I started advertising with Bellsouth Yellowpages a few years ago. Last year they were absorbed by AT&T. In March, I was contacted about renewing my advertising and increasing my internet exposure with more of their products. I had no increase in business for the previous year, but thought that it might help to do as they suggested. The salesman assured me that I could cancel prior to the start of the new contract- November 1. In September, after a brutal year, I called to cancel and was told that I would have had to have called within 30 days of signing. I called a few "customer service" numbers and got nowhere. I finally got to someone who was helpful and she gave me the number for our local sales manager. He told me that he would research whether there were any grounds for terminating the contract (non-performance or lack of response by the original salesman seemed to be the only possibilities; neither seemed provable). I paid the last installment of my 2007 contract- 60 days late... business was so bad. Today I got a call telling me I owed two months in the new contract. I told them I wasn't going to pay it- I had offered compromises after asking to cancel (said I'd pay for print or a reduced internet program) and they had rejected or ignored me. I'm not willing to bankrupt my business to pay for worthless advertising.

I just left a message for the sales manager. I'm going to ask him one more time to do something. If he doesn't, I'm considering taking the story to a local consumer advocate and publishing more details of this story on the www. I can't afford the lawyer if they sue me, so the choice is that or shut down the business and start again under a new name. Just great how much they care about helping their customers, eh?

AT&T is a great company, but salespeople, who sell on commission, will always want more commission, especially if they are under extreme pressure to obtain objective.

Advertising in any medium is a gamble. No salesperson can guarantee anything.

If any decision maker hears overblown statements be careful. Many headings in the book and the Internet don't have enough traffic to generate positive results. Remember any decision maker is relying on the honesty of the salesperson, who is biased toward commission.

If a company wants to advertise in the AT&T Yellow Pages for the book or the Internet, always try to meet your return on investment, which is based on your conversion rate for the number of calls received, monthly cost of the ad, visitors to the heading, and profit per customer. Statistics quoted by the salesperson are fine, but remember many factors affect the results. True, potential customers, who search the AT&T Real Yellow Pages or their Internet site, are "ready to buy".

Content and dominance are vital, but AT&T is only trying to give companies more calls. AT&T is not converting these people to customers. By all means try to be dominant, and have the proper content. Websites are a must! Even with all the preceding factors, the attitude of the company, product, location, parking, and customer service will have a greater impact to obtain and increase the number of satisfied customers.

Whether your ad works in the AT&T Real Yellow Pages or not, you will be required to pay the fees, if the deadlines to cancel are passed. The advertisement on their internet site will be removed after a certain number of months, if a customer doesn’t pay, but delinquencies are not tolerated at AT&T, whether the ad works or not.

AT&T to enforce the contract uses the voice verification for the sale. Whatever a decision maker is told during the sales part of the call is not legally binding to AT&T, so enforce your rights during the voice verification to use some of the salesperson’s overblown statements against them. If the decision maker calls AT&T customer service with a complaint only the voice verification will be played, so use their business practices for your benefit.