Dex Media
Reviews and Complaints

We decided not to renew our phone book business ads since we get no referrals from it. Also we are giving up our landline this year. Now we understand our account is automatically renewed since we did not respond to the letter sent Oct. 28, with a deadline of Nov. 17.
We have a new client manager every year. This new guy never called us to confirm, up sell us, nothing. When I called the main Dex Media 844 number, they said they couldn't help me, only my agent - who wasn't returning my calls.
I signed nothing. I am paid up. I will contact my State Attorney General, as suggested by others.

Dex Media offers Digital advertising services, takes you money and never shows any results. Dex Media also places you on a monthly contract and keep billing you thereafter without any proof of a campaign running. They cycle through employees as well. My opinion is that Dex Media bills you and never delivers what they are offering.

Their billing Department has no idea about what bills are for either and make mistakes.

Dex Media is out to convince small business that they can help grow your audience. Basically they are robbing small businesses of hard earned income.

Mr John K. Lamarche (sales person for Dex Media in the Klamath Falls, OR area) came into the store that I own while I was not there and fraudulently had my employee sign an annual advertising contract that I did not authorize. I had spoken with Mr. Lamarche earlier and listened to his sales pitch. I asked him to come in the store with something in writing that explained the different programs that he offered and then I would consider it and make my final decision. He knew I was leaving that day at 11:00am because I specifically told him to come in before that. He came in after that time and lied to my employee in order to get the contract signed.

John Lamarche told our employee that he had already spoken to me and that I had approved the advertising. He told my employee that he needed to sign the form. Our employee, who has no signing authority, signed a contract because John lied and said that it was already approved.

We have spent numerous hours on the phone with Dex and also our attorney to get this problem resolved. Our attorney sent Dex a letter stating the contract is null and void and therefore they need to clear the charges and terminate the Marketing and Services agreement. They have now turned the account over to collection so we are now being hounded by a collection agent. We are a new, very small business and I feel that Dex is a Predatory Advertiser who encourages its employees to be dishonest (lie if you have to in order to make the sale).

David Snider
Dex account number [protected]

I paid 99 a month to have my business listing displayed at numbers of search engine. I had time to renew my new year contract and new manager took over my listing to find out that my listing is not up and many places it displayed with bogus address. She said she was embarrassed for digital team and will issue a credit and will bring my account in good order. After many appointments that we had with her my listing was not up and running.
I stopped payments. So far 2 month and after frustration new person called and said that my account is not running because of non payment. Common we are trying to see my listing way before i stopped paying, , , , now what?

How DexMedia lost our Domain site, and other complaints below:

We were first approached by Shannon DeBenedictis and her associate, to be sold on how great their company was for building a web site, managing a web site, and driving business to us. We have two companies that we signed up with. When we signed up, we had to have our domains point to Supermedia so that they could manage our website. Our one Company, Viking Clinical Research that has been in business since 2002, had to transfer our domain into Supermedia's in order to get the service. I was told by our representative (Shannon) and their IT staff that they would maintain everything. That included paying for our domain renewal. A renewal that we had been maintaining for 13 plus years.
Well to begin with building our web sites was a nightmare. I had to put so much time into doing it I might as well have built it myself. I complained several times, spent several HOURS on the phone with them, and the web site took twice as long to get up an running as we were promised. I tried to cancel the whole service and was told it was too late we already signed the contract. Our Rep. (Shannon) was no help what so ever. Our web site went down a few times taking our email down as well. I was just buying my time for contracts to end to get rid of the service.

HERE IS THE KICKER; January 13, 2016 our WEB SITE and EMAIL went down, only to find out that DexMedia DID NOT RENEW OUR DOMAIN name of 13 plus Years. NO DID I GET CONTACTED to notify us that it was expiring. So now we lost our domain name, our email and our web presence. We have spent upwards of $10, 000. to get our domain name back. We had to start over with a new domain, new email, new web site. In the mean time Dexmedia billed us for Feb., March, and April for advertising they did not do.
Our other business that was with Dexmedia their contract ended in April 2016. I moved my service another provider and contacted Dexmedia to cancel my contract. Dexmedia renewed that contract without my knowledge even though I cancelled them. They also renewed the Viking Contract without telling me. What is so funny about this is when I was on the phone with the accounting office they said that they Renewed Vikings contract and they were not even hosting us for 3 1/2 months and they were billing us. They are continuing to BILL us for both accounts and they sent us to collections. I have been on the phone with them several times, I keep getting told I have to speak with and account specialist and I never get calls back. We have an attorney that we have spent thousands of dollars with just to get our domain back but because the contract with Dexmedia states we have to go to Texas to arbitrate or sue it looks as though we are screwed. We cannot continue to throw good money after bad. The worst mistake was allowing the company reps into our office. I have never heard back from her since we lost the sight. They never tried helping us to get our domain back. This company and their employees are crooks! If anyone wants to contact us to get more information please feel free to call me at [protected].
BEWARE IF THEY COME TO YOUR BUSINESS PROMISING GREAT THINGS KINDLY SHOW THEM THE DOOR!

After falling for the hype from a rep (Kelsey) at DEX Media who promised she could expand our advertising presence in the Atlanta market; we started to get loads more phone calls. The only problem was they were from every state in the union other than the Atlanta area. Absolutely useless and a huge nuisance to my already busy staff who had to field each out of state call individually. When I spoke with the rep regarding the problem, she was unable to assist me further, and couldn't understand why I was not happy with the abundance of new business. New business is great if you can physically service the clients. Being that I run a tree service in Atlanta with a 50-mile radius...driving to Oregon, Maine, Arizona, Kansas, etc. doesn't make much sense. Actually, it's completely useless. Plus, I was offered a 3-month trial run before I realized how useless the service with DEX was.

When I tried to cancel, I was informed that I actually signed up for a 6-month trial. As soon as the 6 months was up...the bills continued. When I called again, I was informed that it was actually a 1-year contract. WHAT? Really? Kelsey the rep "spoke with her manager" who stated that they would cancel the contract (that I DID NOT sign up for), and only bill the remaining 3 months at 1/2 price. I figured I would thankfully never see another DEX Media bill or notice ever again...then here we go again. 2016 invoices for service started to fill my mailbox. When I called, the automated system stated they were having billing issues and the hold times would be long...hours long. I began to send emails, which came back with "Oh? No you never cancelled your service with us." Are you kidding me? Nothing surprises me when it comes to issues like this with Dex Media. And yes...the bills and continued service still keep arriving! Thanks Kelsey.

I have been trying to cancel my service with Dex Media for months. I have made multiple phone calls, written letters and sent emails. They never answer the phone, no matter what number I use. They do not respond to any letters or emails. They just continue to bill me. I have never seen such blatant disregard for customers!
My bill has more than tripled since originally beginning business with them. Other services have been added, but I have never given permission nor have I spoken with any reps. There has never been any follow up, they just continue to bill me and make it impossible to contact the company.

I had this service the first year and had no interest in renewing the contract. The rep did meet up with me and through graphs and other selling material he convinced me to renew for a second year. I then really started paying attention to what this money was being spent for and found less than a 1.5% return in customers or less in some months. DO NOT ADVERTISE WITH DEX. You will be throwing your money away and will not gain anything from advertising with them. I had to stop paying them in the middle of the year and now even though I do send them $100-300 a month to try to get rid of the albatross on my shoulders, they're still sending me to collections. You can get better results with any other method - especially direct mailing!

I have worked with Dex Media and the representative said that he would help me to bring more traffic to my website. I worked with the lady, who assured me that they would do everything in order to increase the traffic. But it was lie, because after a month the traffic didn’t increase. I regret that I signed the contract for one year. It doesn’t worth it, so be very careful with them!

I was contacted by Dex media to repair my online presence. We discussed what needed to be done and I paid the man a down payment to cleanup my online profiles so all the information in them would match since I moved my business. Immediately I had conflicts with Dex Media over not contacting me when they said they would. They would not respond to emails from me so I requested to cancel cleaning up my internet presence. Dex Media actually emailed me back at that time saying I could not cancel due to a phone advertisement being published for me in a town I did not even work in. I told him that he could not do that without my consent and that he even had to have a proof sent to me before he could advertise for me and that I had to agree with the terms of this ad. I went online to my credit cad company and cancele payment to Dex Media. Never heard another word from them. Then came a phone directory to my doorsteps from the town I do not even want or have ever worked in. In their Electrical contractors page I was listed with an advertisement that even had a phone number that was not my own. I called the number and it forwarded to my cell phone. These people went as far as creating a fake phone number that they could transfer to my phone without my consent. They also used wording and my logo without asking for my consent in doing so. Companies like these are the ones that ruin others businesses. I have not figured exactly what I am going to do about this situation yet. But trust me, I will.

Three days ago i received the phone call from dex media. The man told me that i owed them $5, 000 for the advertisement. When i heard it, i was surprised, but decided to check the information. It turned out that my company hasn’t done any ads for this company. But the man continued to call me and threatened. I asked to provide proof about the deal, but he refused and told me that he would call to the police. They lie and want only money from you.

Contacted support to cancel a duplicate telephone directory listing in June of 2015. I was told the problem was resolved and that my billing would stop effective the end of August, since is when our contract ran out. Received a billing for both accounts today (9/28/15). Three hours later on the phone with representative, I am being told I am responsible for both invoicing and will be responsible for paying $180 for one of the accounts, and now being held accountable for TWO bills.Their team was not willing to work with me and stated that I will be held accountable no matter what. Do not advertise with dex media. They are guaranteed to screw you over.

We received a letter entitled Renewal Notice. We were told to call before 6/25/15 if we did not want to renew. I called 6/17/15 and told Dawn Stults I did not want to renew. She was very pushy and aggressive but I repeatedly told her I did not want to renew. I said I wanted a written confirmation. Finally, she said ok. I asked if I could get written confirmation. She said "They will send you something." I have received nothing. To follow up, I sent an email to [protected]@DexOne.com on June 19. On June 24 I received an email reply saying my contract went from Sept. 2015-Sept. 2015. They did not cancel as they said they would. We are in NO contract with them. We want to cancel!

Beware of Dex Media! After 20 years in business as a service company, we have used several companies for our online and print advertising. Dex is by far the absolute WORST! They over promise and under deliver every time. Our account manager regularly misled us into online products that were completely worthless, when confronted, she would offer another product at a discount to make up for it. When we started to realize how bad they were, we could not get ahold of any form of management and our account manager stopped responding to our emails and calls. Again, we are by no means new to using advertising management companies, and they are the absolute bottom of the barrel. Had a researched them more, I would have seen all of the other poor reviews, and could have saved a lot of time and money by avoiding them.

Dex media conducts illegitimate billing practices and fraudulently makes changes to contracts after they've been signed by customers. In my case i was called repeatedly for approximately 6 weeks and pressured into meeting with a sales person. Upon meeting with the sales person i found that dex advertising was too expensive for what they were offering. I told the sales person i was only willing to pay around $50 / month. She said that most of their packages are over $100 / month but if i signed up immediately i could get into their "promotional" package at $74. 99 / month. I agreed to this and signed my name on a document provided by the sales person. Later i received a bill for $150 / month. I refused to pay this because it is not what i agreed to. I assumed that after 3 - 4 months they would stop running my advertising profile and send me a final bill, this did not occur. What dex did is continued billing me the $150 / month that i never agreed to for over a year and a half. Eventually i started receiving correspondence from a collection agency stating that i owed over $1900. I called the agency and disputed the debt. They emailed me a (Blurred) copy of the document that i had signed however there were changes made to the document. There was now a line (Handwritten) stating the billing amount of $150 / month, this was not on the document when i signed it.

I told the collection agency that i dispute the validity of the debt or at least a portion of it. I mentioned that literally any other company would've stopped service after 3 - 4 months of non payment and that this was a predatory practice to continue billing in an attempt to maximize their profits. The debt collector said, "they couldn't stop my service because i signed a contract. " i argued that companies like verizon, utility companies, etc cancel service for nonpayment contract or no. I also pointed out that my ad package was simply a profile on dex's website that could've easily been removed. The debt collector said, "you signed a contract, good day. " then she hung up on me and then continued calling the very next day.

I made an offer to pay dex $600, the amount i felt was reasonable considering i did sign up for service at $74. 99 / month and that service should've been stopped after 3 - 4 months of nonpayment. The debt collector laughed and said again that i signed a contract and was responsible to pay the full amount. I told her that i absolutely refuse to pay the $1900+ amount because i never agreed to it. I said if they don't want to accept my settlement offer or bill me accurately that they need to stop calling because there is nothing more to discuss. She said, "this is a business debt and we will continue calling. " i asked why they would continue calling if it's already been established that i dispute the debt and refuse to pay. I said that i considered that to be a form of harassment. She did not answer my questions and instead said, "if you don't want to pay we'll just sue your company. "

Dex plain and simply lies about what they are going to charge you. Then once they've gotten you to sign up (Which you wouldn't had they not lied about what your going to be billed) and you dispute what they are billing you they treat you horribly, like you are a deadbeat just trying to get out of paying your bills. Then they'll sick their collection dogs on you and they will harass you to no end whether or not you've contacted them and notified them of your disputing the bill. Then when you dispute the bill they will send you an altered document with handwritten billing amounts.

Please look it up if you don't already know this, but it is standard practice to have handwritten notes / changes to a contract initialed by the parties entering a contract so it can be shown that all parties knew what they were entering into. My contract from dex was all in type except the billing amount which was handwritten. I run a small business with me as the sole employee and all of my companies contracts and billing amounts are typed not hand written. It seems to me a company as big as dex would have the same capabilities as a company run by one person whom is also a single dad with a disabled child to take care of. In essence what i'm saying is, if i can provide clear typed contracts dex surely can do the same. Really dex? Hand written billing amounts?

I strongly advise any and everyone to not do business with dex. They will lie to you and then refuse to work with you or meet in the middle regarding the dispute. It's simply pay the amount you never agreed to or we'll sue you with dex. The truth is they are an outdated service anyway. It's all about google and search engine optimization nowadays. Dex is selling advertising that worked in the 80's (Yellow pages) at the rates that seo companies are charging for current up to date advertising. I assure you if you do business with dex you will be frustrated, disappointed and billed incorrectly, then harassed by their collectors.

I have been advertising with Dex Media West, Dex One, RH Donelly or whoever they say they are now for over 10 years. My bill as of early this year was $230.00 a month. When my rep came in to update the account in June, he told me of a new special they were running where you get another ad in a different subcategory in another place in the book, and upgraded Internet advertising and my bill would only increase by $35 to $45 dollars a month. I said OK and signed the paperwork. In July I recieved a bill for $400! We called and complained to the 800 number and to our rep. Finally got a call back from the rep and he said the new changes took affect IMMEDIATELY but the special pricing didn't start until the new book came out in OCTOBER! I am now paying $280.00 a month and I am going to just finish out the contract even though I am furious. The problem is we kept paying our $230.00 a month for 3 or 4 months to be fair, but now their collections department is hounding us for the remaining amounts we didn't pay, AND THE REP WILL NOT RETURN OUR CALLS AND DEX SAID THEY CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT WE HAVE TO TALK TO OUR REP! I hate this company. In 2011 they will be losing a loyal customer!

DEX MEDIA has continually charged me for yellow page ad that I DID NOT authorize. It was VERBALLY communicated in 5/07 and have been fighting ever since. Phone calls to the Claims Dept are unanswered, incomplete and tell you there is nothing they can do...according to the contract that you might sign 12 years ago!

I had a wonderful experience with Dex and have ad the same rep for over 10 years! They always deliver and I have never seen anything like I'm reading here. Looks like either a bad person was the rep or you might have some issues with the actual business owners making the complaint. What I mean is all stories have two sides and unfortunately you only get one side here. Good Luck and Dex has a great ROI in print and internet!