Yell .com CON Beware

[Poshfloss]

Hi All,
I am up in arms with my bank, Yell.com started to take variable amounts of money by direct debit from my account. 3 x £284, I contacted them they said it was an unpaid account, No I did not owe them anything and had not recently set up any direct debit with them. They must have still had details from the prevous years advertising.
Hubby went into bank and had it stopped, bank said that was an end to it, didn't tell him to do anything else. That was back in March.
I went into bank yesterday to alter a standing order, only to notice on banks screen Yell.com have take £384 out the day before.
I questioned the bank clerk how this could happen, he said, that they can just change the direct debit slightly and re take money from my account. Hubby is fuming, usual business manager is off sick, and can't get hold of temporary business manager.
So I am on this now, but never again will I have a direct debit on any account the only safe way, so that you are in control is with a standing order, the bank have told me that and so has my accountant.
Bank will get a shock when they do see us, if they don't get the money back we are moving 2 business accounts and 2 personal accounts from them.
The very madening thing is I don't have an over draft on this account, never asked for one. The bank let my account go overdrawn by £200. Surely this is not right, my usual business manager would not have done this, she always phones to tell me, you are close to overdrawn, put some cash in if you need a payment to go through.
I will report back when I have dealt with this manager.
So all be aware they can just take your money!!!!
x :hug: x

 

[Poshfloss]

Bump, Has this happened to anyone else?
Would think I will be changing my bank, any advice of who to go with, I don't want online banking, I want to go into a real bank.
Thanks in advance.
x :hug: x

 

[Ruth Mills]

3 lots of £284 is a lot of money to take without permission. I would spank them with the Direct Debit Guarantee - or does that only apply to payments taken from consumer accounts as opposed to business accounts? Still very bad business practice of them to do that though!
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[tonilee]

I had the same issue with a very well known company who I had payed for goods with my switch card in the past.....they randomly decided to take some money out of my account last year and low and behold as they had my card details they could do so!!!

Same thing happened with an advertising company recently, I agreed to a dd of £40 a month they didnt mention anything about a £600 deposit.......but used the dd details to help themselves to this amount

I went ballistic and the bank had it back from them and in my account in 4 days thank goodness.
As for the other company I never persued it but did cancel my card and get a new one.
You cant be careful enough these days its ridiculous.

 

[teeka3pn]

"he said, that they can just change the direct debit slightly and re take money from my account".

Hiya,

If the Bank have been instructed to cancel the DDR and they have cancelled it correctly on what is called the Originator number then no payments should have been allowed to go through, if however they have presented the payment under a different originator number surely this would then constitue to a new DDR instruction??
If so it's not one you have signed or authorised.
Hope you get it sorted out really quickly,


Ali xxxx

 

[Ruth Mills]

It just seems incredibly bad business practice to take unsolicited payments like that though; it risks seriously alienating existing customers, and giving one's business a bad reputation thus scaring away potential new customers too. Hardly good business sense!
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[angelina221]

I genuinely believe that a bank is only as good as the bank manager.
I bank with HSBC at the moment and they have been great. I get on really well with the staff and they know me personally but another branch of HSBC could be completely different.
I am changing banks soon to Co-operative bank. I am a member of the FSB so i get free banking for life with them.
Unfortunately the co-op don't have any branches so everything is done by phone but i have had my personal account with them for over 20 years and can honestly say that i've never had any problems with them.

 

[loubylou]

Is it Natwest by any chance,
they are great at giving your money away and then charging you for been overdrawn without ever giving you any notice,
i have closed 1 account down with them already over a similar situation and thrown many a rant in the branch (not that it gets you your money back)
hope you get it sorted hun,
i have had my business account with HSBC for over 2 yrs now and not 1 problem, hth

 

[pure]

Doesn't the DD guarantee state that any amendment to a dd has been notified to you 10 days in advance?

If you don't manage to get this sorted with your branch manager I would go to the banking ombudsman, because they are most definately not allowed to do this.

 

[Poshfloss]

Is it Natwest by any chance,
they are great at giving your money away and then charging you for been overdrawn without ever giving you any notice,
i have closed 1 account down with them already over a similar situation and thrown many a rant in the branch (not that it gets you your money back)
hope you get it sorted hun,
i have had my business account with HSBC for over 2 yrs now and not 1 problem, hth

Hi,
Yes it is Nat West, and hey ho I recieved a letter this morning telling me they are taking £30 aswell for me being overdrawn, I never asked for an overdraft on that account, they let it go overdrawn. I tried Thursday and again Friday to speak with the business manager, no joy. So spoke with central office, they tried while I waited on the line, said they couldn't get him either, but would send internal email and I would get a call within 4 hours........that was Friday morning and I am still waiting now Saturday. I will hunt him out Monday. Hubby is firing on flames...I love it when he kicks off in places like banks, he is such a calm, quiet easy going man......until things like this. He can be fun to watch.
Thank you all for advice I will definately not let this lie.
Lotsa luv x :hug: :hug: x

 

[pure]

Let us know how you get on with this because it's something we all need to be aware of. Good luck!! :hug:

 

[Poshfloss]

Thanks to you all for advice and just being there for me.
Will keep you updated, I will have to wait until Monday now.
x :hug: x

 

[Pebbles#1]

So glad you posted this on here. Yell contacted me on Thursday about doing a priority ad with them, said I would consider it, and I have to say I was 70% convinced it would be good for business. Not now!!!
Customer service in this country is appauling and if they can treat you like this they can do it to me. Thanks for making others aware. I shall be giving them a wide berth! x

 

[olabecee]

Thanks for the post as yell contacted me also on thursday morning trying to sell me their priority advertisement. I was almost going to sign up but I wanted to discuss with my husband as he's advised me not to spend too much on advert. I told the lady to call me back on monday but as it now, I'll not be signing up.

Thanks a lot for the info.

 

[Poshfloss]

Hi,
One thing I must warn you all of, I am sure those of you who have already dealt with Yell will know. They are very very pushy sales people, they work on commision and don't give up easily .
They try to catch you when you are busy, then you can end up agreeing to something just to get rid of them .
We have found the only part of the Yell group to work for us is the old Yellow pages, but again for a couple of years we got swept up into a very large advert for hubby's company :irked:. It did not bring in the work the advert cost, he still uses yellow pages for his business, but just a very small ad, and I feel we don't cover the costs of that with business that comes in.
I do try to monitor our advertising, I generally ask where they have got our number from, as we put flyers out, have the vehicles sign written etc. It is a bouncy castle business.
Lotsa luv x :hug: x

 

[andywales]

Hi, You can ask your bank to perform a direct debit indemnity claim. In basic terms it means the bank can recall the money from the account of the bank it was sent to. Also if a company does change the ammount (or date) of the direct debit they have to provide written notice ten days in advance of doing so. Hope this helps! Worked at a bank for a while inbetween leaving and coming back to the industry. (To be honest I think my clients only come in if they have a bank problem )

 

[thinkpink2008]

Hi,
One thing I must warn you all of, I am sure those of you who have already dealt with Yell will know. They are very very pushy sales people, they work on commision and don't give up easily .
They try to catch you when you are busy, then you can end up agreeing to something just to get rid of them .
We have found the only part of the Yell group to work for us is the old Yellow pages,

i agree 100%, i had serious fallings out with a yell employee last month which included him being rude to me and my business partner. he called me a liarand was harrassing me with phone calls. it got to the stage where i stopped answering the phone then did 1471 to ring people back as long as it wasn't him. he then stopped contacting me and i was contacted by another employee in a different department checking why we had not placed an ad this year as we have for the previous 6. i have agreed to the ad in the book only and not yell.com. a formal complaint is being filed against thismember of staff, i dont know what it will do but i wanted them to know how unproffesional and rude he was!

 

[kylieb]

Just a thought but when hubby went into the bank he should have got a receipt to say the bank had cancelled it. Dig it out if he hasnt lost it because that will be evidence to bol*** them.
Absolutely awful hun, that is a bliming lot of money! You must be fuming and rightfully so!
I really hope you get it sorted and get your money back asap xxx

 

[leonnib]

i called yell to find out how much a listing was. but in the end i just decided to do a free listing that was about 5 weeks ago..

then i had numerous calls asking me about paying for an ad.. and yes they are totally pushy i said several times im not interested but they keep calling and leaving voicemails.
since then i have a call from yell at least 5 times a week sometimes twice a day. i have now saved the number so i keep on ignoring it...

but i dont understand why they keep ringing if you say your not interested.
i have asked twice to not call me but hasnt worked.... so i just hope they give up soon

 

[glitz and glam]

I advertised a previous business through yellow pages and yell.com. we did generate custom but also ALOT of sales people who had just gone through yell.com! Verry frustrating when you have customers to serve and staff to manage at the peak of your season.
They also never had a proof sent back to them agreeing the ad but printed(the proof said they had to have it back to go forward with the order) it anyway and we didnt know this till we recieved a very large invoice, i was not a happy bunny
To top it all the colours were no where near the proof our logo was black and white and came out pink and almost black as did other company logos that we put on the ad.
After about 3 day - no joke- of being past from one person to the other i finally made my way to the complaints manager who sorted it out and got a refund (we were set up on a dd too).
The very friendly and yes pushy sales woman never showed her face in the shop and told them we had phoned her to ok the ad, we didnt. We dont do big advertising with them anymore as weve lost the trust.

Good luck hun, definately fight for your money back. its bad that your bank cant help you neither.