Open Association of Landscape Industries
Advertising Scams
A number of times over the past few years I have been contacted by a company, or companies, with the following spiel, along the lines of; “the advert for your business has been included in the literature being distributed” (usually some promotional leaflets funded by the sponsors advertising their business, in my case, Garden Services). They go on to demand payment for this advertising, which in my case was £200-300. Although now wise to this, the first time it happened was met with incomprehension from myself and strong arm tactics from the fraudsters (“the leaflets have already been printed, we are out of pocket, it was drug awareness pamphlets for schools” etc). At the time I was unsure whether I had actually verbally agreed to genuine advertising without paying much attention. My local trading standards were helpful though saying this is not an unheard of scam. The fraudsters can threaten legal action at which point the victims can often pay up. I was reminded of this the other day, when a colleague described a similar scam from a company claiming to act on behalf of a local newspaper, and today when the attempt was made on myself again. I wonder how common an occurrence this is, whether other businesses have experienced this and whether it is worth highlighting this situation, to make sure more people aren’t ripped off. That it has happened with some regularity means that the scam works, unfortunately.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jason Felstead on -
Unfortunatly this is all too common, when i first started out on my own as a tree surgeon i had the same scenario, Booklets on behalf of crime prevention, or children, at the time i was nieve and fell for it. The problem is that they have a way of talking people round. Now i dont give them the time of day.
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Permalink Reply by James Gardner on -
I made the mistake of advertising in the Yellow Pages once, the result was;
no genuine leads at all
Loads of these people phoning at least twice a week for two years trying to sell advertising in crime prevention leaflets and other dodgy sounding deals etc.
Be very very rude to them and tell them that they are parasitical scum who have no place in society before suggesting that if they had any self respect they would get a job doing something of value.
Make them feel as bad as possible, they deserve it.
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Permalink Reply by Simon Smith on -
These advertisement scams have been around for years, luckily I have never been court out in my 20 years of business, but they still keep calling, saying there ring on behalf of some local services like the police or fire brigade, or local calendar for local business, the best one was a company saying that they rung a couple of months ago and a colleague at our company had agreed to a school book sponsorship, and where looking for the his name so that they could invoice us for a couple of hundred pound,
My best advice is never agree to advertise with STRANGERS that ring you up OFFERING SWEET success , with advertisement, also avoid people trying to increase you web site profile
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Pro DesignerPermalink Reply by Kerrie John-The garden design Co on -
'Booklets on behalf of crime prevention, or children', I am regularly contacted to advertise in these and magazines I have never heard of. I request a copy of their current issue to look at before I would consider a booking. It never arrives!!
Luckily in Cambridge, we have a very good, trendy glossy mag with well written articles and great pics. I advertise in this quite frequently and it has proved worthwhile, job wise. It gets the company name and logo known to potential clients. Lots of people slag off Yellow Pages but I do get quite a lot of work from my ad, perhaps because of advertising in the magazine?
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