This company called my husband at our shop and asked him if he would be interested in renewing our ad with them for the coming year. My husband thought that they were the Yellow Pages and that I had okayed this advertising the year before so he said yes to save me the time of having to call the yellow pages myself. After the first conversation where he was told that this would be a renewal ad he was put through to someone and the conversation was then taped. They taped him answering yes to a bunch of questions asked like "was he the owner and did he have authority" and of course he said yes to all of them because he thought he was dealing with a local yellowpages company. In this taped conversation there was no mention of the word renewal and that was left out.
When I got the invoice I asked him what it was about and he told me it was from the yellow pages. I told him it wasn't and he was floored. It was a bill for 499.95 plus gst. I said that I would call and cancel it after the weekend. My husband received a call from an employee first thing in the morning after the weekend asking how we were going to be paying the invoice. When my husband told him we wouldn't be paying we were going to cancel because they tricked him into thinking it was a renewal the guy hit the roof. He told my husband that the renewal they told him about was taken out by them on our behalf last year for free, which was shocking. He became verbally abusive and demanded $130.00 cancellation fee. My husband hung up on him and I called the company back expecting to come to an agreement.
The man on the other end told me that I had to pay or he would send us to collections. I listened to the conversation that they taped and it did make it sound like they just had an agreement but the conversation before where they tricked him was left out and I was told that the first conversation was not taped, how convenient for them! I spent the morning on the phone with the Consumer Protection of Alberta and then the Competiton Bureau of Canada and was told that I should have a 10 day cooling off period to renag on the agreement after seeing the invoice. When I told the employee this he yelled at me and said that of course the government agencies were going to say that but their terms and conditions tell me that I have to pay. I told him I would not be paying. They sent us a fax stating that they had 2 separate conversations with my husband and that there was a recorded one we could listen to. I called Phonebusters and reported this company and they told me to write a cancellation letter telling them that I would not pay until both of the conversations they refer to are available to me.
This just happened so I am not sure what will come of the situation but have very ill feelings toward that company and their employee.
Anonymous
Black Diamond, Alberta
Canada
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