Let your fingers walk away from these 'bills.' - fraudulent billing practices of companies that claim they provided advertising services for small businesses - Brief Article

Nation's Business, July, 1996

Don't be fooled by the familiar "walking fingers" logo on what may appear to be a Yellow Pages invoice. As much as $500 million a year is being collected by directory publishers who use the recognizable but never-trademarked logo on solicitations to potential advertisers, according to the Yellow Pages Publishers Association (YPPA), a nonprofit trade organization in Denver. Small businesses make up one of the Yellow Pages' largest categories of advertisers.

To spot what only appears to be--but isn't really--a Yellow Pages bill, look for these signs: the absence of a telephone number; a disclaimer that "this is not a bill," or fine print on the reverse saying it is a solicitation for an ad; an "amount due" that is generally between $100 and $200; and a statement that the directory is nationwide or statewide rather than local or regional.

Before paying for directory advertising, check your files for pending contracts with Yellow Pages publishers to ensure that the bill is for advertising you have ordered.

According to law-enforcement and U.S. Postal Service officials, many of the "walking fingers" directories for which ads are solicited either are never published, are distributed to a very small group, or contain only a few lines of type for each company.

If you receive such a solicitation and suspect the company behind it may engage in such practices, you could contact your local Better Business Bureau or your state attorney general's office, or call the YPPA hot line at 1-800-841-0639. You could also notify the regional postal inspector.

In addition, you may want to place photocopies of the solicitation on office bulletin boards and circulate them among accounts-payable employees.