ACTION AGAINST EUROPEAN CITY GUIDE

Background

FRAUD - DECEPTION - INTIMIDATION!

• European City Guide - based in Barcelona
• Europe's City Travel Guide - based in Lichtenstein
• The Millennium Guide - based in London (Nevis Island, Caribbean.)
• First European City Guide - based in Lichtenstein
• The European Internet Guide - based in Switzerland

Have you been approached by any of these "Guides"? Have you without knowing it signed a contract with any of them? Then you are in the same boat as thousands of other people who have been deceived into signing a contract, when all they thought they were doing was to forward some information to be included in one of these so-called guides.

All of the above are scams!The forms they send out are almost identically worded, and designed to trick people to put their signatures on a piece of paper. The companies will then try to chase you for hundreds and hundreds of pounds. The criminals behind these schemes employ people with a legal background to draft their letters, threatening to take the matters to court if you don't pay. Don't worry! Don't be intimidated! Don't pay!

The truth is that the people behind these scams are earning millions by bullying small companies and individuals into paying.  They are expecting that each of their "contracts"  will only be looked at in isolation. This is clever, because most complaints authorities only accept individual complaints. The contracts then look like individual contracts, less than clear perhaps, but still a contract. When this becomes truly criminal is when you look at the scale of the deception! This is not just a case of a few individuals not reading the fine print!

The European City Guide - a bizarre "guide" indeed, containing as it does entries ranging from butchers, nursery schools, central heating, kiosks and flower shops, to fancy dress, pollen trading and cattle feed (and a monastery) - lists more than fifteen thousand entries! It is unlikely that a single one of these actually wanted to pay to be included! They have all been tricked in the same way. Even if only 1 in 10 of these actually pay up, European City Guide would net around £1.6 million! And the the complaints authorities want to look at each case as unique?!

All of the above "guides" are almost certainly run, or instigated,  by the same group of people. The forms they send out are extremely similar. Their sole aim is to trap people. The "product"  they offer is a farce, their language is misleading, and their strategy is bullying. It is quite clear that the intention from the outset with these "Guides" is to deceive.

As far as the European City Guide is concerned, the rulings that have been made have been against them. If you received a form from them after January 1999, this in in breach of the decision of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority).

It seems clear that a form almost exactly like the one ruled on by ASA was sent out after January 99, from people promoting the City Travel Guide, based in Lichtenstein. It seems the same people are involved.

Article in Moneywise Magazine, September 1999 - gives some background.
A copy of the article here. The original from Moneywise Magazine.

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