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Comments:
Goldrex I would like you to contact me to see if we can take a fresh look at your account and resolve your issues. Please either call me or email me at ad@ufindus.com
Hi Sharon, I notice that you haven’t taken me up on the offer of speaking to me directly so that I can look at your account with a view to resolving any issues that you feel you may have. All I can assume is that you are happy not having your matter resolved and feel more comfortable making public statements which we are obviously not able to defend. My comments from my previous posting still stand in view of the very limited information that I have to work off.
We have already stated that in the past our support systems didn’t grow at the same rate as our customer base which has resulted in some problems but as a customer from 2002 your comments do not reflect our current promotional service or the levels of our customer service.
At the end of the day the decision is yours as to whether you wish us to try to help you or not.
Regardless of whether or not cancelling a Direct Debit cancels a contract...I had WRITTEN to your company cancelling it (with our very valid reasons) prior to the cancellation of the Direct Debit.
Save your niceties... I really don't think that planting you on here to placate irate former customers is having the effect Ufindus thought it would.
just got a call off of a man from black collections(think thats what he said) saying that court action is to be taken against me !!!
I cancelled with this shower(iomart that is) after they decieved me of money and took no notice when I wanted my details changed on my "website". I told them at least 6 times to change the address as I had moved.
I cancelled verbally, by phone, by letter AND by fax, and still they rang asking to BOOST my websites hits.
Dreadful......just dreadful.......
Hi Sharon, please give me a call on 0845 013 5105 and I will be more than happy to take a look at your account.
You need to remember that the internet has progressed a long way in the last 6 years and likewise the service we have offered has continued to change accordingly. Our rapidsite software was a basic introductory website presence and apart from some minor alterations hasn’t changed much. This will be changing with a new package in the coming months which will be a market leading product.
I am very surprised about the rankings as we have always had great results with the search engines as our sites are so search engine friendly. Canceling the direct debit, as I am sure you are aware, doesn’t cancel the package. All of our customers have access to their control panel which shows them their billing so all of our customers have full control of their accounts. Whilst we should, from what you have said, acknowledge if we haven’t followed up the debt as thoroughly as we could have done it would be reasonable to expect that if someone was aware of a debt having built up then they would ensure that the matter had been resolved before assuming it was resolved.
As I have said I am keen to see if we can try and sort the matter out for you as soon as possible.
Our company was fooled into siginging up with ufindus in 2002. "We can guarantee first page listings on Google", they said (lol what a joke).
So, 200 odd quid for the set up then 20 odd quid a month for a tinpot "website" that looked like a 3 year old had done it.
After 6 months I asked for stats as I could never find us on the first page of google (I suppose if it displayed at a million entries per page, we might have been there somewhere :|).
The stats I received back were hilarious, apparently we were high up on the listings of about 3 search engines that I had never heard of.
When I questioned them about their Google sales pitch, they told me that their sales reps would never say or promise such a thing. An outright lie!
After attempting to cancel the contact in writing due to them not fulfilling their end of the bargain (and thus negating their so called T & C's), and getting no response, I just cancelled the Direct Debit.
I heard NOTHING for about 2 years, then out of the blue they phoned me demanding all the back payments (no invoices were sent to us from them incidentally).
I told them what had happened and they said they would look into to.
Amazingly during this period of time, I must have had about 10 sales calls from Ufindus trying to get our company on board, they soon hung up after I thanked them for ringing and proceeded to bombard them with complaints about the fact that we already HAD signed up and were very unsatisfied and that WE would like a refund of all the monies we had paid to them.
So, to cut a long and VERY COMMON story short... last year (2007) we received yet another request for several hundreds of pounds in "missed payments", then a letter from Blacks, then a phone call from Black with the threat of court action...to which I responded with "See you there". That was January 2008. Today (9th April) we had another phone call asking us to clarify that that was what we wanted to do (go to court) or we could have this one last chance to clear the arrears. You can guess what my reaction was...lol
What a joke. I would LOVE for them to take us to court.
I have been able to locate your account mhewett and can see that you did have issues at the start but we gave you the service free of charge for a period of time in light of this.
There is nothing on file to indicate that you had not accepted this and your billing continued until you advised us that you wanted to cancel. By this time you had entered another 12 month contract period and it is reasonable for us to expect your to pay for this period of time.
However I am happy to cancel the outstanding invoices off as a gesture of goodwill. Whilst we are not always right customers need to take on board that they are bound by the terms and conditions. In business everyone needs to take their responsibilities seriously, whether it is as a business customer who has bought a service or the business who is providing the service.
Customer Street and UFindUs do take customer service seriously and we continue to improve our services and processes. As I have said previously the best way to make sure that complaints are handled effectively is to contact me directly at ad@customerstreet.com.
This company have been trying to get money off me since 2004 saying that I owe them for a service called Rapid Rank. During the original sales call the call handler, a guy called David Eaves, said to me that within 72 hours all of my 10 key phrases for my new domain would be on the top page of all of the search engines they deal with including Yahoo. I stupidly decided to give them a try and then after 72 hours I wrote to them cancelling the service. After such time they refused to cancel it offering me 3 months service for free instead which I declined. They even took money from my credit card illegally by guessing the new expiry date of the card!! I called them numerous times and wrote to them twice asking for a full refund and had no response. I had to cancel my card so they could not take any more money. After that I did not hear from them for about 2 years, they then contacted me again asking for several hundred pounds in fees thay claimed I owed them. This time I wrote to them explaining that I had cancelled the service and that they actually owed me money and that I at no time agreed to there terms and conditions of sale or contract offer and to send me by recorded delivery proof of any contract I hold with them or a recording of the original sales call, I then sent this letter by Royal Mail special delivery. I did not hear anything back from them until late 2007 when Blacks solicitors called me on behalf of Iomart again requesting I paid the debt. I told them where to stick it basically and then today I got another call from Black's warning me of impending court action. Luckily I have copies of all the correspondnace with Iomart so I would like to see what proof they have that I owe them anything. In conclusion this company uses underhand sales tactics and pure lies, in my case, to procure business and them relies on unfair contracts to lever there fees not too mention illegally charging customers credit cards without authorisation. I called trading standards in Glasgow and was told they recieve daily calls complaining about this company. If you do a google search on 'Iomart' you will find numerous complaints and even websites dedicated to helping 'victims of iomart'. The only thing I can say about this company is stay well clear as businesses are not protected in the same way consumers are and Iomart take full advantage of that fact.
I think that you have answered your own comment. The contract that you took out does very clearly state that it will automatically renew, as with the majority of similar contracts, unless it is canceled before the renewal date. Our contract is approved by trading standards and is no different to lots of contracts issued for things like mobile phones etc. This information is on the terms and conditions on our website as well as you pointed out, in the welcome pack and also on each of the paper invoices that had been sent to you each month. The information certainly wasn't hidden away from you.
It sounds like you are annoyed with yourself about the fact you never read the contract that was sent through to you and you failed to pick up on this point. Please however get in touch and I will go through your account.
after cancelling my contract, ufindus tell me that i agreed to a 12 month rolling contract, i informed them i did not agree to this, the young lady told me that the t& c's would have been in my welcome pack "which is sent out after you agree?? "so how does one agree to t&c's which are sent out afterwards ?? "which i never got anyway"
i'm then told that i should have gone onto the website and read them!! 1st. rather importantly you not given any details about this minor detail and no-one will mentioned it untill you want to cancel.
been with this lot since 2003 what a waste of money. And might i say, when i asked to talk to manager, i'm told they wan't won't to talk with me!! thats just great service.
the story will continue:...........
Please feel free to contact me regarding this awful company I have had terrible problems with them and am very keen talk to people in a similar situation so I can use it in court
I also think it is ridiculous that the guy from ufindus posts a reply to most comments and rates them as a good company thus giving an average rating of 3!
Surely he should only be allowed to give a no rating! as he works for them!!!
I have just received a letter from a debt collection agency telling me I owe Ufindus 3 years of payments. I cancelled my account with the said company immediately I saw what they laughingly called a website. They promised so much and delivered absolutely nothing and I asked for my money back. They refused and said that I had made an agreement and that was that. I cancelled the account and they agreed. Imagine my surprise when out of the blue I received an invoice to last January stating that I owe £539.00. If I owed money surely I would have received regular invoices. It was only when I found this site on Blagger that I realised that I am just one of the many who have been deceived by this rogue trader. I am planning to fight my case through the courts and would be happy if any other victim would tell their story to the court also. I await your replies. Alan W.
It's comforting to see that I am not alone! Ufindus (or, as I like to call them UCantGetRidOfUs) are the bane of my life!! There is a regular pattern.... Ufindus call to say we owe them money, I say we don't, they demand to see our bank statements, I send them copies with a covering letter stating that I want no more to do with them, they don't reply.... Some months later Ufindus call to say we owe them money, I say we don't, they demand to see our bank statements, I send them copies with a covering letter stating that I want no more to do with them, they don't reply.... A few weeks later Ufindus call to say we owe them money, I say we don't, they demand to see our bank statements, I send them copies with a covering letter stating that I want no more to do with them, they don't reply....and so it goes on, and on and on!!! One 'advisor' I spoke to actually said that my account had been 'reinstated' on the exact date that I had emailed them (for the umpteenth time)to close it!!! If I can do ANYTHING to help this world or ours, if I stop one more person getting involved with this shambolic Company, I will get a little peace in my soul.
Please get in touch with me and I will have a look at your case for you. Unfortunately from the brief information that you have given here it is impossible to identify your account details and make an infomred response.
Hi Avery77,
From your posting it certainly looks like you have not been happy with the service that has been provided. However I am sure that if you feel frustrated your account of events will be bound to portray UFindUs in an unfavourable light, and I do feel sure that if we were able to look at your account many of your comments could be satisfactorily explained.
It is very difficult without seeing your account to make any valid comments as to what has actually gone on in the past but I would be more than happy to publicly explain our response if you would care to contact me at UFindUs.
I was cold called, in 2003,i desperatly needed a new Hosting service, the call was like a blessing in disguise (I rue the day i received it).
THE FIRST STITCH UP, I was promised hosting on the first site, and a design package on the second, i was charged for 2 design packages the first web site was up and running and needed no work carried out, also they offered 2 Domain names for "FREE" the names were rubbish,and i never asked for them.
Iomart infomed me that the first site was on line, i sat back and waited for the promised hits to my site, 3 months latter still nothing, checked my .com site it was not on line they had registerd my site as .co.uk but had not transfered the site over from .com to .co.uk, total incompetance.
I sent them info and photos on disc for the second site, guess what they lost it twice, still no hits 6 months later, spent many hours on the phone and sending e-mails, many appologies, eventully they replied and said they could not understand what was the mater with the site, The Stat Monkey did not work, lucky for them, as i could not check up on the statistics, the whole thing was a ludicruse, no hits in the whole time i was with them, i had an IT expert look at the site he was gob smacked he said there was programing within the servers that was throwing enquires out when the spider was looking at my keywords, he suggested suing them for loss of earnings.
I had, "had enuough", I phoned IOMART in 2004 to cancel the account, they said put it in writing, i did, i stopped the payments, the sites were transfered over to my new Hosting company with no probs, the new company designed and hosted 2 great sites, oddly bills still arrived from Iomart, i ignored them, then they asked for the re-registrations of the un-wanted domain names, what a liberty.
3 years latter, a demand from a debt collection agency, they were demanding back payment for the design and hosting, which they had never carried out for 3 years, what a liberty, my word against there's, they said they had not received the cancellation letter, Rubbish, a company like this should never be able to trade with impunity and cheat, hard working members of the public.
My one regret is, i never checked with blagger befor i signed up with Iomart, Ufindus.
i signed up to ufind us over 2 years ago after being sold to over the phone. they entered my company in the wrong area and the wrong classification. they then told me that i couldn't have the classification i'd been promised. after many phone calls which achieved nothing i wrote to them cancelling the account. I also cancelled the direct debit. this week they called me to say they've no record of my cancellation letter and i owe them £350.00. i made it quite clear i would not be paying this so the next day their debt collection company called me saying they were willing to negotiate the amount of money outstanding. again i refused so they said they are taking me to court.
stay well away from this company they are nothing but con merchants. i've not had one single customer saying they found me on ufindus.
oh and i'll be seeing them in court!
Hi mick932,
This started out as a transfer out but it was Lycos who they wouldn’t allow us to transfer the domain in to them and that we would have to change the name servers which was in an email Jacqui received on 30th July which you forwarded onto her.
The customer wasn’t told they would have to renew with us before we could make any changes, what they were advised is that the package they had with us would change completely and the new package would incur an annual charge instead of a monthly fee as had been paid before. We didn’t make any charge for this year and had advised that he would be responsible for the small charge we would make next year if he did not cancel the new package.
The reason for “only entering 2/3rds of the details” was that we only had 2 name servers and Lycos could have added the third. Jacqui had responded promptly to your email and had informed you of the above. The name server changes had been done the day before you called in and she was correct in saying that the WHOIS database (or similar) can take up to 48 hrs to show changes.
The third name server was added as by this time we had to wait for our registry department to add a third nameserver, a situation we had not encountered before. I don’t accept that we were incompetent or intentionally disruptive, as we aim to deliver a high level of customer service. I am sorry if you feel we have been anything less than professional in your dealings with us as this is not how how we feel our customers are treated, but as I’m sure you will agree the important thing is that everything that your client required has been provided.
I'm a web designer working for a builder who was advertising with ufindus and so far I've have had a horrendous experience with them.
The builder had website made and hosted by ufindus and he wanted me to upgrade it to something more professional looking (its a very cheap and tacky html table thing at the moment) anyway I contacted ufindus to arrange for the naming servers changed to my web hosting (a 10min job, tops) that was 3 weeks ago.
It started with them saying that the builder would have to sign up with them for another year before they could make any changes (total rubbish btw) but he was thinking about doing anyway, so no problem.
Anyway after sending them a email several times with the server details on, someone called jackie took the case on and said she would sort it out. She told me it would take up to 48hours for this to go though on Tuesday (24/07) and the next day she sent me an email with a conformation of the server details, except it was to much effort to do the whole job and she only entered 2/3rds of the details - I again contacted ufindus (my emails where ignored) and received some mumbled response about my hosting company being able to sort it out.
On Friday afternoon after checking the WHOIS database (it contains details of where websites are hosted), I again spoke Jackie who was suppose to be dealing with this and I ask again why nothing had been done - she then repeated that it can take upto 48 hours for the servers to update (funny as it 3 days after it was supposed to have been done) then declared I was being rude and hung up. Professionalism at it finest.
Well its now 5 days since my host's details where supposed to have been entered and unsurprising it still with ufindus/iomart. I haven't even included all the messing around I've had with them as I trying to keep this shortish.
This has gone from the merely incompetent to the intentionally disruptive, I'm decided probably they only way to go forward is to get Trading Standards involved, disappointing when it was such a simple thing I was asking them to do.
The biggest difference between UFindUs and find4you is that you are dealing with a very local marketplace. UFindUs deals with local searches but with national coverage. From the point of view of cost, we operate out of four sales centres and have over 100 staff carrying our accounting, support, website design and technical development functions. We are constantly developing our products to make sure we stay ahead of the game and will always be looking at developing the services we offer to existing customers to make sure they get the best deals as well. When you look at things from the point of view that we invest millions each year in technology and infrastructure to make it all possible then we don’t feel we have a problem in justifying the competitive price we charge.
I’m sure you will agree as well that whether you are running UFindUs or find4you it’s certainly far from easy. The important thing is that we feel each feel we offer our customer and end users the service they want which will keep them coming back again and again.
Thanks for reading what I have to say, but please read my comments again 4 I have not taken a different view on web business directories, I am just posting a reaction to your customers comments, u will also find that I have only put forward the question to u “why is it costing so much money for your customers?” (4 which I had no reply)
Also, yes the website to develop at first was expensive (to me expensive is over £200), but after that it is very cheap to run.
Yes, Yell.com is a very good way of advertising, because everyone knows the brand name and their book is delivered to every house in the Country. I never commented on Thompson local but since u mention it, they too have a good reputation and also have wide spread advertising campaigns. This is where customers can see their money being spent.
I do think that most web directories offer the same functions, yours is no different, but I do like the look of your website, I have never said otherwise.
I have only been up and running with my directory 4 five months and now have 450 businesses listed and 2000 views a day from the public, I also have 10,000 door to door flyers posted every month, I now have a large advert in a very big local paper hitting 120,000 doormats and soon radio, I send out on average 30 emails to all types of businesses a day, this is what my customers get back 4 their money.
I still work full time in another job and I could double the time spent on my own web service if needed, to receive an email or phone call takes seconds to send this information on to the listed businesses is the click of a button.
I find your comments amusing in the fact that when you have previously posted on blagger last year you said the following (30th November):
“For all the Businesses that have spent money on what sounds like a good idea for small businesses, I offer you this free box listing and a free web redirect from my site. Take a look there are no promises that you will get noticed but when I receive an email for a certain business in a town or city, if I have your companies email I will send the information to all, because the more companies I show on the site the better. “Have a look; there is no sales team, no promises, NO LIES, just me and my computer and an expensive website, still I could of bought a new car to go round and round in circles.”
And on the 20th December you then said
“This service that is offered is very cheap to run, why does it cost so much each month?”
Now you are posting on Blagger saying the exact opposite and shouting about the virtues of Yell.com! Should we assume that your business didn’t take off? Perhaps you now relaise what is involved both financially and in resources in order to provide a first class web based directory such as UFindUs.com, Yell.com, Thompson etc.
I don’t think I really need to say any more.
Graham Armstrong
Accountability Department
UFindUs Ltd
Hi to all those who have invested time and money into this company which in essence is a good idea, but in fact is just like any other web business directory and if you need a tried and tested business directory look no further than yell.co.uk.
Ask yourself do they offer anything better than yell and do they advertise on a major scale in a ten mile radius of you business, in local papers door to door flyers or on radio and TV, is it also available to people without an internet connection, only 5% of businesses are found through a web directory even less are used when found because of availability.
Hi bedandbreakfast,
There’s obviously no need to give your personal details on here for all to see but I did give you the email address to contact me at and I will happily get your case reviewed.
I hope to hear from you.
Graham Armstrong
Accountability Department
UFindUs Ltd
Graham Armstrong - I'm very impressed that you read this blagger site so regularly. Perhaps you are sensitive to adverse publicity? I cannot give my name here (against the procedures rightly put in place to protect those who complain- or praise). Unfortunately I cannot say anything positive about your organisation and would not be fool enough to give you any chance to 'enhance' the abysmal service I have had to increase custom to my B B. I have successfully cancelled a renewal of this 'service'. Your agent on the phone attempted to sell me more 'services' after agreeing to my request for the cancellation of renewal .You had no alternative as I have also cancelled your 'continuous authority' on my debit card which you obtained when you sold me the service and I have subsequently paid you monthly by Standing Order. Having tried the 'softly, softly' approach, your agent lost her cool when I stated why I mistrusted Ufindus and she became positively incensed when I referred to blaggers.com and slammed the phone down after claiming that everything on here is lies. Well, Graham, in my case I have told the truth in the hope that other small, struggling businesses will not be tempted to give you their card numbers when you come a-cold calling.
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Comments:
We have already stated that in the past our support systems didn’t grow at the same rate as our customer base which has resulted in some problems but as a customer from 2002 your comments do not reflect our current promotional service or the levels of our customer service.
At the end of the day the decision is yours as to whether you wish us to try to help you or not.
Regardless of whether or not cancelling a Direct Debit cancels a contract...I had WRITTEN to your company cancelling it (with our very valid reasons) prior to the cancellation of the Direct Debit.
Save your niceties... I really don't think that planting you on here to placate irate former customers is having the effect Ufindus thought it would.
I cancelled with this shower(iomart that is) after they decieved me of money and took no notice when I wanted my details changed on my "website". I told them at least 6 times to change the address as I had moved.
I cancelled verbally, by phone, by letter AND by fax, and still they rang asking to BOOST my websites hits.
Dreadful......just dreadful.......
You need to remember that the internet has progressed a long way in the last 6 years and likewise the service we have offered has continued to change accordingly. Our rapidsite software was a basic introductory website presence and apart from some minor alterations hasn’t changed much. This will be changing with a new package in the coming months which will be a market leading product.
I am very surprised about the rankings as we have always had great results with the search engines as our sites are so search engine friendly. Canceling the direct debit, as I am sure you are aware, doesn’t cancel the package. All of our customers have access to their control panel which shows them their billing so all of our customers have full control of their accounts. Whilst we should, from what you have said, acknowledge if we haven’t followed up the debt as thoroughly as we could have done it would be reasonable to expect that if someone was aware of a debt having built up then they would ensure that the matter had been resolved before assuming it was resolved.
As I have said I am keen to see if we can try and sort the matter out for you as soon as possible.
Graham Armstrong
So, 200 odd quid for the set up then 20 odd quid a month for a tinpot "website" that looked like a 3 year old had done it.
After 6 months I asked for stats as I could never find us on the first page of google (I suppose if it displayed at a million entries per page, we might have been there somewhere :|).
The stats I received back were hilarious, apparently we were high up on the listings of about 3 search engines that I had never heard of.
When I questioned them about their Google sales pitch, they told me that their sales reps would never say or promise such a thing. An outright lie!
After attempting to cancel the contact in writing due to them not fulfilling their end of the bargain (and thus negating their so called T & C's), and getting no response, I just cancelled the Direct Debit.
I heard NOTHING for about 2 years, then out of the blue they phoned me demanding all the back payments (no invoices were sent to us from them incidentally).
I told them what had happened and they said they would look into to.
Amazingly during this period of time, I must have had about 10 sales calls from Ufindus trying to get our company on board, they soon hung up after I thanked them for ringing and proceeded to bombard them with complaints about the fact that we already HAD signed up and were very unsatisfied and that WE would like a refund of all the monies we had paid to them.
So, to cut a long and VERY COMMON story short... last year (2007) we received yet another request for several hundreds of pounds in "missed payments", then a letter from Blacks, then a phone call from Black with the threat of court action...to which I responded with "See you there". That was January 2008. Today (9th April) we had another phone call asking us to clarify that that was what we wanted to do (go to court) or we could have this one last chance to clear the arrears. You can guess what my reaction was...lol
What a joke. I would LOVE for them to take us to court.
There is nothing on file to indicate that you had not accepted this and your billing continued until you advised us that you wanted to cancel. By this time you had entered another 12 month contract period and it is reasonable for us to expect your to pay for this period of time.
However I am happy to cancel the outstanding invoices off as a gesture of goodwill. Whilst we are not always right customers need to take on board that they are bound by the terms and conditions. In business everyone needs to take their responsibilities seriously, whether it is as a business customer who has bought a service or the business who is providing the service.
Customer Street and UFindUs do take customer service seriously and we continue to improve our services and processes. As I have said previously the best way to make sure that complaints are handled effectively is to contact me directly at ad@customerstreet.com.
I think that you have answered your own comment. The contract that you took out does very clearly state that it will automatically renew, as with the majority of similar contracts, unless it is canceled before the renewal date. Our contract is approved by trading standards and is no different to lots of contracts issued for things like mobile phones etc. This information is on the terms and conditions on our website as well as you pointed out, in the welcome pack and also on each of the paper invoices that had been sent to you each month. The information certainly wasn't hidden away from you.
It sounds like you are annoyed with yourself about the fact you never read the contract that was sent through to you and you failed to pick up on this point. Please however get in touch and I will go through your account.
Graham Armstrong
i'm then told that i should have gone onto the website and read them!! 1st. rather importantly you not given any details about this minor detail and no-one will mentioned it untill you want to cancel.
been with this lot since 2003 what a waste of money. And might i say, when i asked to talk to manager, i'm told they wan't won't to talk with me!! thats just great service.
the story will continue:...........
Please feel free to contact me regarding this awful company I have had terrible problems with them and am very keen talk to people in a similar situation so I can use it in court
I also think it is ridiculous that the guy from ufindus posts a reply to most comments and rates them as a good company thus giving an average rating of 3!
Surely he should only be allowed to give a no rating! as he works for them!!!
Please get in touch with me and I will have a look at your case for you. Unfortunately from the brief information that you have given here it is impossible to identify your account details and make an infomred response.
Graham Armstrong
From your posting it certainly looks like you have not been happy with the service that has been provided. However I am sure that if you feel frustrated your account of events will be bound to portray UFindUs in an unfavourable light, and I do feel sure that if we were able to look at your account many of your comments could be satisfactorily explained.
It is very difficult without seeing your account to make any valid comments as to what has actually gone on in the past but I would be more than happy to publicly explain our response if you would care to contact me at UFindUs.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Graham Armstrong
THE FIRST STITCH UP, I was promised hosting on the first site, and a design package on the second, i was charged for 2 design packages the first web site was up and running and needed no work carried out, also they offered 2 Domain names for "FREE" the names were rubbish,and i never asked for them.
Iomart infomed me that the first site was on line, i sat back and waited for the promised hits to my site, 3 months latter still nothing, checked my .com site it was not on line they had registerd my site as .co.uk but had not transfered the site over from .com to .co.uk, total incompetance.
I sent them info and photos on disc for the second site, guess what they lost it twice, still no hits 6 months later, spent many hours on the phone and sending e-mails, many appologies, eventully they replied and said they could not understand what was the mater with the site, The Stat Monkey did not work, lucky for them, as i could not check up on the statistics, the whole thing was a ludicruse, no hits in the whole time i was with them, i had an IT expert look at the site he was gob smacked he said there was programing within the servers that was throwing enquires out when the spider was looking at my keywords, he suggested suing them for loss of earnings.
I had, "had enuough", I phoned IOMART in 2004 to cancel the account, they said put it in writing, i did, i stopped the payments, the sites were transfered over to my new Hosting company with no probs, the new company designed and hosted 2 great sites, oddly bills still arrived from Iomart, i ignored them, then they asked for the re-registrations of the un-wanted domain names, what a liberty.
3 years latter, a demand from a debt collection agency, they were demanding back payment for the design and hosting, which they had never carried out for 3 years, what a liberty, my word against there's, they said they had not received the cancellation letter, Rubbish, a company like this should never be able to trade with impunity and cheat, hard working members of the public.
My one regret is, i never checked with blagger befor i signed up with Iomart, Ufindus.
stay well away from this company they are nothing but con merchants. i've not had one single customer saying they found me on ufindus.
oh and i'll be seeing them in court!
This started out as a transfer out but it was Lycos who they wouldn’t allow us to transfer the domain in to them and that we would have to change the name servers which was in an email Jacqui received on 30th July which you forwarded onto her.
The customer wasn’t told they would have to renew with us before we could make any changes, what they were advised is that the package they had with us would change completely and the new package would incur an annual charge instead of a monthly fee as had been paid before. We didn’t make any charge for this year and had advised that he would be responsible for the small charge we would make next year if he did not cancel the new package.
The reason for “only entering 2/3rds of the details” was that we only had 2 name servers and Lycos could have added the third. Jacqui had responded promptly to your email and had informed you of the above. The name server changes had been done the day before you called in and she was correct in saying that the WHOIS database (or similar) can take up to 48 hrs to show changes.
The third name server was added as by this time we had to wait for our registry department to add a third nameserver, a situation we had not encountered before. I don’t accept that we were incompetent or intentionally disruptive, as we aim to deliver a high level of customer service. I am sorry if you feel we have been anything less than professional in your dealings with us as this is not how how we feel our customers are treated, but as I’m sure you will agree the important thing is that everything that your client required has been provided.
The builder had website made and hosted by ufindus and he wanted me to upgrade it to something more professional looking (its a very cheap and tacky html table thing at the moment) anyway I contacted ufindus to arrange for the naming servers changed to my web hosting (a 10min job, tops) that was 3 weeks ago.
It started with them saying that the builder would have to sign up with them for another year before they could make any changes (total rubbish btw) but he was thinking about doing anyway, so no problem.
Anyway after sending them a email several times with the server details on, someone called jackie took the case on and said she would sort it out. She told me it would take up to 48hours for this to go though on Tuesday (24/07) and the next day she sent me an email with a conformation of the server details, except it was to much effort to do the whole job and she only entered 2/3rds of the details - I again contacted ufindus (my emails where ignored) and received some mumbled response about my hosting company being able to sort it out.
On Friday afternoon after checking the WHOIS database (it contains details of where websites are hosted), I again spoke Jackie who was suppose to be dealing with this and I ask again why nothing had been done - she then repeated that it can take upto 48 hours for the servers to update (funny as it 3 days after it was supposed to have been done) then declared I was being rude and hung up. Professionalism at it finest.
Well its now 5 days since my host's details where supposed to have been entered and unsurprising it still with ufindus/iomart. I haven't even included all the messing around I've had with them as I trying to keep this shortish.
This has gone from the merely incompetent to the intentionally disruptive, I'm decided probably they only way to go forward is to get Trading Standards involved, disappointing when it was such a simple thing I was asking them to do.
The biggest difference between UFindUs and find4you is that you are dealing with a very local marketplace. UFindUs deals with local searches but with national coverage. From the point of view of cost, we operate out of four sales centres and have over 100 staff carrying our accounting, support, website design and technical development functions. We are constantly developing our products to make sure we stay ahead of the game and will always be looking at developing the services we offer to existing customers to make sure they get the best deals as well. When you look at things from the point of view that we invest millions each year in technology and infrastructure to make it all possible then we don’t feel we have a problem in justifying the competitive price we charge.
I’m sure you will agree as well that whether you are running UFindUs or find4you it’s certainly far from easy. The important thing is that we feel each feel we offer our customer and end users the service they want which will keep them coming back again and again.
Graham Armstrong
UFindUs Ltd
Thanks for reading what I have to say, but please read my comments again 4 I have not taken a different view on web business directories, I am just posting a reaction to your customers comments, u will also find that I have only put forward the question to u “why is it costing so much money for your customers?” (4 which I had no reply)
Also, yes the website to develop at first was expensive (to me expensive is over £200), but after that it is very cheap to run.
Yes, Yell.com is a very good way of advertising, because everyone knows the brand name and their book is delivered to every house in the Country. I never commented on Thompson local but since u mention it, they too have a good reputation and also have wide spread advertising campaigns. This is where customers can see their money being spent.
I do think that most web directories offer the same functions, yours is no different, but I do like the look of your website, I have never said otherwise.
I have only been up and running with my directory 4 five months and now have 450 businesses listed and 2000 views a day from the public, I also have 10,000 door to door flyers posted every month, I now have a large advert in a very big local paper hitting 120,000 doormats and soon radio, I send out on average 30 emails to all types of businesses a day, this is what my customers get back 4 their money.
I still work full time in another job and I could double the time spent on my own web service if needed, to receive an email or phone call takes seconds to send this information on to the listed businesses is the click of a button.
How easy is that?
All the best
That’s Find4you
I find your comments amusing in the fact that when you have previously posted on blagger last year you said the following (30th November):
“For all the Businesses that have spent money on what sounds like a good idea for small businesses, I offer you this free box listing and a free web redirect from my site. Take a look there are no promises that you will get noticed but when I receive an email for a certain business in a town or city, if I have your companies email I will send the information to all, because the more companies I show on the site the better. “Have a look; there is no sales team, no promises, NO LIES, just me and my computer and an expensive website, still I could of bought a new car to go round and round in circles.”
And on the 20th December you then said
“This service that is offered is very cheap to run, why does it cost so much each month?”
Now you are posting on Blagger saying the exact opposite and shouting about the virtues of Yell.com! Should we assume that your business didn’t take off? Perhaps you now relaise what is involved both financially and in resources in order to provide a first class web based directory such as UFindUs.com, Yell.com, Thompson etc.
I don’t think I really need to say any more.
Graham Armstrong
Accountability Department
UFindUs Ltd
Ask yourself do they offer anything better than yell and do they advertise on a major scale in a ten mile radius of you business, in local papers door to door flyers or on radio and TV, is it also available to people without an internet connection, only 5% of businesses are found through a web directory even less are used when found because of availability.
find4you at 30th Apr 2007, 07:41PM
There’s obviously no need to give your personal details on here for all to see but I did give you the email address to contact me at and I will happily get your case reviewed.
I hope to hear from you.
Graham Armstrong
Accountability Department
UFindUs Ltd
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