BEWARE 411Directory Assistance.ca ripping off small businesses for over ten years! This is my story.

I am writing this to you because I am former small business owner, a Canadian, and most importantly a good person. Now I'm sure you may have read stories about scam directories in the past, 411DirectoryAssistance.ca is not one of those companies. 411DirectoryAssistance.ca is a company that carefully treads the line of legality. Through a combination of sales tactics that are comprised of preying on an individuals inattentiveness, distorting information, and in some instances outright lying, 411DirectoryAssistance.ca traps unsuspecting business owners into paying for a service that they would have never purchased had they had all the facts. 

This is how it is done;

The first thing they do is call a small business and notify them that they are calling regarding their listing with 411DirectoryAssistance.ca, would like to verify their company info, and offer them an "upgrade" (though some will say "update"), for their next year of service. At this point some reps will state that the listing was COMPLIMENTARY while other will wait until a business owner asks them if they paid for the service in the past before divulging this fact. This is a very smart tactic by 411DirectoryAssistance.ca because even though they do rely on business owners, or whoever happens to answer the call, believing that this is a service they already had that is being renewed in order to make most of their sales, slipping in the words "complimentary" and "upgrade", allow them to claim that the customer was notified that this was a new purchase even though every effort is made to conceal that fact. Verifying information is also a great tactic that they have borrowed form the total scam rooms as it insinuates that there has been some kind of interaction in the past between 411DirectoryAssistance.ca and the business, which is not the case. All of the calls are cold calls, and the company information on the site is obtained by "lead brokers" as the reps will reluctantly tell you if they are pressed hard enough. Their information on businesses is often incorrect and outdated.  I know this through cross referencing businesses on their site with legitimate directories like yellowpages.ca

At this point some reps will ask if you are authorized to make purchases for the company while others will just ask if you are authorized to confirm the information. If someone is unclear on this they will usually skate over the question.

The next stage of their sales pitch is going over the information they have for the company they are calling which, as I just stated, is often outdated.  They then proceed to ask the person on the phone what keywords and categories they would like for their listing. After taking down keywords that are either picked by the business or suggested by the agent, the business owner is then casually asked "should the invoice for (x amount of dollars) be sent to your attention or accounts payable?" The reason for asking if it can be sent to accounts payable is that it enables them to get authorization from people in a company that would not ordinarily have the authority to order a new service, but can agree to continue something that was already in place. At no point is the business owner asked if they would like to purchase the service. At no point is it explained that the listing is a service they would be paying for the first time, unless the owner specifically asks. It is simply an assumptive close hoping the business owner will blindly say yes. 

Now I will say at this point that I don't believe most of the agents working at 411DirectoryAssistance.ca are malicious. I believe they follow the script they are given and pitch the way they are told by the owners. The reason I say this is that most scam agents stick to a script very similar to the one above with the one difference being that they flat out tell business owners they already have an outstanding invoice for a listing that is being renewed, and when a business owner questions this fact they are either hung up on, or an attempt may be made to bully them into paying the "outstanding invoice". 411DirectoryAssistance.ca reps on the other hand are given "rebuttals" that sound great and unless the agents do some digging would have no reason to believe are untrue.  Here they are;

"411DirectoryAssistance.ca gets over two million impressions a month!" Sounds impressive, right? The agents will then explain to you that unlike other sites that report "hits" which are inaccurate as one site visitor can rack up multiple hits in one visit to your site, 411DirectoryAssistance.ca counts "impressions" which are unique visits.  Sounds amazing, only it's a total lie. Just a quick check on Alexa, a site that tracks web traffic http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/411directoryassistance.ca , will show that the estimated unique daily page views are 3.20! lets round that up to 4 for arguments sake. That would mean that 411DirectoryAssistace.ca gets 1460 unique visits a YEAR! Factor in a bounce rate of 71.40% which means that someone never went further than the first page, and take into consideration that people go on a directory to search for something which would bring them to a second page, and you can easily deduce that 71.40% of the visitors only end up on 411DirectoryAssistance.ca BY ACCIDENT, and then leave when they realize their error.  Couple this with the fact that 411DirectoryAssistance.ca doesn't get enough traffic volume to show up in Google Trends another site that tracks web traffic, http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=411directoryassistance.ca unlike legitimate directories that people actually use like yp.ca http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=yp.ca ,411.ca http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=411.ca , and yelp http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=yelp , and it becomes quite clear that the number of individuals that actually intentionally go to 411directoryAssistance.ca to search for businesses is most probably much less than one thousand ANNUALLY. 

Another great rebuttal the agents use are the amount of hits that your listing has supposedly received in the past year. This amount usually ranges between nine hundred to twenty five hundred but is usually closer to the fifteen hundred range. Now let's not even go into the fact that using the number of HITS on a listing as a rebuttal completely contradicts the previous rebuttal where they state that 411DirectoryAssistance.ca only tracks unique impressions on their site. Let's not look at the fact that EVERY listing on 411DirectoryAssistance.ca has a minimum of around one thousand hits, and that these hits do not correspond to how highly ranked you are on the directory. For example this number two ranked listing http://www.411directoryassistance.ca/Canada/AB/1066205/auto-imports.html has more than six hundred less annual "hits" than a listing that is ranked over TWO HUNDRED spots lower http://www.411directoryassistance.ca/Canada/AB/1022376/real-automotive-pro-ltd.html ! Forget that. Let's just do some simple math. Now every company listed on the site has, on average, a thousand "annual" hits and there are around a million companies listed on the site.  Let's half those numbers and say their are five hundred thousand companies on the site that have on average five hundred "annual hits". That would mean that 411DirectoryAssistance.ca gets two hundred fifty MILLON hits annually, or almost twenty million per month! This would be more than enough traffic to show up in Google Trends if these numbers were true. 

But the numbers aren't true.

There is an easy way to test this, and I did exactly this with someone I knew that had just started a new business. He called in to the 411DirectoryAssistance.ca toll free number to say he had missed their call.  The agent who answered the call stated that they were calling because his listing that he had for a year was about to expire. My friend did not notify the agent that he had just started the business a few days before and stated that he could not find his company on 411DirectoryAssistance.ca.  the agent stated that the listing was probably suspended because it was over a year since the listing was uploaded and it had not been upgraded.  My friend asked if his listing could be reactivated, to which the agent replied "Yes, but I would have to confirm your company information first". My friend gave the agent, Cindy, all of his company info, and lo and behold ten minutes later his listing was "reactivated" and had over two thousand "hit's" on it! Not too shabby for a company that only opened three days before and was not even advertising to the public yet! 

Now after a business owner agrees, either through the ignorance of believing that 411DirectoryAssistance.ca is simply a continuation of advertising they already had, or convincing with the above mentioned rebuttals, to have the invoice of anywhere from $350 to $1150(they usually lead with a $650 "package" and don't even tell you there are any other options unless you ask) sent out to them, they are sent to "Verification". The "verification agent" I dealt with was "Cindy" who coincidentally sounded exactly like the "Cindy" from customer service when you call in. The agent notifies you that the purpose of the verification is just to go over the information they just went over with you. As the sales agent explains it, it is done "just to ensure they have done their job correctly."

This is not really the case, however.  The "verification" process is where they record you verifying your company information and agreeing to have an invoice sent out to your attention, and is in their own words your "legally binding contract" with them.  Only they don't tell you that the verification is a contract when they are sending you to verification, or during the verification.  They save that revelation for when you want to cancel the service if you're smart enough to realize it's worthless. They also never send you a written copy of the terms and conditions of your "contract" nor are any terms or conditions explained during the verification process. Actually at no time during the verification process is it stated that you are entering in to a new contract for a service you have never paid for before, unless you ask them.  then to cover their behind, they will reveal this. The simple sneak in a "Refer to our page for our terms of service" at the end of the verification, again to cover their behind.

Now before I get into the final stage of the 411DirectoryAssistance.ca "sales" process: collections, I will tell you what happened to me personally and why I have decided to contact you regarding 411DirectoryAssistance.ca. Up until about a six months ago I had my own business, I finally decided to retire after being in business for over forty years. I figure at seventy-six I deserve it. Well, about two years ago my granddaughter, who was answering the phone at my business to help me out, received a call from 411DirectoryAssistance.ca. I wasn't there at the time, and after they gave her the spiel she was under the impression I already had done business with them and she was simply renewing existing advertising. Oh, did I mention she was fourteen at the time? Anyways, she "authorized them to send the invoice" and about twenty days later it arrived. As soon as I saw the invoice I knew there had to be some mistake because I don't advertise in ANY directory, so I called 411DirectoryAssistance.ca to clear up the mistake. So after calling in repeatedly and getting bounced from mailbox to mailbox (full mailboxes thaty you couldn't leave a message on), i finally "Cindy" answers the phone. I explain to her that I received an invoice for something I never ordered and would just like to have the invoice voided. She at that point put me on hold. She then came back on the line and told me that she would have to transfer me to the "collections" department. At this point I was transferred to a "Rosie". I explained to her that I was the business owner and that I had never ordered their service, nor would I as it was of no advantage to my business.  She then told me that it was authorized by my granddaughter. At that point I told her that my granddaughter was not authorized to purchase anything for my company.  "Rosie" then became extremely belligerent, telling me that she had my granddaughter on recording saying she was an authorized purchaser.  I tried to explain that my granddaughter was only fourteen just to be cut off and told that I'm "responsible for my employees actions!" and that if I wanted to cancel the service I would have to pay a cancellation fee.  I explained that I just received the invoice and that it was under thirty days since the service was "ordered" why should have to pay a fee to cancel.  Rosie then barked at me that the cancellation policy is fifteen days.  When I tried to explain that I had only received the invoice that day her response was "Sure sir, thats what everyone says that doesn't want to pay their bills". At that point I am becoming irate so I asked to speak to a manager, to which Rosie responded "I am the manager sir, you have to speak to me". At this point I told Rosie, and not too politely, that in no uncertain terms would I ever be paying 411DirectoryAssistance.ca.  Rosie said "That's fine with me I'll just send it to collections then.". After that call about a month later I started receiving calls from the ARO collection agency.  I answered their call once, explained to them I would not be paying, and never answered their calls again.  After about two months the calls from ARO stopped.  I do however continue to receive calls from 411DirectoryAssistance.ca anywhere from every two weeks to every two months.  I make sure to answer every call and let the agent go through their pitch just to see if it has changed at all, it hasn't. The only thing they have changed is the price.  It was $575 when they tried to get me, now it's $650, inflation I guess.

After the dust settled I started to think that if this was done to me, how many other businesses were taken by 411DirectoryAssistance.ca. I didn't pay them because I'm just a grumpy old man who's been on this rock long enough to know a con when I see one, but what about the people that aren't?  Small businesses have it hard enough in todays economy, it's not like its the eighties anymore, and $650 is alot of money to lose when you're trying to get off the ground, or stay afloat.  So as an old man with ALOT of free time on my hands I decided to dig up as much dirt as I could on this company in the hopes of preventing other business owners from going through what I have.  Complaints to the RCMP, or CRTC don't seem to do much because of the fine legal line 411DirectoryAssistance.ca treads, so I was hoping by sharing my experience I may be able to prevent some small business owners from going through what I went through.

If 411DirectoryAssistance.ca makes just fifty sales a week that's over a million and a half dollars a year that small businesses are losing that they could be putting towards advertising that actually works. This country is built on small business owners and I think they all should have the opportunity to succeed without being victims to opportunists like 411DirectoryAssistance.ca. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Here is the info I've compiled.

411DirectoryAssistance.ca is a subsidiary of Sterling Business Solutions and is located at

1400 Metcalfe St Suite 400

Montreal, Quebec

H3A 1X2

Main 514-482-7474

Toll Free 877-482-7474

Website: www.411directoryassistance.ca

The owners are Fred Peters and Sean Peters according to the reps I've spoken to. It's amazing what they will tell you when you act like you are going to buy their listing!

Here are other sites where people have shared their experiences with this company.

Here are other people that have been scammed as well.

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-866-482-7474/5

http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/8664827474/2

https://www.facebook.com/PixelGems/posts/216685131790938

http://internetscam.wordpress.com/2007/02/21/business-directory-scam/comment-page-9/   (complaint is in the comments section)