Hoping the helpful people in PH land can help long story short Last week had a call that our advertising with a company lets call it community print, saying our advert is going ahead and the price will be X Sorry we have not heard of you or given u any authorization for advertising. good bye phone call 2 mins ago. Same guy Sorry I spoke to my boss and to cancel your advert but you needed to sent it in writing 14 days before, So we cannot cancel your advert but we can offer you a half price deal because of this WFT Me -Who gave you authorization? Reply "someone on the phone" Me - their is only 2 people who sort out advertising and that's me and Call them person X. Both who have not given authorization Does not matter we were given permission to do the advert for you me - We look after vulnerable adults, if you spoke to one of them would that be ok for you to go ahead and put a advert in some where and charge us for it? reply - please sir i'm only doing my job We run a family care home. no advertising with this company and have no idea who they are I was told I will get a full price letter through the post they have only recorded ( So I was told, hope they try and prove it) a voice recording of me or person X saying we want to go ahead with this advert. No other contact has been made until they wanted the money for it So idea's and suggestion what to do next. I have the name of the company and was going to get their number via 1471 if that worked but as soon as I put the phone down it rang again I was thinking contact trading standards
Absolutely nothing. If they have no recorded authorisation from you then there's no contract, implicit or otherwise. They certainly can't state any terms like "cancellations only made in writing 14 days before" without you a) seeing them, b) agreeing to them formally. Sounds a bit fishy if they can't even tell you who they had spoken to? What advert have they prepared? Has your colleague spoken to them at all?
If there's any escalation then Definitely Trading Standards Matt. Get the full information you need from them to argue this point with the name of somebody to whom the advertising company can reference back to. If it's a scam, they're not likely to do that or proceed with the advert, or even contact you again. If they're kosher they can refer back to the TSI and get the official word from the horses mouth. If there's no official order or no name to refer back to then they require the burden of proof that you ever gave them instructions to proceed.
My colleague is also my mum, as said it's a family business. I posted this on PH and they said the same, publishing scam. So they can feck off Yes I will contact Trading standards if they call back and tell the person on the phone I am recording the call for information to be passed onto TS
If/when they do call back, might be worth stringing them along and get them to fax you a quote on headed notepaper with their Company Number and VAT Reg No. (if they are VAT registered). If they comply then you can use that to go to TS, but my guess is they'll run a mile if it's a scam.
I intend to get as much information about this company as I can if they call back, then give the details and written explanations to TD
