WARNING WARNING PLEASE READ

Hi All,

We feel it our duty to inform you all of a scam that has been attempted on us!!

We will give you quick outline of what has happened and then a website that you can see the responses from others that have also had the same attempt of the scam on them, some not so lucky though unfortunately.

We decided to take an advert out with Aspire Magazine as this is a magazine that covers our region, don't get us started on that one, that's another story! however the advert was placed and all was well in the end.

Maybe a week later 1/12/11 to be exact I received a phone call on my mobile from a private number, I answered the call and a guy on the other end said something a little mumbled at the beginning as it was a poor line but asked if he can just confirm the details he has are correct, not giving me chance to say anything, he proceeded to reel off our business name, address, both land line and mobile numbers, website address and then asked me to confirm my surname, I confirmed my surname closely followed by him saying thank you very much for supporting your community magazine, to which I then assumed he was from the Aspire Magazine and this was just a follow up call, he then proceeded to say that they will be sending me a distribution list and some publications of the magazine through the post. He then said thank you for placing the advert and we will not contact you again this side of Christmas, we hope you and your family have very nice Christmas and good New Year and then hung up. The conversation was very quick and probably only lasted about 40 seconds.

Monday 5/12/11 we receive through the post an invoice from a company called SWITCH GROUP for the total of £299.00 for the advert placed in "Your Community" and another piece of paper with the screen dump of the front page of our website asking us to approve the artwork. Obviously something was not right here as we had not taken out anymore advertisements.

I return home from work and looked at the invoice and it soon started to ring alarm bells, trying to cut a long story short here. I called them and spoke to a female called Sophie (she has various other names!) who I told, that I would not be paying and then she got very defensive and a little abrupt. Further digging and Google street maps later, shows the address is a Mail Box which is an American Franchise company that can be ran from a shop but is the equivalent to the UK PO Box. We smell a BIG STINKY RAT here. A quick call to Rob Rawlins at Wellground and to run a few thoughts past him, Rob reminds me that Irene at Ashdale Alpacas had recently blogged about a Crime Prevention Scam. I called Irene who had also placed an advert in the same Aspire Magazine and sure enough Irene has also had a similar telephone call but as of yet no invoice through the post.

A big thank you to Irene and Simon who gave me some good information and the following website to look at www.nuisancecalls.org.uk please look at this site, it's free you don't have to register or log in. scroll down the front page slightly and you will see a fairly large box that says enter you number here, enter 0844 096 1804 and hit enter. Click on the bit that says Switch Group Scam and then read the comments left by other people that have had the same happen to them. Please take a few minutes to do this it could save you allot of money!

We are trying to give you all a heads up on this scam, we don't want any of you to get caught out, even when they say they have a recorded message of you agreeing to the contract, which they did record me, but it's all a scam as you will see from reading the comments that have been left.

Please pass this blog onto everyone that you may feel could get caught out with this, we all follow different alpaca breeders for various reasons but lets all pull together on this and stop any of us getting scammed by these scum of the earth.

If anyone would like to call me to discuss our experience of this then please feel free 07912 579041 oh they have also sent me a text message after I said I was not paying saying "Urgent action required. please call SWITCH now regarding your overdue balance, call today to receive a 15% discount offer VALID TODAY ONLY CALL 0844 096 1804. oh they called me again today asking when i was going to pay, so I confirmed again I would not be paying so take me to court, she got rather aggressive and said i was unprofessional and asked if I talk to all of my customers this way. You don't want to know what I said!

Please be on your toes. Take care all.