In 2008 I purchased print advertising as well as Internet advertising for my new business. Being someone that reads everything I sign, I read the contract. The contract used in 2008 is rev 11/07 and clearly states in paragraph 4 that the contract expires at the end of the term. (term being 12mos) I did not renew advertising in 2009 because I had to close due to the weak economy. A couple of months ago I started receiving bills for Internet advertising. I contacted customer service and explained the situation. She said the contract auto renewed it's self and I had to cancel it in writing . I read paragraph 4 of my contract to her where it states "This agreement will continue in effect with respect to the Internet Services until expiration of the agreement or either Publisher or Customer cancels." She told me I was making that up, then hung up on me. The next letter I received was from the collections department. So I gave them a call and ended up talking to what sounded like a rude little high school boy. Eventually I got a supervisor on the phone that seemed to understand that controlled documents such as contracts, have revision numbers. I convinced her to look at a copy of the form I signed and had her read paragraph 4. Then I was told that doesn't apply any longer because we rewrote the contracts, then put me on hold and never came back. I proceeded to call customer service again and tell my story all over again. I become a little upset and used the words fraud, scam and attorney. I was then transferred to a very nice lady that proceeded to tell me that I was right, all charges would be removed and apologized for the inconvenience. It took 3 hours of arguing with rude, incompetent people to resolve a simple issue. If anyone reading this signed a contract in 2008 (rev 11/07) and is having the same problem I had, you are being scammed. That revision of the contract does not state that it auto renews, it expires...

It all started with my desire to up my business this year, seeing that the economy was going down i thought i would try yellow book, since they had the back page available. Being such a big purchase I was sure that my service would be great, and that they would do me good. I even payed for the first two months ahead and was promised that this would apply to the first two months of the ad, Jan and Feb (the harder months for a painter).

Well here is where it gets interesting, first of all I was promised to receive a proof within two weeks, and we even gave them an example that we wanted to be replicated. It took almost four with me constantly checking in and bugging them. Finally getting the proof, it was not at all like I wanted, Instead of the American Flag as background it was white, and the general design made my ad look more like a quilt... on top of all this, the phone numbers were wrong, the info was missing and the title of the company was wrong too...

Of course at this point I didn't think too much of it, just felt like the company didn't put much effort into it at all. After I sent the proof off the next day I would not receive another proof again. Time passed and I was excited to see my ad, until I finally received a copy of the yellow pages... NONE of the changes were made, not one except the phone numbers! I was very upset, and gave them a call about the ad.

They in turn said they will give me a call back never did. Then a bill came (keep in mind i pre paid for the first two months) and it said that I owed 450, I called them and told them i pre paid and the answer they gave me was that they applied it toward the last two months of the cycle. I argued that I paid for the first two and they agreed to fix it within a few days, then a second bill came for twice the amount and i called again and from here they just refuse to fix the problem saying that they will not and there is nothing we can do about it.

I am upset, disappointed, and in a bad position since i did not plan to pay for the first two months... I live in Washington and it rains at least 8-9 months out of the year, so you mainly paint june july and August. because of this you don't have much money to spend on this kind of stuff, which is why i paid ahead of time.

They are now saying that they can put me on collection... I don't know what to do.