Our Blog

Jun 08

Charities and Phone Scams

By Ketan in News

Since setting up Dubbed Creative, I have been subject to a large amount of Charity phone scams wanting the company to advertise on their wall chart, year planner or diary (five calls in the last week or so!). Unfortunately, as most new small businesses are not aware of these time-wasting calls, we are bitten heavily thinking we are doing some good.

Of course, they are not all scams, there are the odd rare ones which are genuine and talk properly on the phone with you without forcing you to buy their advertising space (which is reasonably priced!). But, because they get mixed in with the scammers, you fail to recognise them, and treat them the same.

The worst element about these calls is that when they call, they indicate that they

“spoke with you a couple of weeks ago”

and that you said “yes” to having an Ad space on their year planner. The next thing they say is

“the invoice for £400 will be sent out tomorrow, and we’re just checking that’s ok for you”

Like any small business, I definitely would not have agreed to that!!!

Well, that’s when my tone changes and I start questioning who they are and that I would not agree to having an ad at that price, especially for a measly little wallplanner ad!

At that point they usually put the phone down, or go to speak with their manager and will “call you back in 5-10 minutes” (but they never do). Of course, you also get the idiot who thinks they can still persist and persuade you that you agreed to it!

So, I think the best thing for me is to contribute my own way, to non UK charities. The time of hanging up is back! Hopefully this article will make some people aware of what to watch out for!

Whilst browsing the web, I came across this interesting and useful article.

UPDATE: I have since come across another post relating to Yellow Partnership (or Strawberry Educational - absolute fraudsters!) - Small business owners be aware of these scammers! One thing that I have noticed is they seem to always call from a mobile phone.

Here is a list of those that have contacted me to waste my time:

Yellow Partnership
Strawberry Educational
Chambers & Croft

Tags: Chambers & Croft, Charities, Phone Calls, Scams, Small Businesses, Strawberry Educational, Yellow Partnership

4 Responses

Jun 08

Chris says

I’m pleased that the article helped!

Since I wrote that post, we’ve employed some other techniques:

1) Anonymous Caller Reject. This is a BT service that automatically rejects phone calls from people who don’t disclose their telephone number - a common indicator of scam calls;

2) Caller ID. Again a BT service, which allows you to view the phone number of the caller before answering. Useful for identifying persistent or repeat calls, but even more useful in conjunction with..

3) http://whocallsme.com/ A community website to help people track telemarketers etc. If you’re quick off the mark, you can validate a phone call here before answering.

Chris.

Jun 08

Ketan says

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the extra info - it will be very helpful! I wasn’t aware of the scams until I read your post!

Thanks,
Ketan

Jul 08

alan tryste-white says

Yes, i to have dealt with these people.

They contacted my business partner claiming she had taken an advertisement out with them for 400 pounds.

Upon browsing Google under search title ” YELLOW PARTNERSHIP SCAM ” it was soon clear that they use heavy handed selling techniques and are obviously making money on the back of vulnerable children.
Not only that, they are fraudsters/liars, but seem to be able to get away with it.