www.touchlocal.co.uk

[Abidan]

Anyone heard of this company? Its an adversting directory who often ring up cold calling selling advertising profiles on their site. They promise the world and i have to say I normally hang up straight away but i got caught by these people and am £450 worse off for it. I foolishly believed their words and now am bound by terms and conditions.

If you run a small business i beg you not to use them. They have taken £450 off me and have got me no business whatsoever. I even expressed concerns by email within the 7 day cooling off period and they still havent let me cancel regardless of the proof i have!!!

Please take my advice and spread the word about this atrocious company who are ripping people off. By the way my sister and someone else who i built a website for were also ripped off by this company and we didnt know each other had signed to them until we started chatting.

I feel as a fellow small business owner i should try let eveyone know this company is operating without moral and should not be allowed to trade!!

Hope this helps someone else out there. Spread the word be very careful about signing with touch local i am tied in for a year now unfortunaltey but i hope noone else has this problem!!!

[figurewizard]

Thanks for the tip Abidan but I have a question - If you have the email you sent showing that you wanted to exercise your right to cancel the deal within seven days, why haven't you had your money back? What did trading standards have to say?

Joe.

[georgewkw]

Bad news, How did you pay. If by Credit Card or Pay Pal, check with them their protection conditions.
I know for fact that with Pay Pal you can lodge a complain and get refunded. in Most cases PP will then bar the company from using them to transact.

[david64]

I've seen a site that advertised on there quite heavily and they got decent traffic from it. However, I feel that they probably don't offer value for money.

[Abidan]

Hi figure wizard, the email i sent was expressing major concerns to the sales girl who i thought was my only contact, where i expressed that i was seriously thinking about cancelling as it was not for me and eas not what i thought, this was within the 7 days.........which may i add until i decided i wanted to cancel I had no idea the coolingoff period was only 7 days they told me that after i wanted to cancel! The sales girl themn rang me and talked me into giving it "a bit longer" I was not aware that the longer i left it the less chance i had to cancel!!! I took her word for it!! Consumer direct said they have had complaints before!! BUT that i am bound by terms and conditions unless I want to take them to court for what i would suggest is dubious sales techniques. I am having a difficult time at the moment with personal health issues and cannot take the stress of taking them to court unfortunately

All i can say is, yes somehow they get hits to your advert and profile but surprisingly not one of those hits turns into an enquiry!!! Put it this way i use gumtree i post a free add on there and get say 10 hits out of them 10 hits i usually get at least 1 phone call!!! Touchlocal "claim" i have say 40 hits a month....sounds good right?...BUT i get not one person ringing!!! So what wrong, i thought my ad but i have done all i can withmy advert addding pictures prices all sorts everything i possible can!!! NOT ONE ENQUIRY IN 2 MONTHS!!! If htere is somthing wrong with my advertising technique, copy, website whatever then i would not get the interest through gumtree and freeindex either!!!

My lesson has been learnt dont use pointless directories they are a waste of time!!! I hear YELL is just as bad!!!

[Abidan]

George, unfortunately i paid by debit card as i was stupid enough to not think about what i was doing. Touchlocal are not customer service orientated, I have paid over £100 so far and am happy to take the hit on that as thats my own stupid mistake. But they still wont let me cancel!!

Now this is the bit i dont get. When i first signed up I didnt get my username etc for ages, i kept having to email, turns out that the sales girl rang me to tell me that she had MISSOLD the package!! That she had sold what should be a £2000 package to me for £400!! She said as i am in web design that it should have cost £2k but they had spoken to their director and are going to honour the package!! I was having doubts at the time but then once again that little snippet of info made me reconsider pulling out! What i dont get is they are down on this package already apparently and could sell it for £2k instead of the £400 i am paying.........also they had to give me an extra month for not getting my usernae and password to me in the specified timescale! So they have sold me a package which they would normally sell for £2k for 12month and i got it for £400 for 13 months.............would you not thingk they would snap my hands off to cancel they contract???? After all they have £100 off me so far???? Seems strange if they know they offer value for money advertsiigng, you would think they would be able to sell that package eailsy for the money eh???

[fisicx]

No, they won't let you out of the contract. At the moment they are getting £400, if they cancel they get nothing.

[Abidan]

Originally Posted by fisicx

No, they won't let you out of the contract. At the moment they are getting £400, if they cancel they get nothing.

if they are that certain that their advertising is worth the money then surely they would not be bothered about riskinglosing the £400 since they could easily sell it for £2k the correct price.........at the end of the day they obviously are not confident in their advertising being worth what they say!!!

[am:pm graphics]

I've heard of them and thought they were ok...thanks for the info though..will stay clear

Pauline

[Alternatives]

I am sorry to read about the people on here feeling they have to pay good money to get hits on websites, we have used Touch Local over 4 years now on a free, yes free listed area they do, and never thought for one minute to see if paying for a listing would get us more hits, sorry it simply does not happen.
We get over 30 phone calls per month from people like that asking us to pay stupid amounts of money to them for a listing of our shops on line, but we know that there sites are getting as many if fewer hits than our sites are, so they ought to be paying us for an advert of our page.
Sorry folks, but so few people search the net now, it simply is fact, never ever pay for listings, they never have worked, and if anyone tells you they do there fooling you.
Most people put websites they visit in the fav list, they visit those pages only mostly, searching is seldom done now, most know what they want and btype a firms name, not ever ending lists of webpage listings, they have not got time to waste doing that.
Keep your money if your website is taking money for it's keep if your in the 5% of sites that do make money, and spend it on a local news paper advert for about £20 per month of ads, more people will see that advert than on any internet listing site I can tell you.
David