out the date I disconnected my phone line".

She said she would do that and call me back later because supposedly the phone company was in a meeting (a lie). She called me after a couple of hours, and instead of calling the phone company she told me that she didn't and she will instead need to notify their Internet Advertising Department that I am requesting termination. This, after dozens of calls and after again being lied to my face.

I smelled bull**it AGAIN so I asked to speak to a supervisor. She said she can't pass a supervisor on to me because "they are in a meeting", but that she'll go ahead and send out the note to the internet department (she wanted her way). I said "I want to speak to a supervisor NOW" and she said I'd have to hold, so I said I'll hold, no matter how much time I'd have to hold.

I am right now waiting for the supervisors' "meeting" to end so I can speak to one (been holding for about 30 mins).

AT&T and Yellowpages.com are, without a doubt, THE MOST UNSCRUPULOUS AND DECEIVING COMPANIES I've ever had the displeasure to use. Ever since I've started this termination process, all that I've gotten from them were LIES, LIES and MORE LIES and DECEIT. Their customer service is the WORST customer service I've ever dealt with, their so called "agents" are trained to lie and lead their customers on just so that they get one more month of money's worth.

If you respect yourself and don't need any headaches or can't afford to spend your money FOR NOTHING in return, then do yourself a great favor and STAY AWAY FROM AT&T AND YELLOWPAGES.COM! They are absolutely THE WORST company I've ever used, in every way, starting from their deceitful ways and ending with their extremely poor service.

I will make sure more people learn of my experience with these THIEVES, that's for sure. And like many more of their customers commenting above, I NEVER GOT ONE SINGLE CUSTOMER COMING FROM THEM.

I have been paying $900/month for the past 4 months. I have ever never get even one business from yellowpages.com. If any of you thinking about lawsuit with them. I will join.

I won't go into my long story at this time, but i've been promised top listings in 2 categories which i'm currently 6th and 12th, also I was promised a set amount of referrals to my site from yellowpages and I might be getting 1/4 of them if that. One thing I might recommend to others, i'm no lawyer so take this advice on your own, would be to contact someone from your local news station. My local tv station has a person who you can contact if business does you wrong and so it may be a way to get the word out to your local area and a good part of your state and in turn hopefully inform others on what not to do.

PJ

I too am unhappy with AT&T's internet advertising. I was told I would be charged only if I received calls / customers. I would not be charged by clicks. I received an update today that I had received 38 clicks in January 2009. I know I didn't receive38 calls in January maybe 2 calls at the most. I had already decided not to go with anything that would charge me by clicks so I made sure I asked that question. When I call to have my contract renegotiated they tell me your stuck with it until it expires. If I want to add to a contract I don't have to wait until it expires but if I want to renegotiate at a less rate I have to wait. They don't care if you have problems paying the high amount (which gets you nothing). They would prefer to have a unhappy / nonpaying customer. Than a happy customer at a lower rate. I also found no one at AT&T wants to talk to you when you call them, but they'll call you constantly trying to get you to upgrade.

ATT sucks they had me sign up( I was willing to sign) but all I asked was for me to get a web site up and running before I signed on ( a 30 day period is what I was aking for) They had 6 premium spots and I was going to get # 3 or 4 but they were going fast so I better do it now! I said wait till its done but alas it was put thru. I did not know this was done till the first bill came thru They were new to my area and just starting out.
Well I got my site done and it took 3/4 weeks to get them to put it up for which I still was paying for to hit a buttton and have the site up...arguments ensuded it was up for about 6 months and I got 1 call 2 additional was from sales org.s trying to sell online ads tune of costs for that 1 call 1800.00 plus I refused to pay I am in collection..my sales rep said a ton of biz would come in they are the best and the most used onsite yellow page ad...well I learned never to do online ads with yellow page co's at all pay someone else to keep you up front on google and yahoo you DO NOT NEED YELLOW PAGES ONLINE... pay someone else and your satisfaction most likely will be positive!A biz. wants to stand out by itself or as close to as possible. if you do convetional ads with the yellow pages (any one of them) the monies they charge is a least 1 employee or more. they get the biz calls coming in (a needed enemy) I do not think you need them as much a s they try to make you think they do!
I am paying approx. 37K a year for Y/pages books I will die before I pay them for online ads. someone else will earn that...a small co./person that will earn their KEEP! thanks for letting me rant.

This company did the same thing to me. I had on line advertising with them for a year. It produced very good results for the first two months of the contract, then strangely dropped off to almost nothing i. e. one call a month or less. The quality of customer was poor also, but an agreement is an agreement so I paid for it. The new sales rep came in and used some wonderful guarantees and promises, (with these upgrades you will get 1350 points bringing you up on the list, etc.) Nothing changed, I actually lost my logo and my ranking decreased. Diane Smith was a good liar. Well, as most people here know the complaint department does not really exist. Apparently AT&T does not make mistakes so they do not have any need for follow up.

I have also had horrible luck with my expensive online yellowpage.com ad-I spoke with the rep for over 2 1/2hours over 2 days with others in the room with me -listening BUT since they only recorded 10 minutes of our *contract* that is the only part they are liable for. SO all of the promises are down the drain. I pay $350.00 a month for the online and to date I have received ZERO calls. He promised me at least 6 jobs a month to pay for this ad. I am very upset.

If somebody knows some method or has a experience to cancel his or her plan without no charge, please post it here. And, please send me a email to sign up for the class action if somebody is preparing it.

I have a same experience with yellowpages.com. I started online listing in January, 2009. This is for my small business and this plan costs $52 a month. Because I have been getting just 3 or 4 clicks a month, I decided to downgrade the plan to free one. I emailed them, but they ignored it. Then, I called and was told it is the contract for 12 months and I can't cancel it.

Please see my post if you want to continue to the rest:
YellowPages.com — failure to deliver on contract!

Yellowpages .com is very well known name and when I signed in, I totally trusted them and didn't doubt them at all. However, it turned out to be very unethical organization.

I also have a confidence that superpages.com is also similarly bad company. They overcharged even if I canceled my advertising plan. Please be careful.

as a new business i decided to go with my at&t reps recommedation. i didn't get tons of calls (like i expected), but my first call resulted in a $19, 000 patio construction job, not bad for a $4800 annual investment. when i talked to my rep again, she made the comment that i would soon forget that $19K job and start thinking that my advertising is too expensive. it's true, every year i start thinking i should cancel or maybe i'm not getting enough calls. this year we tracked all my ads with different lines and they gave me a guarantee that i would receive at least 10 calls per month, if not they would prorate/rebate my last 6 months of billing. i didn't get the 10 calls per month every month, so i'm getting a partial credit on my last 6 month of payments. however, i did get 4 jobs from those calls, totally about $38K. i really don't feel like i deserve the credit, but hey it was the program they offered. call volumes are dropping, but what i have to focus on is not the number of calls but the quality of the call. i also got online for the first time, nothing big. she explained that points/items from competitors could move my position around, it did...but i still got a few calls. the online advertising is cheap compared to the print. it only costs about $200 to be in the first spot online vs. $2800 per month in print. i plan to move more of my money online to yellowpages.com, but i will keep the print because the roi is still amazing...call volumnes not so much. it's too bad so many of you are having problems. it sounds like most of you could do just fine without at&t so i'm not sure why you keep investing with them. best of luck to everyone.

I'm the owner of a small ad agency and work with all kinds of Media. I have never worked with such an incompetent company as AT&T. Although, I like my sales representative the company is so large and clumsy I would prefer to have a sharp stick in my eye then try to resolve an issue with AT&T Real Yellow Pages!

For example one of my clients had a website built by AT&T. We have chosen to take ownership of the domain which I have been told is no problem. We have been working to obtain this domain for six months and AT&T says they don't own it. Funny... the WHOIS on the domain says AT&T owns the domain and the WHOIS has there phone number as the contact... I've now left message after message and was assured the issue was being resolved. Six months latter I'm stuck hear with no domain and no closer to the solution.

Secondly AT&T internet advertising is a joke to say the least. Many times it's not worth the money but when you do purchase it they have no way to bill you on your signed contract dates. Another words when you decide to start 01.01.09 they just start billing you when ever the tech puts you up on line. If you budgeted $1, 000 a month for 12 months it does not matter to them they just tack the extra $$$ onto the agreement upon activation. If you placed the order on 12.01.08 your order will be up in about 5 days making you go over your budget by about $900.00.

At one time I was a small client of AT&T's and thought that is why they treat me this way. Now I purchase between $20, 000 and $30, 000 a year with the company and get the run around just as much. I'm so fed up with wasting my time contently babysitting their customer service I'm filing this complaint along with complaints to the FCC and other organization's for consumer protection.

Word of advise for small business owners. Purchase one year of internet placement with AT&T then cancel.
They will not remove it from on line. They are so unorganized and I believe their infrastructure for their website is so screwed up they don't know their head from their rear end. I've been trying to get AT&T to remove a client listing from their website for over 24 months along with my AT&T sales rep and they still can't do it.

I have finally called AT&T and told them for every extra hour I need to work with them to resolve these issues I'm subtracting $100. To date I've spent about 104 hours over the last 12 months working with AT&T so their buy will be reduced by $10, 400 next year and the till is still open. This does not phase them they simply do not care... If you want to work with a company that has NO respect for your time.. your budget or your needs AT&T Real Yellow Pages can help!

Corey

The Real Yellow Pages
I’m a small businessman and have been advertising with AT&T Pages for over 20 years. This month I received my bill and it was for $804, last year’s was $336. When I called to ask why I was told I didn’t qualify for the incentives that I had qualified for last year. Yep the books in print and my rep had said to me when we talked that everything was the same as last year. Seems to me these guys are desperate and willing to sacrifice tomorrow to get a stinking dollar today. This is my last year with them. So watch out if your rep says, “…everything is the same as last year.” Larry Hammer in Florissant, MO

I have had no success with att yellowpages I am paying $98 a month for nothing wouldn't that be considered a breach of contract on there side. Which would negate the contract allowing me to cancel my add and stop paying for nothing. Surly with so many complaints about ATT yellowpages there are some lawyers out there who would want to take this on.

I am in the same boat. I had their service for 6 months now with not even one single call. They promise the world and give you nothing. they even had my number wrong on yellow pages. I tried to google my busines by key word (suppose to pay $170 and i could not see my company not on the first or second or tenth page. they keep sending me bills and I have not paid them yet. contact att and complained but all what you hear is sorry sir my apology sir. any suggestion.

I started a business in december. in no time the at&t con men, I mean "salesmen" where in my office and sold me a year contract at about $260/month. In 6 months since I have zero calls feedback. ZERO.

Then the rep calls and tells me that according to their tracking, people are calling me! Who?

I would know if my customers found me through yellowpages.com.

Do you know who calls a lot, solicitors. I'm guessing solicitors for other junk marketing see the paid ad, then call you.

Do you need that when running your business.

And I had no idea there was an automatic renewal clause, and the contract had to canceled at least 30 days prior to the end date, or else they lock you in (really con you in) to another year of garbage marketing!

So I email my rep that I need to cancel. Over a week goes by, to get a reply that the cancellation is done. No receipt, no proof, no nothing, just an email that he said so!

for all I know, he's trying to trick me into another year!

This place is fraud. I couldn't imagine running my business like this. They are just a bunch of unethical kids out of college in their 20's with one objective...taking your money, and giving you back as little as possible.

This marketing is garbage!
absolute garbage!

This is the worst company I have ever Dealt with. They know this, so they have a team of high power attorneys that just go after you once they have a signed contract regardless of their performance. Stay away at all cost...

Last June I brought my husband home from the hospital after having a five-bypass open heart surgery. When we got home, the phone rang and I answered. Greg Berry talked to me about advertising on the internet with AT&T. I told him I would rather advertise in the book once I can afford it. He promised me to contact the local rep. We concluded the conversation and we were about to hang up when I heard a lady saying, she can help with both ways of advertizing. She promised to advertise all our services: photography, photo editing, teaching, printing, matting, framing, sports and commercial photography. The figure I heard she quoted me was $89.00/month. A week later I get a bill for $189.00/month. I called to dispute the ad and the amt, since my preference was to put an ad in the Yellow Pages.
The lady on the phone said, this ad will never be deleted. You are stuck with it. I said that I am hard of hearing and did not hear the full amt. She played the recording of the transaction. This is when I found out that Greg Berry's conversation and her promises were not recorded. They only recorded when I said yes with hesitation. It is also on the recording when I asked her, did you ask me something and her saying, just say yes or no.
The next month another lady called and asked for payment. I told her I do not want this ad. I have not received one call and I cannot find the ad. She tried finding it. They got my name mixed up, the area of advertising was limited to Wolfforth, Texas and none of the services we offer were listed. This lady gave me a number to call. When I called the manager was not available and his/her secretary promised to talk to the boss and delete the acct.
A month later another person called and asked for payment. After going over the same story, she said that I need to send a certified letter and they will delete the acct. On [protected] I sent a certified letter.
A month later, another lady called wanting payment. We go over the same story. She said the acct. was closed, but there is an outstanding balance. I told her if this acct was deleted from the first month, we would not have an outstanding balance. She gave me the number of the lady that signed me up. I called her and left a message. Few minutes later, I called again and she answered the phone. I told her that I did not hear what she said, that she promised me the moon, that she limited my ad to Wolfforth only, that she only recorded the transaction and not the total conversation. She said this is the first time she hears from me and did not know I had problems with the ad. She said she will look into it and get back with me. I made her promise. She said she will call me back before five. She never called back and turned the acct to a collection agency. Until today, I have not had one business call form the ad. One other promise she made was to direct 30 customers to my website/month.
Yesterday, a young man called to see if I was happy with my acct. I told him I was not and asked, why, is the acct. open? He said yes, and gave me this number to call so they can close the acct. [protected]. Mae Wertz [protected]

Wasted a bunch of money with this company. It was worthless, and I received ONE call all year.

Then when I say I have no interest whatsoever in renewing, they hound me daily even though I asked repeatedly to be removed. Then they blame me for not receiving any calls because I didn't include a "coupon" in my listing. Meanwhile, I spend less than 10% on some online marketing and get WAY MORE RESPONSE...WITHOUT A COUPON.

Lies. Out of touch. Worthless.

I received ONE call all year from a quarter column ad. Spent less than 10% on some internet advertising (with the same ad), and got a considerable amount of business from it. For this reason, told the reps I have no desire to renew for next year, and yet they keep calling my office DAILY despite the fact that I said NO and please REMOVE ME FROM THE LIST. They just keep telling me its my fault for not getting calls because I did not offer a coupon in my ad, which was the only ad in its category. Now I know why. Then, they threatened that if I didn't renew my online account, even my free listing would disappear. ?

Worthless. Out of touch.

I had the same experience as most people here . I signed with YellowPages Pay Per Click Program, thinking that was reputable company and that I can focus in running my business. I was wrong! Not only do I feel that I was scammed, but also humiliated and insulted by a group of people that are hiding behind a large corporation. Among other misleading information, the sales person told me that I will get at least a 20% conversion rate for my clicks. Almost 4 months into the contract and 900+ clicks, I have received 2 request. I tried several times to work with the sales person, who will not get back to me in a timely manner, and when he did will tell me that he’s working on my account(now I know this was just an strategy to keep me busy for a while)I was very honest with him and I explained him that as a startup I was putting all my marketing budget into this program, he promised that his program will work and even if it didn’t YellowPages will stand behind their promise to deliver or work something out with me.
After months of the same story, I tried escalating the issue to his supervisors, thinking that because is beyond insulting that his sales people employed blatant lies as a technique to close business, as a manager will turn around and do the right thing. I was wrong again!. The manager told me that YellowPages cannot guaranteed conversion rates in the program that I bought and that I was probably confused (he probably thinks because I have an accent I cannot understand English), and even after I provided proofs that clearly shows the used deceptive methods of sale, they will totally ignored me and refused to released me from this contract and refund my money. Instead I received a collection letter from YellowPages, not even under my or company’s name, how it shows in the contract that I signed, but my husband’s name that has nothing to do with my company or signed a contract with YellowPages. I find disgusting that a large corporation is so willing to ignore its customers and to treat them like they do not exist. Please think twice before signing a contract with YellowPages. Let’s spread the word, don’t let more very hard working small business owners fall into this trap!

I wish I had read this before. Now I know for my personal experience that they can give you a hard time. Please read every single word on their contract, do not believe what you hear from their sales people. DO NOT SIGN A CONTRAT, unless you are completely sure you understand and agree and have tried their services before. I will never deal with this Company again and do not recommend it to anyone.

The thing is you do not have to sign a contract, and they can record your first call. I never signed anything, and they are wanting 5700.

Wow! Thats sick to see that people have had this many problems with Dex. We have had identical problems. Over promises from our rep resulted in no activity. We wasted thousands of dollars and we could tell in 2 months that Dex DOESNT know. They refused to void the contract and also cancel our contract. or even use the founds toward a different campaign. WHY ISNT THEIR A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST THESE CROOKS!

Has anyone been to collections with this company? What happens if we just do not pay. We are in a "contract" for another year and are not allowed to get out of it.

Our company was up for renewal of it's yellow page advertising. We had decided that phone book advertising was not effective any longer in our field/ business. Our rep who had been our rep for a few years, (I knew him by name, knew his hobbies and knew his back ailments) came to sign us up and I told him we were not going forward with yellow page ads. There was no indecision, I was sure we were not going to use them. He (Bart) came up with an alternative that might keep us with a t and t/ yellow pages and give me another option to promote business, direct mail. He brought a woman sales rep who handled the direct mail marketing services and we spoke at length. For whatever reasons, we didn't go with the direct mail piece options. Here we are 5 years after with a t and t/ yellow pages suing us for an ad we did not want, did not request and did not sign off for as we had done all prior years. I don't even know what it looked like because, I didn't know it printed. I was so firm in not wanting it, that I can't imagine why our rep would not have said, " make sure you write a cancellation notice to the company. I think all he cared about was his commission. In this day and age who would run ads without getting them confirmed and signed off on for corrections? I know who would, a company that hid an unfair clause in it's 6 or 8 page contract which was signed the year before. They never got a new contract with a new signature and a sign off with revisions, because I told him I wasn't doing the ad and because I never signed a new contract. I really think this is a class action lawsuit. If this happened to us, it probably happened to a thousand other small businesses. Please help us, there is no way our company can absorb an expense like this and our rep and a t and t were deceptive and not forthright in it's dealings.