In 2006, I believe, Clarke sold out to Yellow Book USA. We, as painting contractors, had advertised with Clarke for years. Occasionally, we fell somewhat behind but never more than 60 days and always paid our bill and always were welcomed to renew with Clarke.

After they sold out, everything went ok for about 4 months. We then started getting bogus bills stating we owed 900 or so in arrears. Late fees, and other charges Yellow Book tacked on kept on mounting up. We were billed and dunned telephonically continually from Los Angeles, Cedar Rapids and King of Prussia, Pa. We paid a few bills to Los Angeles and Cedar Rapids, which never seemed to be recorded. We finally decided to deal with King of Prussia only. We first dealt with Kelly Tomlinson who promised to get to the bottom of it. She did not. We found over 800.00 in cancelled checks for 2006, which were not credited. We sent them to her and they were discarded.

I next contacted Kevin Lichorobiec of King of Prussia, and again painstakingly sent all the cancelled checks out to him. HE PROMISED HE WOULD GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT WITHIN THREE WEEKS. IT IS 3 MONTHS LATER. He even said he found further monies we paid not credited. But he then said his boss would have to take care of it. Weeks went by, called him and he said it was passed on up to someone above his boss. Asked for names he would not give them to us.

Yellow Book will not stop harassing us or tacking on exorbitant fees even though then admit we are due some sort of credit.

They have now passed the buck to a former NOT EVEN A CURRENT EMPLOYEE OF CLARKE, NAMED Nanette Razo. She does not even work for them or Yellow Book and she says CLARKE HAS TO TURN ON HER COMPUTER TO CONNECT TO CLARKE DATA TO RESEARCH THE ISSUE AND THEY SO FAR REFUSE TO DO SO. I KNOW THE RECORDS WERE TURNED OVER TO YELLOW BOOK AND IF CLARKE DID NOT COOK THE BOOKS WHY CAN'T THEY BE MADE TO DO THE RIGHT THING. WE CONTINUE TO PAY AS MUCH AS WE CAN MONTHLY ANYWAY.

BUT WITH THE ERRONEOUS CHARGES THEY CLAIM WE OWE ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR OF ADVERTISING CHARGES ABSOLUTELY BOGUS.

HOW THEY BE MADE TO REALLY STRAIGHTEN OUT THIS ISSUE. WE UNDERSTAND FROM MS. RAZO THAT OTHER FORMER CLARKE ADVERTISERS ARE IN THE SAME BOAT.

Additionally, after selling out to Yellow Book, the color of our ads was so off we were issued credits, but nothing seems to help the illegitimate debt roll up.

This is a bad business. We have high FICO and no credit problems, but we cannot sleep at night with over 5000 of illegitimate debt hanging over our heads in this downturn.

Hoping for help.