Business Directory

After reading the above two articles, I suddenly recalled one of my classmates told me that he signed an advertisement contract sent to him by post. He is now slapped with a charge of S$8,500 for a two years advertisement contract. He did not read the small and fine print in between the wording that a fee of S$4,250 yearly contract. He was very upset when he tried to reason with the so called business advertisement company that doesn't allowed him to cancel the signed contract. In the end, a lawyer was engaged to defend and void the signed contract, but the outcome of the case is still not settled. I am puzzled that Singapore allows the company to operate and con our business community. I hope the authority can prevent it from operating in our country and tarnish our republic and business partners.

I am writing this to caution business organization to be more alert when updating their company particulars for directory listing as it may costs you a lot for a single word you change.

The story goes like this..

I received a mail from a company called Singapore *** Pages requesting us to update the particulars and fax back before certain date. That was a week before CNY and I was in the mood of clearing all my works before the long holiday. I spotted a mistake on my email address, the .sg is missing. I conveniently added the 3 characters .sg to my email address and fax it back to them.

After the long holiday, I came back to work and was shocked to see a bill of $4250 on my table. The first thing across my mind was “SXXX, KANA CON”. Straight away, I picked up the phone. As expected, I was only able to speak to a Receptionist. After many tries, I finally spoke to an ANG MO. I asked him what was the bill for and requested for a cancellation since it could be an over-sight and nothing had been done or delivered so far. He straight away offer a 50% cancellation fee which amounted to $4250 still because the paper which I signed carry a two years contract stated clearly on the FINE print.

My goodness, a German sole proprietor having an address in Philippines and running an Internet directory listing from a private apartment in Singapore, trying to get some quick money via legal loop hole.

Anyway, I reported the case to the police. If anyone of you encounter the same, do post your view here. If more and more victims can share their views, I believe the commercial crime dept will have to do somthing about it.

edit on 28 mar 2008 Finally the truth is out. The Asian Business Directories Pte Ltd has published a public apology on 17 Mar 2008 in The Straits Time admitting it has infringed the copy right of the Yellow pages. It is indirectly admitting that it has confused many businesses in the way they drafted there ad's mailer. The straits Times reported on 21 Mar 2008 that nearly 40 inquiries about this company have been sent to either CASE or the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore.