I received a call at the beginning of November 2009 in regards to advertising in Neighborhood Watch magazine that would be distributed to 20, 000 homes in my area. The caller, Hollie, said that our company was the only one of it's kind in the magazine so far. I said okay and she said I would be faxed a proof.
A couple weeks later I finally got the proof, only the contact info was wrong. It also had a deadline of Nov. 17 and the ad would run as is if no corrections were made. I didn't send back the proof right away, and that same day I recieved another call from Hollie with the exact same sales pitch, including the part about being the only company of our kind in the magazine. It really didn't matter to me if there were 100 other companies of the same kind, I just didn't like that she lied because obviously there was at least 1 other company, which was mine, but she obviously forgot that she'd phoned me.
So instead of trying to explain to her that she had already called me and I'd already agreed, as I thought this would only confuse her, I told her that I wasn't interested, to which she replied "You don't like getting business? " I said that we already advertise in several places and didn't need any more right now. She then said "I've NEVER seen your company advertised, and I read a LOT" in a very rude, snide tone. I said again no thank you, and she hung up on me.
I immediately took the proof I had been faxed earlier and wrote on it about how their telemarketer was rude and a liar and that I didn't need to defend myself against a rude old woman and I was cancelling the ad. The next day, I got another fax telling me that I was confusing their salesperson with someone else, and the ad could not be cancelled.
I did look online to see who I could call about this to know if I was really obligated and not allowed to cancel the ad. Another fax was sent to me, this time with the due date changed to Nov. 30, but the info was still wrong. After no luck with any help, and it not even occuring to me to type "Cedar Publishing scam" into Google, (I wish I had!) and since they were refusing to cancel the ad and were going to run it incorrectly anyways, I faxed back "Fine, run the ad then but use these corrections. And I still think your telemarketer is a rude old woman." lol
I really hate the idea that I might be stuck supporting these scammers, but am I really obligated to pay a company known as fradulent even though I did fax an approval?
If anyone has any advice on this matter, please help! I would greatly appreciate it and would like to know my rights. Thanks!
0 comments