We have been bombarded by emails from monkeys at the grandly named, ‘World Business Guide’ from International Directories Ltd, a British Virgin Islands registered company. Despite being asked to be removed from their database and to never contact us again, they continue to do so. I am a bit annoyed by the spam. Frankly I am more annoyed that we are being taken to be some of the dumbest people on the planet.
The World Business Guide is a bit like a really shit search engine.
A really shit search engine.
A search engine that will only pick up information on people that have paid it (accidentally it turns out), about € 1,000 per annum. A search engine that when you ask it to list companies globally in the export industry gives you 58 results…
This type of scam business has been around for a long time. They used to employ a bunch of commission only telesales people to cold call businesses and make impressive sounding claims to be International Business Yellow Pages or similar. You would pay some money and probably never hear from them again unless you complained in which case they might send you a copy of the directory. I am frankly stunned that the internet has not shut these businesses down.
We have been sent yet another note asking us to update our entry in the guide for free. All we have to do is fill in the missing infomation (everything).
In the PDF document that is attached, we see the following:
“ORDER
“THE SIGNING OF THIS DOCUMENT REPRESENTS THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS AND THE CONDITIONS STATED IN “THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR INSERTION” ON WEBPAGE:WWW.WORLD-BUSINESSGUIDE.COM. THE SIGNING IS LEGALLY BINDING AND GIVES YOU THE RIGHT OF AN INSERTION IN THE ONLINE DATA BASE OF THE WORLD BUSINESS GUIDE, WHICH CAN BE ACCESSED VIA THE INTERNET. A CD ROM WITH WORLDWIDE BUSINESS IS GRANTED ALL IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONTRACT CONDITIONS STATED IN “THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR INSERTION” ON WEBPAGE:WWW.WORLD-BUSINESSGUIDE.COM. THE VALIDATION TIME OF THE CONTRACT IS THREE YEARS AND STARTS ON THE EIGHTH DAY AFTER SIGNING THE CONTRACT. THE INSERTION IS GRANTED AFTER SIGNING AND RECEIVING THIS DOCUMENT BY THE SERVICE PROVIDER. I HEREBY ORDER A SUBSCRIPTION WITH SERVICE PROVIDER INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORIES LTD “WORLD BUSINESS GUIDE”. I WILL HAVE AN INSERTION INTO ITS DATA BASE FOR THREE YEARS. THE PRICE PER YEAR IS EURO 995. THE SUBSCRIPTION WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY EXTENDED EVERY YEAR FOR ANOTHER YEAR, UNLESS SPECIFIC WRITTEN NOTICE IS RECEIVED BY THE SERVICE PROVIDER OR THE SUBSCRIBER TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE EXPIRATION OF THE SUBSCRIPTION. YOUR DATA WILL BE RECORDED. THE PLACE OF JURISDICTION IN ANY DISPUTE ARISING IS THE SERVICE PROVIDER’S ADDRESS. THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE SERVICE PROVIDER AND THE SUBSCRIBER IS GOVERNED BY THE CONDITIONS STATED IN “THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR INSERTION” ON WEBPAGE: WWW.WORLD-BUSINESSGUIDE.COM”
So if we fill in the info and return it with a signature, we get charged the insertion fee. Nice.
I may use the World Business Guide in the future but only to ensure that any organisation that we choose to do business with is not listed in it. I would have massive reservations about the sanity of anyone that was stupid enough to go into it.