Article about the European City Guide (ECG) in the Daily Mirror, 11th August 2004
Headline used: SPANISH BULL GUIDE-BOOK CONMEN BACK AFTER A 12-MONTH 'SIESTA'

The Online Article can be found Here

11/08/04 Text Only, if you have a scan of the Original, Please Please emial

A SCAM that preyed on countless small businesses has returned from the dead.

We were delighted to report last September that the parasitic Spanish-based European City Guide had been fined and shut down after thousands of complaints from dozens of European countries. But we warned: "The bad news is that the ban only runs for a year." Now the Federation Of Small Business is reporting the con has returned and, apart from moving from Barcelona to Valencia, is operating in the same vile way. The conmen made a mint sending junk mail to firms asking them to check their details for inclusion in what appears to be a free business directory.

But, once again, small print reveals that if you sign the form you are agreeing to be inserted in the next three editions of the guide at a cost of around £600 each time. Firms that don't pay are threatened with debt collectors - though we've never heard of any company actually being taken to court. One of the conmen's intended victims was so outraged that he's set up a website to fight ECG - www.stopecg.org Jules Woodell, who runs a record shop in Swansea, was targeted in 2001. "When I said I wanted to cancel they replied that it was a legally binding contract," he told us. "I contacted the other 24 businesses in Swansea I found on ECG's website and all of them said they had been taken in. "Realising just how distressing this was is what prompted me to set up the website."

His advice to anyone threatened with being sued by ECG is simple. First, don't pay, on the grounds that its mailshot was misleading. Second, "goad them". "Tell them 'see you in court, we're looking forward to it'," urged Jules, who never paid ECG despite the legal threats. "We want them exposed in a British court."

So do we.

Copyright, Daily Mirror 2004

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