Scams abound

Recently, the Chamber found itself the potential target of two scam attempts. The first dealt with the yellow pages (not to be confused with Yellow Book). The caller said he was contacting us to confirm our listing in the yellow pages and once he did so, he went on to explain that our advertising rate would remain at the 2008 level of $431 for this year. When I told him we had never paid to have information placed in yellow pages. He said we had to have paid since he had our information. We went round and round until I simply told him we were not paying for the space and he could remove us from the book. He then asked if we closing our office and assured him we were not but we were not paying. End of conversation! Advertising pages are known for sending official looking envelopes with pretty realistic invoices inside. Many of these are not legitimate bills and should not be paid. Only pay for advertising for which you have a signed contract in hand.

The second instance involved a call from Credit Recovery International on behalf of Progressive Business Publications. They claimed that we owed $240 for a 12-month subscription, that we had received five issues and five invoices as well. They has the first 2 numbers of my birth date and said that proved I had taken out the subscription. They offered to settle for only $100 - the cost of the five issues we were supposed to have received. She accused us of throwing out the invoices, not recognizing the mailings to be ordered publications and pretty basically of lying.

I asked her for a day to check out the claim. We then contacted out attorney who prepared a
letter to both parties indicating that no payment would be forthcoming as we never ordered the publication. Susan Bays in our office Googled Progressive Business Publications and found numerous complaints against them which described the exact same numbers and information given to me on the phone. Our attorney included a reference to the claims as well as copies in his letters. We have not heard from either since.

You know, the thing that bothered me was that even though I knew I had not placed the order, after being harangued for 10 minutes on the phone, I started to doubt myself. I imagine that this is an usual response and the sad thing is that when that happens, I bet some people write the check.

Anytime you have questions about phone solicitations, letters or "invoices" you receive in the mail or any other promotion of which you question the validity, call the Better Business Bureau at 1-800-743-4222 or go their website at www.adrianbbb.org. Their office is in Toledo and serves northeast Ohio and southeast Michigan. Report any attempted scams to the Chamber office as well, so that we can we make others aware.