877-904-5692

This was a call from "Local Online Yellow Book" the conversation was recorded and chopped up to make it sound like you are agreeing to use their services, and repeatedly said no. I personally went on their web-site and contacted 35 other listings in 9 states and all of them has the same comments of illegal billing, threat of collections and threat of a law suit. I now have filed complaints with the A-G in Kansas and New Jersey, BBB in KS & NJ., run an interview on investigative news on local CBS News station. Everywhere I look I find more & more on these people. Where does this stop????????

Was told I could cancel advertisement up till thirty days, called on the thirth day and was told no this is the 31 day which it was not.  Now they want $549.00 for a year of advertising. I do not even know if their is an advertisement, doubt it.

Its the new face of an old scam. Do not be deceived by what you are told. All of it is a lie every word of it just go to this site websiteoutlook.com and type in the name of this site "localoyb.com", the following message would come up

"localoyb.com has 5615131 traffic rank in world by alexa. localoyb.com is getting 195 pageviews per day and making USD 0.59 daily. localoyb.com has 283 backlinks according to yahoo and currently not     listed in Dmoz directory. localoyb.com is hosted in United States at THE PLANET data center. localoyb.com is most populer in "X" . Estimeted worth of localoyb.com is USD 430.7 according to websiteoutlook"

These are very poor statistics. The whole business of localoyb.com is worth $430.70 how could they be charging clients $549.95 each. Now compare this with real AT&T yellow pages. Go back to websiteoutlook.com and type in yellowpages.com and you will see that AT&T yellow pages ( the actual and real yellow pages ) just the website is worth 3.3 million dollars. So BE AWARE OF THE "LOCALOYB.COM" SCAM+FRAUD.

Their address on the site is just a mailbox location. It can be verified by using Google maps. If you received a call from these people just call the NJ Attorney General's Office. The AG office already has a list of complaints about this company and I was told they are considering an action.

Another tip, you can contact the Hosting company THE PLANET and inform them about localoyb.com and its extortion campaign.

I am the grand daughter of a local business in Ohio who received a phone call from this "online yellow book" number. At the beginning of our nearly 25 minute conversation, the caller claimed that they were YellowPages (not yellowBOOK) asking for an update on the information for our business. I told them "yes, that is our address. Yes, that is our phone number. Yes, that is our business title and here is our website: (insert here)" and it was only towards the end of the phone call where they started to tell me about a free trial we are now receiving. They included that when they call again to ask if we would like to upgrade for $549 a year, we can say "no" and keep our free trial, or say "yes" and then will be billed. I probably started breaking down into tears at this point realizing this was a scam, and reluctantly told them my nickname (not my legal name) and after minutes of pestering me for information on whether I was a manager authorized to tell them this information or not, I said "sure." At my local business, I tried to explain, we don't have managers but anyone off the street could authorize that information that they had was correct.

We received a letter in the mail a couple weeks later that basically mentioned there was a bill being processed that would only actually be processed if we sent this letter back telling them we authorized this account change. The letter specifically stated that if we did not send the letter back, that the bill would be eliminated and we would not be charged. So, after listening to precisely what the letter asked, we still received a bill in the mail about another week later now charging us $549 + late fees from having to take time to find the recording from the archives.

We have not listened to a recording yet, and I have received a phone call from a Gerald Hugh with the phone number of 1-877-904-5692 ext. 601 who claims that I have an account with Online Yellow Book (this is the first that I've heard of yellowBOOK, as mentioned earlier) and needs me to call him back. Needless to say, I've been a little worried about calling him back and since I am a college student who has been working two jobs and fulfilling my marching band duties during 48 hour practice this past weekend, I have not had time to call this man since last Monday.

I feel like calling him may make matters worse since this page mentioned they cut up the recording and paste it together to make it sound like I said yes. Thus, I do not plan on calling him and I also don't really feel comfortable calling New Jersey's Attorney General when I'm a very young woman from Ohio.

I too am being threatened by localonline yellow book. I contacted the NJ attorney generals office div_consumer_affairs_no_reply@dca.lps.state.nj.us and they sent me a complaint form if a few more are sent to them they will persue the company which will likely relieve us suckers of having to pay them. If you send me your e-mail to normrosner@aol.com I'll forward theirs to you with the complaint form

I too am being threatened by localonline yellow book. I contacted the NJ attorney generals office div_consumer_affairs_no_reply@dca.lps.state.nj.us and they sent me a complaint form if a few more are sent to them they will persue the company which will likely relieve us suckers of having to pay them. If you send me your e-mail to normrosner@aol.com I'll forward theirs to you with the complaint form. Their website does not work very well either.

I too am being threatened by localonline yellow book. I contacted the NJ attorney generals office div_consumer_affairs_no_reply@dca.lps.state.nj.us and they sent me a complaint form if a few more are sent to them they will persue the company which will likely relieve us suckers of having to pay them. If you send me your e-mail to normrosner@aol.com I'll forward theirs to you with the complaint form. Their website does not work very well either.

The localoyb site is really slow hardly user friendly and I doubt anyone gets any business from it. If I look for something these days i use Google or Yahoo etc but not yellow pages. I never got to put anything on the site and called to cancel but was told I was too late. This is a service of little or no value and if you talk to them they agree to lower the price but its still outrageous for what you might get

can you share some of your results with me so I have ammunition when the law suite or collection agency comes knocking. I am a 1 man show who has not spent a penny for SEO yet I am ranked higher that they are and also get more traffic. I am filling out A-G complaint as well

they told me they would help set up my ad no one called so i called to cancel they said too late

If you cannot get your money back, consider getting the website localoyb.com shut down and this is how you do it:
1. localoyb.com has IP address 69.93.64.50 http://www.who.is/whois/localoyb.com/ 
2. The Planet hosts the IP range 69.93.0.0 - 69.93.255.255 http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-69-93-0-0-1/pft 
3. Email abuse@theplanet.com with a full description of your problems with localoyb.com. Details are *very* important like names, dates, etc. Include *every* scrap of proof you have including a link to this 800notes page. Search the net for other complaints against localoyb.com and include them as links (minimize the amount of legwork the admin at abuse@theplanet.com has to do). Ask that localoyb.com be shut down. localoyb.com may simply migrate to another host but at least you've interrupted their operation. Good luck.

Good job Rich. They gave me the same "treatment." I have filed with the BBB and the NJ AG is next.

This is their standard MO, obviously. I'm so relieved I found this group. Together we'll shut 'em down.

To anyone reading this - do NOT give your credit card # to these crooks, and don't send them a penny! As you can see here, they have a crooked MO, and it's all about extorting $ from their victims with threats of credit agency reporting and law suits. Don't fall for it. Instead, contact the BBB and the NJ Attorney General's office.

I have a $20.00 charge from Woman To Woman 877904 Lauderdale LA, October 4, 2011, on my Visa bill.

I would love to have a complaint form.  Many thanks.

Margie Tallant

LocalOYB claimed I owned them $549.95 for a premium listing I never ordered, in an account that never existed. When I denied owing anything, a representative (Jerold Hughes) said he could settle the dispute for a "resolution fee" of $350. Like you, Norman, I filed a complaint with the Consumer Affairs Division of the New Jersey Attorney General's office. The form is online at their office, ready to be printed out. After mailing it, I emailed LocalOYB that a complaint had been filed and that any further communication from them also would immediately be forwarded to that agency. That night, Mr. Hughes left me a phone message saying my "account" had been cancelled and that no balance was due.

I havent paid these crooks anything yet and I dont intend to.

DO NOT PAY THESE SCAM PEOPLE ANYTHING!!!!!

LOCALOYB - 877-904-5692 FRAUD

These people are total FRAUDS! They call you up and say you owe for an invoice concerning  advertising and / or a web page. If you argue with them, they play you a recording "proving" you authorized it. Parts of the recording are real, because at some time you spoke to someone about some type of updating a business listing.

I remember speaking to someone about this but I also told them (like I always do), if this is going to cost money then I was NOT INTERESTED. What they did with this recorded conversation was to electronically add in some new material, making it sound like I had authorized the purchase of advertising.

I was taking aback when they played the conversation because it was me talking, and it sure sounded like I had agreed to purchase their program. This angered me even more because, like I said earlier, I NEVER BUY ANY type of online advertising.

Then the conman said "I can see you are very upset about all this, let me see what I can do for you". First, he came back with an offer of $350 to settle the matter, to which I said no. After arguing with him some more, he said he would "ask his manager about it" and came back with a final offer of $200.

These people are very convincing and I almost paid it. Of course I had to pay it then and there or there was going to be no deal. I chose not to pay it.  I went to google and found this blog post.

These people are total scam artists and quite good at what they do. However, as good as they think they are, their time is about up. They are under current investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and I hope the AG throws the book at them.

What they are doing is called extortion. It is 100% illegal so DO NOT PAY THEM! If you have been contacted by them, call the New Jersey Attorney General at 800-242-5846 and talk to one of the AG lawyers. Also, go here,
http://www.nj.gov/oag/ca/complaint/ocp.pdf
and download this form and file an AG consumer complaint. Next, be sure to post you dealings with them on this blog so others can be made aware of this con.

There is no telling how many people they have ripped off with this scam, because most people will just pay up to make it go away.

DO NOT PAY THESE SCAM PEOPLE ANYTHING!!!!!

LOCALOYB - 877-904-5692 FRAUD

These people are total FRAUDS! They call you up and say you owe for an invoice concerning  advertising and / or a web page. If you argue with them, they play you a recording "proving" you authorized it. Parts of the recording are real, because at some time you spoke to someone about some type of updating a business listing.

I remember speaking to someone about this but I also told them (like I always do), if this is going to cost money then I was NOT INTERESTED. What they did with this recorded conversation was to electronically add in some new material, making it sound like I had authorized the purchase of advertising.

I was taking aback when they played the conversation because it was me talking, and it sure sounded like I had agreed to purchase their program. This angered me even more because, like I said earlier, I NEVER BUY ANY type of online advertising.

They said I owed them $583.44. I told them I was not going to pay because I did not owe. Then the conman said "I can see you are very upset about all this, let me see what I can do for you". First, he came back with an offer of $350 to settle the matter, to which I said no. After arguing with him some more, he said he would "ask his manager about it" and came back with a final offer of $200.

These people are very convincing and I almost paid it. Of course I had to pay it then and there or there was going to be no deal. I chose not to pay it.  I went to google and found this blog post.

These people are total scam artists and quite good at what they do. However, as good as they think they are, their time is about up. They are under current investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and I hope the AG throws the book at them.

What they are doing is called extortion. It is 100% illegal so DO NOT PAY THEM! If you have been contacted by them, call the New Jersey Attorney General at 800-242-5846 and talk to one of the AG lawyers. Also, go here,
http://www.nj.gov/oag/ca/complaint/ocp.pdf
and download this form and file an AG consumer complaint. Next, be sure to post you dealings with them on this blog so others can be made aware of this con.

There is no telling how many people they have ripped off with this scam, because most people will just pay up to make it go away.

thank you frank. i had this same exact thing happen to me today. your post is very helpful and is everything they did to me