An Honest Review on Yell Advertising. A Blog By ClawaBear.

Content:

"An Honest Review on Yell Advertising" is a candid and informative personal blog by ClawaBear. Delving into the experiences and insights gained from using Yell's advertising services, ClawaBear provides an unbiased review that offers valuable perspectives for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Whether you're considering Yell advertising for your own business or simply curious about others' experiences, ClawaBear's blog offers honest and insightful commentary to help inform your decision-making process.

Who Are Yell ?

Yell offer paid advertising for many many businesses, and they like to catch small business owners into their lair by trapping them into long costly contracts of advertising that doesn't actually work.

They state that they are affiliated with Google, and they promise to obtain you "a lot of new business".

Yell's company origins trace back to 1966 when the Yellow Pages Business Directory first launched as part of the General Post Office Telephone Directory. The Yellow Pages are a re-nouned advert that many of the older generation will happily remember.

The advertisement shows an elderly gentleman played by Norman Lumsden, asking in several second-hand bookshops for "Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley". No bookshop has it, and he goes home dejected. His daughter, sympathising, hands him the Yellow Pages and one of the shops he phones has a copy. He is delighted. The unheard questioner asks for his name, and he responds at dictation speed: 'My name? Oh, yes, it's J. R. Hartley.' The advertisement ends by promoting the Yellow Pages

J.R. Hartley

Yell then became part of BT in 1984 before being sold in 2001 for £2.4 billion. A strategic approach taken over the last decade has evolved Yell into a fully digital business which completed in 2017 when the Yellow Pages ended production, to now solely focus on providing digital marketing services for UK small and medium sized businesses.

Today, Yell will tell you that they are there to connect consumers with businesses through advertising run on Facebook, Instagram and Google.

Their Sales Team are fantastic at offering you promises of more business, "More work than you can cope with" They are very well trained at keeping you extremely interested, almost to the point of excitement at the thought of getting your small business out into the open, where everyone can find you, rather than you dealing with Google analytics, back links, keywords and all that other technical jargon that comes along with building your own website.

Yell promise to get your business ranking on Google to a much higher level than you could ever dream of.

So let Us get to my story with Yell and the ongoing financial fight and my journey of losing money to a company that I would suggest offer a "Scam".

In January 2021 I uploaded my free listing to Yell as well as adding my business to other free directories that are available online.

That same day I received a telephone call from a very polite Gentleman offering me this amazing advertising package through Yell that would "change my entire life " (Yes those were his words).

He went on to say that I could enter a monthly contract with Yell and wait for it.......

"Vivienne, ClawaBear sales will rise so impressively that you will not be able to cope alone with all the work this will bring into your business. Not only that, but you will also climb much higher in Google rankings as we are affiliated with Google and no other advertising company can do this for you like we can".

He went on to tell Me that my Facebook page would grow, and my Instagram account would take off like a rocket and I would have sale after sale after sale.

Well, for someone who has had to learn not only how to build a business as well as my own website build this sounded like the most perfect solution to Me, I had tried Facebook ads but to no avail. I was pouring all those pennies down a never-ending drain.

So, I agreed to this Gentleman's offer and set up an appointment by telephone and remote desktop and spent an hour with said Gentleman and another who joined the conversation and watched my desktop as they started to put together a Facebook ad.

But while I was watching this, I noted to both of these Guys that they were building an ad in the same format that I had been using for my Facebook ads, and not only that, they. were actually copying and pasting my words from my website pages.

So, upon questioning this the reply was:

" Your words are more personal than ours, so let's roll with that"

I accepted the answer, thinking that these two Guys must know what they are doing, and they say they can get better results.

The next step was to add a written code to my Facebook page account so Yell could monitor the adverts. They also were supposed to send Me a code by email to add to my website hosting so they could monitor my website too in the same way. I never received that code, and it was NEVER added to my website.

So, onto the next thing....

These salesmen said I would be entered into a six-month contract at the cost of £360 per calendar month. They did NOT mention that this contract is a B2B contract. (business to business)

I was stupid enough to agree and send my digital signature to who I can only describe as a Pair of Demons (not Men) working on behalf of The Devil himself.

Now without getting too sidetracked here let Me just add this,

I was clearly told that Yell would now monitor any clicks and conversions on the new advert and send me a monthly report. Now, remember I said above that by adding a code to my website Yell would then be able to monitor my site? They advised they could monitor the traffic from Google that I was going to gain, the phone calls coming in etc, etc...

Well, if there is no way of them to monitor the website, how the hell are they sending me reports on traffic? Reports on conversions from this advert? and any other monitoring of my website? This was not possible!

I questioned this many times and they just fobbed Me off with more sales jargon.

As you can gather from this so far, I never got the extra work or business, and I was paying £360 a month from my regular household budget by direct debit, I started to fall into a huge net of debit with my bills and providing less food in the cupboards at home.

I made a complaint to Yell in March 2021 to which they refused to uphold and ended my complaint with threats of debt collectors at my door if I didn't pay up and reinstate my direct debit.

(Thankfully after a long discussion with my Bank, they refunded Me all the money Yell had literally stolen from Me. Yes, I say stolen because they never ever, not once, delivered everything they promised in our first contact. I could not find a way clear of their business to business contract horror.

After all of this pain, trauma, headache and worry I started to do a lot of research on Yell. I read horrifying reviews on small business owners in the same trap, feeling exactly the same and worrying until more grey hair appeared just like Me.

I felt sick, I felt as though I had been robbed and stabbed in the back over a thousand times. I felt lied to and just as all those people felt, I began to cry the most uncontrollable, shaking, howling tears,

I had no idea how to crawl out of the big pit they had put Me in,

Thankfully through my research I stumbled upon a Facebook group.

I hate Yell

I wrote a plea in a post for help and a lovely Lady came to my rescue.

She explained all about the group and that it was an extension of another group,

Yell Action Group, run by Croft Solicitors and she explained in detail how to contact the Action Group and make a legal binding complaint against Yell for free,

Suddenly the Sun shone down on Me and I felt like a Guardian Angel had come to my rescue.

I had the most important card to play. the "Help card".

I cannot tell you the relief I felt, and the pressure that just disappeared into a mist in the ether, never to return again.

All because of this incredible Lady and her fight against Yell.

I am thankful, incredibly overwhelmed and grateful.

Let Me tell you about this amazing group.

Here is a link to their amazing website :

https://yellactiongroup.org.uk

Here is a snippet from the actual website ;

The Yell Action Group Association (YAG) is a non-profit association fighting for Yell’s small business customers. A committee has been established to represent the Group, which includes volunteers who have seen small businesses suffer as result of Yell’s practices and now want justice for small business owners across the UK. We have instructed Croft Solicitors to bring a group claim against Yell Ltd.

Now all you ned to do is register your claim. Send in any relevant documents and a copy of your ID such as a passport and they do all the rest for you.

I received a notice from a Solicitor to recover my debt with Yell which stands at over £3000 and I just can't pay it and why should I?' I was lied to and most of miss-sold something. I was promised the Earth and given a tiny pebble to throw away, together with all my available cash flow.

I contacted the Solicitors and explained that I was registered with the Yell Action Group and I emailed the Customer Services department all evidence from Croft Solicitors that I was now under their protection.

The Solicitor working on behalf of Yell had no alternative but to refer the debt back to Yell.

I am still waiting to hear from Yell, but I know that thanks to the Yell Action Group I am covered by a huge bright protective bubble.

It came to light in my research into this company that there are many found to be fake reviews out there about how good their services are, and this was called at Parliament. If you look at most business reviews you will find an outweighing number of bad reviews, from every day people trying to make their lives much better through hard work and determination, to be ruined and screwed up into a little unnoticeable ball by Yell.

For Me and for many other people out there, Yell is just a scam with hard selling tactics and a bullying approach to keep you in line. To keep you giving them the money you so deserve more than them.

I learned a huge lesson here.

I learnt to be patient in my own advertising and to believe in myself and my own abilities that much that I will eventually manifest my business dreams and goals.

I would rather play it that way than hand an ace to the Devil again.

One of the things that I am most grateful for is that I already owned my own web domain and site, there are many awful reviews of websites built by Yell for their customers,

Thank you for reading and please do message me if you have fallen into the same web of mass destruction to your bank account and Yell's evil demise.

I would love to hear from you!

And please, Contact I hate Yell on Facebook, get the help you need. You will be absolutely pleased with yourself for doing so.

Kindest regards,

Vivienne

https://www.clawabear.co.uk