AT&T review: unfair treatment! 54

AT&T Yellow Pages should be brought up on criminal charges for the way they conduct business. I don't know where you live, but in Texas, there is something called Texas Deceptive Trade Practices. Maybe you have a similar law where you live. Believe me, a letter from an attorney to them will get their attention. I would contact a lawyer because I believe that their salespeople lie just to get commissions and if that's not consumer deception, I don't know what is. I'm sure they fed you the line about how a larger ad will increase your business and how you are getting such a great deal and "freebies". When business doesn't increase and you want to reduce the size of your ad, all bets are off. Then they start telling you that an ad half the size will cost the same as the larger ad and use scare tactics by telling you that your business will fail with a smaller ad, etc., etc. If you open your business up under a new name, you will then be a new customer and will get all kinds of discounts. How's that for taking care of your loyal customers, huh? I am sick and tired of their gestapo tactics and I wish a class action lawsuit would be filed against AT&T for their practices or the US Attorney General would investigate them for their deceptive trade practices. Believe me, they don't care about you or your business, so don't ever believe any of their salespeople. They're all liars and are encouraged to do so by the corporation they work for.

You obviously do not know much about advertising. My father advertised with bellsouth the real yellow pages (same thing previous owner) and he is rich because of them alone. Yes, the bigger ads do work, people look at them first. You will never be a big business, because you do not promote your business big. If you hate them to much and think they are such a racket, just cancel your advertising, your business probably will fail if you aren't in the phone book.

We are a small Mom & Pop plumbing service company. We have advertised with Bellsouth, now AT&T Yellowpages since 1982. They where productive for about the first 6 years. However around 1988 they begin to produce fewer calls every year. Who knows why, maybe it's because they now have more competition or is it the internet? To recoup the great experience of those first six years we have tried every trick. Everything from small adds to larger size adds to color.
This year I have a double truck ad (2 pages) with 3 colors in 2 books & a AT&T web site for a grand total of $8008.00 per month. No not per year, per month. I expected great things after all that much advertising should produce a lot of calls, right. Wrong it does not even keep one technician busy. In fact at the rate things are going the At&T Yellowpages may very well put us out of business. We are now in the 5th month of the contract & already we are behind 2 months. Their collection department called just last week wanting to know when we where going to send in the past due $16, 016.00. We explained that we didn't have the money because the adds just where not producing many calls. We then asked if their was any thing they could do to help us out. Their responce, sorry your under contract. It was a slap in the face & clear that they don't care about their customers. It's just about the bottom line to them. My experience, be leary of all yellow page advertising they are a dieing dinosour. Don't trust their sales reps, they are deceptive & will say anything to make the sell.
Look to the internet to grow your business, it is what the younger generation is using & even people my age (56) are using the internet to find products & services. Keep your money in your pocket stay away from the yellowpages.

I would agree with Ben from SC. If it hasn't worked since 1988, then why are you still advertising TWENTY YEARS LATER?! I am also a plumber from the great state of North Carolina, and have been an advertiser with the real yellow pages since about 1997 when I started my company. I have tried many different ads/programs with about 3 different yellow pages to find out which ones would generate more leads for my guys. I have had everything from a regular listing to full page ads. This is what I have had for the last 4 years, and it is working very well: I have a dollar bill ad, leader ad, and an in-column ad under plumbers in 3 books. I am also on their online directory (yellowpages.com), and have my own website that a buddy of mine built. My monthly bill is just over $4, 500 per month. The only other advertising I do are a few radio ads on a talk show station and a small google search package. I will tell you the secret of yellow pages advertising that I have discovered after 11 years. (1st) Be the dominant advertiser (2) Provide good content in the ad (3) Use RCF phone numbers to list "multiple" locations in my ad (4) Make sure there's no way that a potential customer will call my competitor in the book before he calls me. Thats it, short and simple. It took me nearly 5 years to figure out that I can't expect any results from one line listings or just in column listings. I have to say that about 90% of my new customers come from the real yellow pages, and most of my referral business comes from my new customers that originally found me in the directory. Ever since I went on dominant program about 5 years ago, I have seen a "snowball" effect with my customers, they just keep getting bigger and bigger.
Before writing this, I called my little brother who is 26 about his usage of the phone directories. He said that he always thought that the yellow pages were dying and by the time he moved out of my parents house they wouldn't exist. I asked him if he remembered using the books in his youth or college. Flowers, car mechanic, handyman service, tux rentals, tire dealers, towing, and the locksmith headings were pretty much it for that time period. Then his lifestyle changed, he got married and bought a house. He said he has used the yellow pages so many times in the last year since his house purchase that its almost worn out. He said that he never really thought about using it more, but now that I talked with him about it he was surprised. He does use their online directory more than people my age.
I am not saying that all businesses are successful in the yellow pages, but I think a lot are or they wouldn't still be in business. It has worked great for me, you as the advertiser need to be aggressive to get results.

Just to explain my two sentences. I was trying to say that I think most businesses make a lot of money from their ads or else advertisers would just cancel and the yellow pages companies wouldn't be in business. I am very grateful for the leads that I have gotten from my AT&T real yellow pages program, I will probably end up doing more with them this year.

Chad, your line " you as the advertiser need to be aggressive to get results" sounds very much like an At&T Rep to me.

I am just stating how the program has worked for me. I believe that if someone is going to advertise with the yellow pages than plain and simple that is the way to go. Before I went with a large program, I spent some time researching online and reading some articles about paid advertising. I found this book:
http://product.half.ebay.com/_W0QQcpidZ1637765QQprZ1104741
I ordered one and it is a wealth of information. I ended up getting a dominant program in 3-4 different books, I got tracking numbers in each book to measure the results. If you are having problems, get this book, I think it would answer a lot of issues.

Chad,
You are a [censored].

hmmm...thats mature. Its good to see people of your maturity getting out. Good day

Chad, it is apparent that you are just another AT&T Slick Willie.
Why else would anyone go to an AT&T complaint board & try to justify all the negative comments. You are transparent.
AT&T is guility of misleading & deceptive trade practices. Which is against the law in every state I know of. Maybe an attorney will pick-up on this & start a class action law suit against them.
They should pay for crushing the dreams of so many small business who fell for all their lies.
Band together everyone. Together we become stronger. Post your experiences with AT&T.
I personally plan to voice my concerns to the Better Buisness Bureau, The Georgia State Of Consumer Affairs & The World Wide Web.

Roger- I would say you are a competitor of AT&T, and thats why you are checking on this forum and trashing them- you are transparent...thats pretty lame. Think what you may, thats fine. I felt like I have a right to post my positive experience with this company, just as much as you do your bad experience. If AT&T were ripping everyone off like you think they are, they wouldn't be printing book after book every year. ahhh...but you know better.

Service at ATT Yellow Pages are terrible and they refuse to correct errors. They are sorry as hell but you need them. They know that. They have no real competition is why they can get away with such poor service. If you can do without them, please do yourself a favor and never use yellow page advertising.

First, Chad is definitly an AT&T Premise or Sales Rep! "...real yellowpages...generate more leads... dollar bill ad, leader ad, and an in-column ad ...dominant program in 3-4 different books... tracking numbers in each book to measure the results" . All of this is AT&T lingo! I work for the same company doing and saying the same thing daily, so I know. Oh and the 'change of lifestyle" story incorporating new movers' phone book habits?! Classic. Forgive Chad folks. He's just trying to keep his job.

I dont work for AT&T, but I do work for a competitor. I have heard stories about their business practices and I also have a lot of reliable sources that can verify them. The difference between them and us is that we have to follow our customers year after year. Meaning that if I sell a program to a customer for $500 a month, the next year I have to be able to renew that customer for at least that amount. If they decide to cancel, I will have that taken back out of my commision that I was originally paid for. So that means that we have to sell you only what we know will work. We have so much tracking information with all the different products we have (Yellow Pages, Direct Mail, Search Engine Marketing, Internet Yellow Pages, Magazines) that it is very easy to see where your type of business would benefit the most. AT&T reps do not have this same format. They can sell you an $8000 a month program and tell you all kinds of stories about what it will do for you, but the truth is that he/she doesnt have to worry about it the following year. They dont care if you can afford it or not. They got paid and thats all that matters. We make sure that it is going to work before we sell it and look forward to talking with you throughout the year to see what else we can do for you and your business.

I am a new business owner in Los Angeles County, and have been trying to start a decorating business using AT&T advertising. Two years ago I contacted them to design a small yellow pages ad, to my specifications. Before the ad was published for a year AT&T agreed to send me a "proof" (which was a picture of the exact ad to be printed) but the failed to send me the proof. When I contacted them about the proof to my surprise they said they had already printed an ad for my company. I said what do you mean I didn't receive a proof, I didn't approve the ad. Well you are being billed for it this month, I said I didn't approve the ad & I didn't even get a book to see what the ad looks like. I then decided to pick up the book personally from them. To my dismay the ad was all wrong! It listed services that I don't do, did not list the services I do perform, printed the wrong art work & didn't even list my bonding or license number. So then after discussing the problems with ad with a customer service at AT&T, I gracisouly agreed to pay only 35% of the orginal ad cost. Because the only thing they got correct in the ad was the phone number & company name, otherwise I wouldnt have agreed to paying anything. After little to no results from the ad, I was informed by a friend who had experience in a small business world that it is illegal to run a business without a lincense. So that year was a total lose, but I knew I needed to advertise somehow. And AT&T had the biggest advertisement on the west coast, much bigger then Verizon & Yellow book. And by this time they had already contacted me again to apologize for the past problems that they created, & they were going to make it up to me if I went with them again. Plus the misprint of the ad was a once in a million mistake. They said to make it up to me they would include full color plus many other extras, including 75% discount on a half page ad. Well I went for it, I had no other choice at the time, because of previous bad year. It was my last chance at the business & I wanted to make it happen. A month & half later I was suppose to receive new color proofs of my new ad. And once again I heard nothing from them. So I contacted them to find out the status of my ad. And guess what...not only did they print the ad without sending me the proofs (which had many changes including a new phone number), they printed the original misprinted ad of the year before. My only logical conclusion was that because the yellow pages aren't being used as much as they use to, that the advertising department of AT&T, is not only uncommited to customers but their goal from beginning is only actually a percentage of what they contract for. They basically gave up on the commitment to print a quality product. Compromising for a uncostly collection agency instead. Because of them purposely ruining my ad I am unable to continue the attempt at a decorating business. And am now in the process of suing AT&T because after to agreeing to total dismissel of all charges they started billing me 4months later 50% of a full years half page ad. I call this the percentage scam & I welcome any other people who have been damaged by AT&T advertisement in this or a similar way to contact me in my pursuit of a class action suit. Or anyone who can relate a similar story for my present case.

Oh Yes we have experienced basically the same problems as you Joe with AT&T. For the last 4 or 5 years they have managed to screw up on our advertising in some way. This past year was the icing on the cake though and I have already posted that complaint here At&t Advertising — lying scammers but to get to your complaint in 2006 The AT&T Saleswoman called to sell advertising in the book the deadline was coming up quick to get it done and I told her no I didn't want to advertise in the book. She called again and spoke to my husband and he went for it, he specified several changes in the ad and it was recorded on a voice verified contract.
We were also suppose to receive an email of the proof before it went to print, but didn't get one so we called they sent the email proof and it was exactly the same as the year before. So we called to complain( they informed us that the saleswoman was no longer with them) they offered the ad at half price. My husband settled for that.
Every year it's a different salesperson who calls, except this year. This year I sent them a certified letter that I DID NOT WANT TO ADVERTISE WITH THEM ANY LONGER. I do know one thing the salesmen will say anything to make a sale and then they hide behind AT&T to protect them, what a crock, huh.

Hello, I too sold yellow pages for over 20 years. I was told that I was necessary evil sales rep! Year after year I would go to the businesses I sold only to find out they went out of business because their advertising program was so expensive There is an alternative to advertising, www.GreendirectoriesUSA.com.

I run a small but relatively well marketed roofing company in the northern Ohio area. My experience with ATT has been abominable. They bold faced lied to me regarding call volume of other customers, tried to sell me another ridiculously expensive line in order to "track" the calls. Fortunately I have Vonage now, which has been great, 4 lines $76 bucks total, vs ATT one line constantly mischarged and always in need of extensive bill monitoring at about $150. Do the math. ATT is a dying dinasaur, they are a corporate beauracratic disaster area that hopefully will get swallowed whole by there growing list of formidable competitor, most of which would have been bite-sized snacks for them even 10 years ago. Ha-ha, I guess that what you get for being a bloated pig. I even have close ties to people who work there, the place may as well be another Detroit automaker. I can't tell you how many times the phrase "class action lawsuit" dribbled across even my feeble brain. It has to be a matter of time. The M.O. is always the same, and the BS from these sales reps is always the same.

Anyway, as far as response from the book goes. He it is - this is the dead-nuts truth. I installed one job last year as the result of a half page ad in several of regional books, total price well over $2000/mo, yeah that's right per month! The ad was actually quite nicely done, and we have a very friendly and comprehensive web-site to go with it, that gets calls coming in with consistentcy when channeled through other sources, i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. My closing ratio this year was 28%. The call volume was like this about a call every month or two from a true prospect customer, about 80 calls from other people seeking to spend our advertising money, roughly the same number in from people looking for a job. The other who knows how many waste of time calls came from, spaced in random order: Insurance sales, charitable organizations (who clearly must know that you have money to just BLOW to be in the ATT book to begin with), and anyther sales rep I didn't already mention, I'm blathering on.

The point is the book suck, and if it was ever good I wish I had seen those days. Candidly, from my perspective, it was a horrible waste of money, and there not a chance in the world that I would do it again. The web is coming on way too strong, and my results are so much better, so much easier to track, control, and manipulate, and the cost is pennies by comparison, hell less than that. Cheap cheap. Also, if a web campaign bombs you can change it, cancel it, etc, in my case anyway, and even if a campaign totally tanks it won't even affect my weekend. I wish I had seen this forum last year before making that decision which I was putting a great deal of faith behind. Bottom line is if you don't want ATT on your payroll, and they are fat, needy, and innept, don't do the book. If you've read this, and you still make the leap, check back in here next year and pay it forward so someone else's kids aren't having a crappy Christmas.

I hope this is of some use to some good person out there. Have a great new year of business everyone!

D

We too are in the middle of a mess with AT&T web page advertising. They sold us a web page and search engine. We thought it was pretty expensive, but the rep told us we would get 250 hits a month. We are a very capable pest control company with good prices, so we figured we would be able to sell to most callers, as this is the case with the calls we do receive.
Well, designing the web site was a nightmare, we had to rewrite most of the copy. It was put up a month late. Many of the features didn't work. Requested corrections were slow or non-existent.
they also promised us that we would be on the first page. They didn't tell us that they considered the first page to be the first 50 sites!

The key words were not helpfull, and requests to change them unanswered. The ad was very ineffective, we put a program on the site to monitor clicks. We were getting eight or nine per month. We complained and they blamed the lack of activity on the content of our web site. Their answer to the number of clicks per month, "eventually 250 clicks a month"

I could go on and on. We tried to cancel the website as we couldn't afford unproductive advertising. As many of you did, we made our own new website. We got much more traffic and it cost us considerably less with other companies. The added bonus is having control over our website, its content, key words etc.

As you all probably know, AT&T advertisings response to our request to take down the website, was "you signed the contract, you owe the money." The do not consider their product defective or ineffective.

They are acting like big bullies. I wrote a letter to their VP, (certified) with no response at all. It appears to me that they think they are so big that they don't have to do a good job, or be honest in their sales presentations. They are living off the small print in their contracts, this won't last forever. I am also reminded of the history of the american auto makers. They seem to be forgetting about their market and their customers.

We have been in business for over 22 years and this is the first time We have ever not paid a bill. It is not how we do things. they have turned us over to collections for an additional 4k. We have always had perfect credit, this really hurts, but were not going to pay it. Any body have any good solutions? 64dc1

I took out 6 different word ad listings for my business for $100 a month, I'm an artist. I do photography, graphic design, faux finish painting, and art commissions. Well, it's been six months and I've only received 1 phone call which turned out to be nothing because I didn't want to take photos on Christmas day. I called AT & T originally because they never sent me the forms for autopay and they added late charges onto my bill. They still haven't sent me the forms I requested but they keep sending me monthly bills. 4 months into the contract I called and told them I wanted to cancel due to to non-performance and they responded by saying I had signed a year contract and that it was too soon to know and I hadn't given them a chance. Then I asked if I could reduce the amount of ads because I couldn't afford the monthly payments. I asked for the manager and she said she was the manager. She said she could remove my listings but I would still have to pay for the ads because I was still under contract. I told her why would I want her to remove the ads if I still had to pay and that she was being ridulous and unreasonable? Then I called back and asked for my sales representataive to call me back that I wanted to make some changes to my ads and got no response. So, I have not paid my bill since my conversation with the manager. I'm going to send a letter to the Better Business Bureau, the California State of Consumer Affairs, and the world wide wide. I may be just a small fish in a big pond but my voice will be heard. After all isn't it the little people who are trying to feed their families and makes ends meat what makes up most of our society. There are way too many rules these days and whoever said America is the land of the free obviously hasn't lived here. About the only thing that is free anymore is the freedom of speech. I have been in the faux painting business for over 8 years and I can't even get the City of La Quinta, where I live, to give me a business license unless I get liabilty insurance and a home inspection, because I'm not a contractor, how ridulous is that? DC 1/27 2009

AT&T Yellow Pages gets away with murder. It is basically an adhesion contract: take it leave it, and if you do not read the ambiguous fine print, you are screwed. Their salesman is not about to spend a couple of hours going over the contract, and even if you have The Yellow Book in your neck of the woods, the old Yellow Pages are still consulted. They hire very slick attorneys -- educated suits -- to do their dirty work in court: lie, lie, lie. They repeat the same lies on the stand. You cannot win.

Same here. First time I am refusing to pay a bill. REAL YELLOW PAGES are dishonest and unethical. I will never use them again. EVER! I would like nothing more than to smash a yellow page salesman in the mouth. If your a business take heart to these complaints and do not advertise in the yellow pages.

I was diagnosed with terminal mesothelioma cancer right after sign up for ATT Yellow page Video - I called and asked to hold the order-it had not gone live- After calling enless numbers, I finally got a supervisor. The bottom line is she told me that even if I died, ATT would expect my hires to pay the contract. This coming after the Drs had told me I had maybe 6 months to live-totally destroyed me. She further said that even if my website became in active when the business closed I (someone would have to pay ATT from the my estate)
Today ATT is still charging me and the Video on line has never worked.- I don't know where to turn- my health/life is more than ATT but they have made me absolutely insignificant in their greed. Where can I turn.
www.info@extremeeyewear.com

Just an update. I have decided to sue AT&T yellow pages. If anyone is a lawyer send me some good tips for succesful procedures. Im going through small claims.

I have been advertosong with them for 11 years and always paid the most to do so thinking that was the way to build business.! Well about 3 years ago the book is printed and they have a new column ad! This is a $200 column ad that is listed first in the book so my $3000 ad is on the next page. I asked why I was not offered this ad and instead it went to a first year company in our field, and was told they had no idea so sorry blah blah blah we will discount your ad. Then the bills come and instead of a discount I get an $895 increase! They decided they would give me some additional online ads! I have email copies where the sales rep admits the seach online was messed up for 2 years but they could not help I had paid for something for 2 years that I did not get. So I go back and forth and back and forth for 2 years and nothing, nothing, nothing! I stopped paying and then I get attention I am not and will not ever advertise with bellsouth/at&t again and we all need to file a class action lawsuit they get by with charging two companies that are in the same category $1000's different for the same size ads, there is no price other than the one they make up! We should be allowed advertise if we choose and the ads should be priced based on size and placement. ( Oh but they don't print the book) they can't guarantee placement! Anyone who would be interested in a class action lawsuit please email me I am working with an attorney in NC right now.

Word of advice... go with the local Telephone Company book as primary (Whoever it may be), add another independent on if it works well.

We are dealing with AT&T as well except from another angle. I had originally used their yellow pages to advertise our business like many here. We didn't see the results so I told the rep we where not likely to renew, she said she would like to come by and discuss it. I said I would visit as a courtesy but wasn't likely to renew. She came by the office when I wasn't there and when my mother in law was waiting for us to return. My mother in-law(who has no involvement with our company at all) signed the papers with my signature at the behest of the representative.

Weeks later I get a bill, I call and say I never renewed this and won't be paying. They said they have a signature and a contract. They have turned us over to collections but to me this is simply theft. They played a seniour citizen and have a fake signature but heh it's good enough for AT&T. We are thinking about suing them.

We are in the middle of a nightmarish dispute with AT&T yellowpages.com. The basic story is that the salesperson fraudlently applied my signature to a contract that we were never presented with. We filed a complaint with Better Business Bureau in St. Louis and about to file a consumer complaint with the Missouri States Attortney Generals office. Better Business is working with us to find a resolution. It may go to mediation and then to arbitration. AT&T is required to respond to BBB complaints in 10 days. Attorney General takes longer. Go to www.ago.mo.com to get a complaint form. AT&T is out of Missouri so you must file in that state. I am passing this information along, since it was very difficult to figure out how to get help. We do not have a resolution yet, but I will continue to post with updates on our situation, hopefully it will be helpful to someone one else in the same situation. If anyone one else out there has had success in beating AT&T, I'd appreciate hearing how you did it.

I advertised with Bell South/AT&T. I started with a 3 column 1/2 color page for $1470 a month and did OK. The next year I was approached by Sprint and offered the same size add for $800 a month. I took this to AT&T to see if they would match the offer and they did not. I reduced their Ad to a 1/4 page B/W for $900. a month and got the Sprint add also for $800. to be in both the books that serviced Orlando. $1700. a month I was paying now but did not get any more calls that year than before. I added Internet advertising by both YellowPages.com from AT&T and DexKnows.com from Sprint/Embarq the next year and now was paying over $2000. a month. for the next 2 years with no increase in calls. AT&T told me that I needed a Full page add at $3000. a month to get by plumbing business off the ground and get enough calls to hire employees which is what I was trying to do so I went for it and asked each customer that call how they found my number. $4000. a month between the 2 books and still no more calls than the last year. A full Page 2 Color Ad in AT&T and a 3 column Color Ad in Embarq/Sprint and no more calls. My customer were coming from Google or was repeat business or referrals. Very little from the YP books.
I could not pay the bills and got $35, 000. in debt to AT&T and $6, 000. in Debt to Embarq and it was time to renew. Nether book would let me Advertise in the next book till I paid up or prepaid for the next year. Without any advertising I would go out of business and then how would you get your money I told them. I put $6000. on my company credit card to Embarq and signed up for in-column adds for the next year at $600. a month. I put $4000. om my company credit card to AT&T to prepay for Internet ads on YellowPages.com.
The new year starts and I am out of contract from AT&T but they still kept sending a late charge bill each month for $500. adding to the now $40, 000. I owe them and the Economy tanks and I cant come up with the money to pay my own pay check every week now let alone the YP bill. Now this year I am in debt with Embarq again as well as maxed out company credit cards I used to pay them last year but 6 months into the year AT&T stops sending me the late charge bill and I think they gave up on getting any money from me, then I get a call from them saying if I sign up with them for next years book and Internet with a minimum of $400. a month and not default. They would cancel my back bills and I would owe them $0.
I look at the paperwork and it said I could not enter into any suit against them and was wondering if there was a class action suit I was missing out on.
I know that a $400. a month ad would bring no calls at all and I would be just settling with them for $4800. /$400 a month but I still have no calls coming in and may not be able to pay that. Then they would just ad that to what I owe.
Any advice? They pushing a deadline on me.

AT&T advertising is suing me for a 1/2 page ad I spoke with a rep about, but never saw a proof of. The ad went to print, was not what I wanted, and I am now being sued over this. any advice?

Had a dishonest rep who kept telling us to go bigger, bigger & bigger. We did and lost money each time our ad increased in size all the way up to a 2 page ad. We got rid of that rep and was on the their next rep. He lied also and we once again got scammed. No one at the company would listen so I quit paying the bill. 6 months later they wanted to talk and admitted they were wrong. Then the send me a manager to take care of the mess. He knows I'm losing money on my ad by my metered calls. This person tells me he created the ad next to mine and that competitor was getting 3 times as many calls as mine and that we needed to let him create our ad. I knew this was a crock and naturally I contacted the competitor. The owner never heard of this guy! He had not created their ad nor was he their sales rep. We had a lengthy conversation and he said they had been losing money on their ad also.

We have had a dispute with at&t yellow page (bapco) based out if Georgia. We were misrepresented by the sales rep (he actually lied) and had us sign the contract without any proofs. As the book cameout we saw the ad and others, which he told us will have their city, state listed (NC new ruling that any co. not local must list their city and state on the ads -for perishable goods)...When we brought this up with the regional manager
he told us that the sales rep was not authorized to tell us such things. After writing to them several times and mailing the NC ordinances etc. now they are suing us for nonpayment. we have written a complaint to NC attorney generals office -consumer affairs department. Additionally, our new book is out, we are not on one line listing in the yellow pages (they have tens of complimentary listings of businesse who are not in existence, but took us completely out). Additionally, their new ads from our out-of-state order gatherer (reduced by 50%) have listing of the HQ, which we insisted and were lied to. We will pursue further, but don/t know what the
attorney general's office will do...any other suggestions out there for us. Our case is different but same story, we were lied to and nothing is given in writing.

sardhadm

I was talked into a full page add in the 08 Orlando Bell South/AT&T Yellow page book and a Internet ad on YellowPages.com for $3000, 00+ a month. They showed me a return of investment print out that stated 100 calls a month and with only 33 sold calls I would get $10, 000.00 in sales.
The most calls I got in a month from AT&T Yellow Page users was 15. And the most sales from people using AT&T ads for a month was $2000.00.
I paid what I could each month but could not keep up with the bill. They sent me to a collection company named Credit Watch. They called every day and told me they would call my neighbors and tell them what a deadbeat I was and They are going to take my house. I told them that I know they can't do that because I was a corporation, but that did not seem to mater to them. I stopped answering there calls and then started getting calls from a different collection company. When the 1 year contract was over I continued to get a bill from AT&T for a $500.00 late charge each month. At that point I realized I would never be able to catch up and stopped paying the bill.
I was served a summons Nov 24 2009 and am being sued for $44000.00+
I can not believe that a company that I hired to make my phone ring and make my business successful is now destroying my company and life. I will have to close my business and file chapter 7 because the Yellow Pages do not work and I signed a contract.
To anyone out there that thinks that AT&T will just write off your debt and leave you alone. Take it from me, They will destroy you and not bat an eye. DO NOT SIGN A 12 MONTH CONTRACT WITH ANY ADVERTISER. GO WITH A SEO THAT CAN GET YOU ON GOOGLE ON A MONTH TO MONTH CONTRACT. I have got more calls from customers using Google than I ever got from AT&T Yellow Pages or YellowPages.com
And if there is a class action law suit I can get in on, Call me.
www.DrainDoctorPlumbers.com
I may only be in business till spring. Good Luck to all of you on your fight. Call if you think I could help.

I am interested in joining a class action suit against AT & T yellowpages (they renewed my account without my consent despite the fact that the rep has it on record that I was undecided). His manager just told me AT&T 'can' renew without a consenting signature if they wish. BTW, I have been an AT & T yellowpages advertiser for over 10 years on a year to year annually renewed contract but decided to quit this year as it seemed ineffective. Recommendations please (transwd@aol.com)

I'm 22 and I signed up with ATT yellowpages last August. My sales rep told me I was getting my ad with a website included as part of a "bundle package" He says my first bill starts in March for $580.00, so I agreed in the voice contract. November comes along and ATT calls me saying I'm past due $1, 060 for my website. I told them "No the websites included with my "bundle package" I dont pay you until March, thats what my voice contract says" The ATT collecter then said that if I dont pay a minimum of $580 my ad wont be published. I paid the $580 then found out that I'm paying $300 a month for my yellow page ad and $280 for a website through yellowpages.com. I told them "Look you guys tricked me into your bundle package, my rep never told me I'm paying $280 for a website. I can make my own website for $30 a month, this is B.S. I wont pay that. I'll pay for my yellowpage ad but not this crappy website". Since early december when I started my buisiness, I've advertised on craigslist everyday and have gotten all my calls from them. I ask every customer where they saw my ad and 99% said craigslist, only 2 people have said yellowpages (although the book has just came out) I have yet to pay yellowpages until they get rid of my overpriced website that has my last name spelled wrong. They call me once a week wanting money money money! Its always more than the last time! I would like to join a class action lawsuit against them if there is one in California. I will cancel the yellowpages when my contract ends. I only wish I read this negative feedback last August, lesson well learned.

Take it from me, Pay there bill. they will sue you into bankruptcy. They know there days are numbered. They are scamming as much as they can before they lose all there customers to Google. I will dance on there grave. I laugh with glee every time there new book is less pages than the year before. DIE DIE DIE!

complain to the attorney general where your from. there is alot of people including me that is having a dispute with att advertising. Also call better business bureau.
good luck with the deceptive advertisers. who lie and cheet don't pay the rip offs

I have to pick up legal mail today from them ###-I already know it's a lawsuit. They couldn't get the ads right in the first place and I even called and cancelled before it went to print. Also-on the proofs they sent that were all mispelled-I wrote on that proof I already cancelled the contract/advertising thru At & t and you people can't even get it right to begin with. It was also a listing for a area in Cleveland-30 miles away and for my business it wouldn't help me anyhow-people don't come to me from Cleveland. Low and behold-they put it in print then when they started calling for payment I slammed their ### for even printing it. Now they say if I was to cancel it's in the fine print I had to send a certified letter stating this. I said it didn't take a certified letter to start the contract-they are full of ###. Yes any class action suits out there ? Please send me info to Wlightning3@yahoo.com

I am sorry that you are not happy with yellowpages.com. I was looking online found a website that you can have a ebillboard for FREE. Just go to seekshallfind.com. I was talking to my friend Frank he sign up for a ebillboard. He told me that he is glad that he got a ebillboard. His business just moved to a new building he went to change this info with yellow book and was on hold for 35 Minutes waiting for someone to talk to. When he went to his ebillboard and change his info and it took him just few minutes.

I filed a complaint to the BBB against at&t yellowpages and they inturn took civil action by filing against me in a texas court. I complained to the BBB that they were were ignoring the BBB complaint (of which they are a member, supposedly in good standing-you be the judge) and the BBB did get them back to discussions. AT&T obviously does not care about Customers. No one has EVER treated me like they have. Please review my complaint and their response at this BBB website link:
http://stlouis.app.bbb.org/complaint/view/1384588/c/vd8m8a
The total cost ended up being just over $2, 000, a couple hundred hours of work and the most frustrating ordeal of my life.
STAY AWAY FROM AT&T