We received a spam email today inviting us to add a listing into the European Business Guide today. The fact that’s it unsolicited junk should be enough to requisite binning immediately, but as we have heard tales of people falling for this one we thought we’d write this up quickly.
European Business Guide Scam
The email says:
To whom it might concern,
In order to have your company inserted in the Europe Business Guide for 2022/2023, please submit the completed document to us.
A photo of the completed form is also accepted.
Europe Business Guide
3502 GB UTRECHT
THE NETHERLANDS
Fax: +31303100126
You can also attach the completed document in a reply to this email.
The referenced attached document has the following wording (bold text is their's not ours):
To update your company profile, please print, complete and return this form. (Updating is free of charge). Only sign if you want to place an insertion.
The Catch
The small print, in narrow block capitals, clearly designed to be hard to read says (bold text is ours this time, and we've converted to sentence case to improve readibility):
Worth noting that the pdf uses an embedded image, not text, presumably to make it difficult to copy / paste the text into google.
The signing of this document represents the acceptance of the following conditions and the conditions stated in "The terms and conditions for insertion" on webpage: www.Europebusinessguide.Org the signing is legally binding and gives you the right of an insertion on the online data base of the europe business guide, which can be accessed via the internet. And a cd rom with european businesses is granted, all in accordance with the contract conditions stated in "The terms and conditions for insertion" on webpage:www.Europebusinessguide.Org the validation time of the contract is three years and starts on the eighth day after signing the contract. The insertion is granted after signing and receiving this document by the service provider. I hereby order a subscription with service provider eu business services ltd "Europe business guide". I will have an insertion to its data base for three years. The price per year is euro 990. The subscription will be automatically extended every year for another year, unless specific written notice is received by the service provider or the subscriber two months before the expiration of the subscription. Your data will be recorded. The place of jurisdiction in any dispute arising is the service provider's address. The agreement between the service provider and the subscriber is governed by the conditions stated in "The terms and conditions for insertion" on webpage:
Www.Europebusinessguide.Org
In other words, you will be signing a legally binding agreement to add yourself to a meaningless directory and "CD Rom" (whatever that is in 2022) for the fat end of £1000 a year.
Everything about this looks like a scammy attempt to take money out of the pockets of small businesses. The form is designed to be misleading, the small print is designed to be hard to read, the pdf has been made difficult to extract text from and the actual directory is worthless.
Don't fall for it!
Article published 21st December 2022
Last modified 21st December 2022
