You are not alone !! Response from others:
Similarly we have been faced with the same problem. Same tactics and even without any confirmation of the advertisement
The company were billed with the advertisement.
Todate we have refuse to pay not for any other reason but in principle we did not agree to any placing of an advertisement.
Fully agree that there will be many of us being taken in by their unscrupulous trick.
Thank you
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Thks we are having the same experience as you, however out of innocent and fear we had negotiated for a aborting ad at the cost of $1487.50. However payment was not made as at till dated.
I supported your action and I think it should goes to CAD as well rahter than ACRA which is not their concern.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I will write in too.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
The same thing happened to me, when I received an invoice, I call them up and told them that my company is a one-man-show and i did
not have the budget to pay the amt of $4250. The lady who answered the phone told me that "in that case I will have to pay the amount of
$1600 for the admin fees as they have already process the advertisement ie the artwork have been done. I said sorry I do not have such an
amt. They asked me to fax my bank statement which I did. And they did not come back to me again.
Every year, I still receive the same letter from them which I dont bother opening.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I have the same experience as your wife. We have written to the company and so far we have not responded to us.
It is extremely misleading and I told it is Yellow Pages!
I will dig out my file and complain to ACRA.
Thank you and rgds
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Noted your comments. We will write in toe ACRA on an official basis.
Hope that the authority will look into it.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Thanks for trouble.
I am sending the letter to Acra by post
You are not alone !! Response from others:
thank for e mailing me. We shared the same experience as your wife. They have been sending us lawyer letters etc, we did not reply. Is there other way we can approach this matter beside this.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Pls ring xxxxx at xxxxxxxx . she has tons of stories to tell you abt this stupid scam thing. Gosh..........
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Your email has actually speak from my heart; in other word, I have "kanna" the same incidence as your wife's company did.
Initially I received a letter to update my company product, thought is Singapore Business Pages by Yellow Pages. Then I signed the letter with company chop without any doubt until I received an invoice asking me to pay 4K+. Then I was realize the whole incidence is a business strategy. I then called to this company and told them I did not realize this is actually an advertising agent not from Yellow Pages. In the phone I requested to reduce the size of advertisement to quarter page with amount of S$1,800+ and they agree.
Few weeks later one of the staff call me to give them the artwork for my company logo, product or even photo. There is no artwork approval since then and till this moment I have not received any what your called "Singapore Business Pages 2007". This is the first time and going to be last time for my mistake. I have learn my lesson and I hope will not "Kanna" again.
What about your case? Do you pay any money?
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I didn¡¯t get a lawyer, wrote to them a few times, offer them a couple of hundreds, they didn¡¯t want to accept. ?After that, haven¡¯t heard from them.
?
I will write in to ACRA later. Â
You are not alone !! Response from others:
You are right! I will write to ACRA and lodge a complaint.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Ur message received and yes,I share the same sentiment as you on this 'unscrupulous" tactic used. In fact,I do not know that my company was listed as one of the "intended advertiser' because I refused to pay up when they kept chasing for payment.It has been 3-4 months since I last heard from them.
We actually thought it was merely an update of company's particulars and replied readily.We only came to realise that it could be a scam after they started to send us invoices for the intended advertisement fees.I called back and spoke to the receptionist immediately to inform them that it was a mistake and we had no intention to advertise at all but thought it was an update of informations only.I was told to write in ,which I did with faxes as well as e-mails explaining our stand and request to de-list our name from the advertisers' list.
As expected,they came back stating that we have entered into a contract and that legal actions would be taken on us if we do not comply.I refused to accept their "threats'' and argued back that why it took them 3 months from the time our first fax reached them til the time they came back to me with the invoice and in between this period of time,nobody came to us requesting for company's profile such as scope of businesses,products listings,pictures taken for advertising purposes?
It took them another 3 weeks for them to reply with a counter proposal at a discounted rate of $3400 or $2500 (half page) or $1478.50 for cancellation fees if I were to decide to cancel totally!
Of course I did not accept his proposal and still waiting for their lawyer's letter(if any).That was the last time we heard from them(25/06/2007).
Anyway,I will also write in to ACRA to complain and thanks for sharing your experience on this issue.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Thanks for ur mail and I have suffered by them the same way approached to u .....
I will make the same complaint of u to ACRA without fail
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Dun worry, give him a good fight and dun lose sleep over it.
Cheers.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I have read your attachment and it is very well written, hope our authority will take actions on this so call un authorise dealings.
I did receive two invoices one a few months ago and it wasted my time, I have to call them and told them that the last time I called and told you that I did not subscribe to their Biz Pages.
I think you are doing the write thing to help cleanse our Singapore Biz images.
God Bless you,
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I fully agree with you on the sales tactics used by this company. They are deceitful.
I would be happy to lend my name to any submission to ACRA in regards to the Singapore Business Pages.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I am so glad to hear from you and to know I am not alone in this 'scam'.
I received a fax from the company asking me to look through the listing to update the information. Thinking that it was from one of the directories which I advertised on a regular basis, I amended the details and fax back without much thought.
A few weeks later, I received a faxed invoice from the company. Attached to the invoice was the 'contract' which I had supposedly signed for. I noticed the contract was pasted on the company's letterhead which had detailed information on the contract which I had not notice before. I got suspicious and ignored the invoice.
Some time passed before I received a letter from the company threatening to follow up with a lawyer's letter if I did not pay up. I called the company. The person who picked up the call sounded like a foreigner - possibly a Filipino. I explained to him the situation and aired my displeasure. I left message with him for his boss to call me to explain the situation. Of course, I never heard from anyone.
I thought the matter was closed as the perpetrator would have been scared off. But recently, I received yet another 'final letter' warning me that I would have to face court action if I did not pay up.
I have no intention of paying a cent nor do I want to spend time and money on legal fees too because there is no proof that I signed any original document nor approved the artwork for the advertisement.
However, I will be most willing to support all others who have been duped.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
We have same experience. They threatened legal actions when we try to cancel the arrangement.
We decide to meet them by asking for a sales staff to come down. They did not send anyone but wanted to give us a hefty discount.
We insist on seeing a sales/ customer service staff for that kind of money to be paid. Still they did not send anyone and to date we have not paid anything.
Hope you did not lose any money.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I recalled I didn't pay for the adv, ignored few repeat invoice, now seem like case close at my end. You pay them ?
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Will write to ACRA and worn other businesses that I know
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I have never advertised with them. They kinda cornered me into it but I just ignored them. Someone complained about them in the New Paper last year.. many were tricked. Be careful.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Thanks for writing. In fact I fell into the same scam.
I received an invoice which stated something like artwork and design (something like that). How can they just published and charge me when I have not even seen or agreed with the artwork? And if I know that they are going to charge me for that, I will surely not want to proceed with any publication.
When I receive the invoice, I did call and tell them to cancel but they play delay tactic and decoyment and say that they did not receive my instruction. I also wrote to them and they told me they have already published and wanted me to pay a cancellation fee.
It has been past number of months and they wrote letter threathening to sue me. I simply ignore them.
You have my support to bringing it up to the authority before more people fall prey to their unscrupulous trick.
Rgds
You are not alone !! Response from others:
I do understand your situation there.
These guys are bad news.
My thoughts are that these threats of legal action are just a trick to get companies to pay...and it seems that many do pay.
I am still trying to find the email I sent but will track it down and share it with you soon.
I will get back to you.
You are not alone !! Response from others:
Yes, I got Con too. That company first fax me a FOC advertizing and thereafter bill me. The way they modified the agreement that I have to pay abt $4K. I made a police report therafter.