Business Scams; opportunity for companies to have their say

16th January 2013

Enterprise Europe Network Yorkshire is encouraging businesses to tell us about any experiences they may have had from having been targeted by business scams.

There is already some EU legislation governing misleading and comparative advertising, but following a recent consultation, the European Commission has come to believe that the rules may not be clear enough and that enforcement needs to be improved to tackle this problem. The European Commission is therefore collating SME experience of misleading advertising or marketing activities that have affected their business. If this includes some of your members, please refer them to us to provide anonymous feedback Misleading advertising and marketing practices include a wide range of activities that aim to deceive other businesses about the price, quality and / or nature of a product or service. Examples include situations where: businesses have received misleading payment forms disguised as an invoice for services that they are supposed to have ordered; a fraudster pretends to offer a specialised service for a very high fee, while in reality only providing a low-cost service, such as a web domain registration or inclusion in a list of trademarks; forms have been sent to businesses asking them to update their details in a directory, seemingly free of charge, only to be told when they've returned the form that they've signed a contract and will be charged a yearly fee. In November of last year, it set out some of its own ideas for how the situation might be addressed but before going ahead, it is keen to hear from small and medium sized businesses about their experiences and any costs or other negative impacts. Feedback via Enterprise Europe will be completely confidential and anonymous: no details of the firm itself will be passed on to the Commission. If you are interested in sharing your experiences and helping to tackle this problem, please contact us on 0800 052 8156 or via e-mail at info@ee-yorkshire.com by 18th February 2013.