If you’re part of our Facebook community or have frequented our website lately, you may have noticed some new images of a rather peculiar pooch perched on a stool. Let me tell you what that’s about…
What are we doing?
As you may already know, Consumer Protection BC oversees specific consumer protection laws in BC and regulates certain sectors and specific consumer transactions. One of our key outcomes in our 2016-2018 Strategic Business Plan is also consumer awareness – that we are known as a timely and effective solution provider when someone has experienced an unfair transaction. But here’s the thing… we know that people don’t know very much about our organization or the help we can offer – and, thus, a campaign was born!
We kicked off our “Something’s not right” marketing campaign on September 19, 2016 with the purpose of increasing general awareness of our organization and our role as a “solution provider.” The aim of the tagline of the campaign, “something’s not right,” is to have people connect with that feeling of something isn’t right (you know, that gut feeling). We want them to know that when they get that feeling after making a transaction, they can come to us. We will help them on their path to a solution.
How are we a “solution provider?”
So what happens when you contact us? Depending on the issue we can do one of two things:
- If the issue falls within the laws we oversee: we can help directly, either by offering you information about your rights and responsibilities, sharing links to self-help tools, opening an investigation file and more.
- If the issue doesn’t fall within the laws we oversee: we can offer you a referral to another organization that is better suited to help, or suggest court or legal assistance as the best solution.
Either way, contact us first so we can help point you in the right direction.
Where will you see ads?
This is our first year of this campaign and we are starting small. The campaign is targeted to Victoria, BC (we specifically chose a small market as this allows us to better measure and understand how the campaign is connecting with consumers). We’re using a variety of tactics, including social media, radio ads and bus ads.
How is this campaign funded?
Something you might find interesting about this campaign is that the funding comes from the Consumer Advancement Fund. This is a fund managed by our office that, amongst other things, is in place to support consumer education activities. (As an aside, some people think Consumer Protection BC is funded by taxpayer dollars – but we’re not! You can read information about our financial model by reading our annual financial statements – available to the public, here).
So what do you REALLY need to know?
I will leave you with this… If you have signed a contract, bought something or completed a consumer transaction that leaves you feeling like “something isn’t right,” contact us.
We hope you found this information interesting!
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Hello! Here’s my issue… Yelp.com contacted me in April about paying for my yelp page at $25/mo plus clicks if someone interacts with me. It was stressed that I would never pay for clicks unless there was personal interaction with the potential client. It took until June for it to get up and running, and I paid for those 2 months at $500 each… and still going. I have a tech support email address to change things like my categories or service area but nobody ever responds or fixes any issues. The only 3 contacts I have had were 2 advertising companies and 1 looking for balloons…. I rent and service stage lights for small venues…..not balloons…. they won’t help and I have all the emails, recordings of phone calls and the contract. It’s a huge scam…. what so I do???
Hi Clay — Thanks for reaching out to us. A have a few suggestions that I hope will be useful. The first is to take a look at the agreement you have with Yelp as you’re likely bound by the terms and conditions of your contract. Find out your cancellation rights (and refund rights, if applicable). If you believe you have a right to cancel your contract and Yelp isn’t allowing you to do so, you might want to consider contacting your credit card company and talking to them about requesting a credit card charge back. I hope that helps, Clay!