Well 'tis the season where all the area phone directories are hitting my front porch. I have noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of "white pages" and "yellow pages" as more people use their cell phone and drop their landline. Likewise the actual books are smaller in page size to increase the thickness. I compared the last three years of phonebooks that I had laying on my shelf and this year's books are definitely much smaller. I dropped Yellow Book this year yet they continued to pester me up to the deadline (which changed several times) and declined advertising offers with three different people over the phone, by email and fax. Then I started receiving text messages with a rude "undertone" saying that after this year businesses using cell phones as their main number would not be listed in phone directories. I could not find any info to this effect and feel it was just a desperate attempt to get me to advertise again. (Please let me know if you have information regarding this) I doubt that that I will ever advertise with them again. I know that others have bad experiences with them and was just wondering if others are encountering this.

I don't know if it's a horror story but I had a "YELLOW BOOK" rep tell me F-U and hang up on me. All I did was relate to her the story told to me by a local pest control outfit. They didn't approve a renewel subscription with them but got published anyway to the tune of $500.00 per month. The pest co had to go to court to get it resolved. I did advertise with Y-book once but didn't get much results. Now DEX our main yellow pages here does a very good job but they have two problems I don't seem able to resolve. One is their billing, my monthly fee is supposed to be $175 a month but it varies between $130 and $260. They tell me thats because my print and online listing renew at different dates and are billed differently, I say thats bull feces. My other complaint is in 11 years I've had over five different reps, just as I get used to one they change. I even had two this year, I re-upped in August with one and had another call me in October to renew. Seems the first one quit before submitting my order so we had to do it all over again. Thank goodness I don't have that trouble with my internet/website advertising, with a guy like Robb who has the patience of a hawk sitting on a phone pole, it all stays the same and runs very smoothly. And it only costs me a small domain fee plus a granola shipment at xmas time.

As long as I've advertised with YB, the new rep starts calling me in January to start with the "imminent deadline" BS (for a book that comes out in June!) As soon as the phone # shows up on my caller ID, I give it a distinct ring tone - usually a "cuckoo clock" ring. Because this gal will call back every two weeks until I sign or tell 'em to go to Hades.
We gave up on YP; the only calls we get for their ad are almost all tire-kickers.