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Are there any other business owners on PW that have had issues of inaccurate yellow page ads? Since 2005 HI TEl has made some sort of mistake on our ad and then we are of course stuck with it for the entire year, but still responsible to pay. Each year I am given an apology and a promise to fix it the next year, but we're batting 0 out 5 here. I'm not sure if we'll bother next year. What are our legal rights here? HI TEL says since it's for the whole year we are responsible to pay even though they can not fix it. This is just bad business. Thanks for the opportunity to vent. Angela
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Sounds like it's time just to have a letter written by an attorney just to get their attention!
Royall
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I did state wide Yellow Pages for a few years and with carefully tracking was able to determine that I got 99% of my inquiries from the web site and 1% or less from the phone book. Get a new phone number, dump the yellow pages and its bill and go on the internet.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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I agree with Rob on the usefulness of Yellow pages. The only calls we've gotten in the last couple of years off of it have been with people inquiring about employment. This year we got rid of the expensive ad and just went with the basic listing, for the sole purpose of people being able to find us, but it's still a few hundred a year. I know in my personal experience it helps bolster a business's credibility to at least be listed in the phone book, but I've never dealt with any worst customer service or plain incompetence. Rob, can you legally change your number and just stop paying your bill? Couldn't they pursue it further since it is in effect a contract? Not sure if it would be worth it to track down all the lines where it would need to be changed. We also have a lot of repeat customers that we might lose touch with. I think at this point I'll pay the bill, but WILL not bother to renew next year. The other phone publications will list you with a basic listing for free, only HI TEL makes you pay. I just found out that only people with a landline get the phone book delivered; with the number of people dropping their landlines for cell phones I think their importance will wane.
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As I recall I dropped them mid year and changed my number and ended the billing. It was costing me a few hundred a month.... totally wasted.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
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Angela- I have sent you a few private messages..have you received them?
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Hi Heather, I just checked my spam box, sometimes punaweb messages go there, but there was nothing but spam. You can email me at :
inwailuku at yahoo.com
