PH Media Group review: phone calls 58

I have been trying to terminate my contract for 4 years! I finally talked them down to a one year contract and was told I had to call on April 20 to cancel before the auto renew. I called on April 16th and was told I was too late and that the cancellation should have been done 12 days prior. I am at the end of my rope with these people. I haven't used the service in about 5 years.

I asked if it could cancel now, with an effective at the end of my contract period, meaning I would remain under contract and pay the bill for the next 12 months but be done after that. I was told that I can not, unless I wanted to pay the full amount now for terminating... even though I would be terminating service for NEXT year.

I don't know what else to do except try to get them to write all the shady and pushy policies in an email vs over the phone. They have no accountability to a phone call. I'm hoping I can get a little further and away from their double talk if it is all in writting.

THIS COMPANY IS A COMPLETE RIP OFF!

THIS COMPANY IS A COMPLETE RIP OFF!

DO NOT SITN A CONTRACT WITH THESE CRIMINALS!

They will sign you up for a 3 year contract and quietly auto renew without consent. Unless you cancel the contract 42 DAYS before the auto renewal, you will be automatically renewed for another 3 years. If you are lucky to finally get rid of these people you can no longer use recordings you paid for. It's licensed. They us small print to hide their practices.

What a scam! PHMG maybe an international company and all, however they are the crookest organization to deal with by small business owners unaware of their unfair, very unfair practices. We are a small printing shop in San Diego, CA and signed up with them on July, 2019. When the pandemic hit we called to cancel the service in order to conserve cash and be able to survive. They absolutely denied this possibility. I insisted on the cancellation and we were firm on it... they just gave us a "no charge" quarter... what a joke... we ended up paying for 90% of the entire contract and produced only one announcement. Now they are saying my contract automatically renewed on July, 2022 because of no cancellation. We cancelled back in 2020 retarded! See how they are doing in Australia...

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/audio-company-please-hold-removes-alleged-unfair-contract-terms-for-small-business-customers

I just had the dreaded call with PH Media. They also told me I owe $3500+ since I missed my deadline a month ago. This is absolutely a horrible company to work with. They want to send a guy named John out to my company a month later to work this out with us. They refused to do anything over the phone except send John out. Stay away from this company. They just bully you. We are going to fight this, so I will keep everyone posted. If anyone has been to court with them, please let us know.

Also got ripped now by PH media. They're requesting over $4, 000 to cancel my contract. Can I just ignore them?

We have also fallen foul of PH Media automatic rollover contract. I have searched every avenue to find out if this is legal, and thrown everything at them that I found out, but it seems ambiguous, I think you'll only find out if you go to court. The telephone message hadn't been working for some but they had no idea, they admitted that they could have made more of an effort to keep in contact with us. Which I shall use as this could imply breach of contract.
The problem seems to be that it's a business to business rather than a business to consumer contract, a consumer to business contract would have made this an unfair contract and therefore would not have held up in court. There are many avenues you can go down with a Business to Consumer ARC. Having researched this matter it seems that ARC's are illegal if you have less than 10 employees (as we do) and cannot be enforced.
Ofcom banned automatically renewable contracts for residential and small business consumers from December 2012.
After much precious time spent dealing with this company they did offer 30% discount. Which we declined.
After I cancelled the contract initially (not being aware, as I should have been of the 42 day cancellation clause - automatic rollover contract) I sent the equipment back, which they signed for. I know they were annoyed that this had got past them. I believe by accepting the equipment back they have accepted the cancellation?
We have also had the threatening letter from the lawyer in Walsall, they are a Commercial Debt Recovery company.
I have yet to find any information from anyone who has been taken to court by this company, it would be interesting to hear from them.
I am hoping that if it goes to court I can gather enough information against them to to get there claim thrown out.
Wish me luck.

Unfortunately zero was not an option to select.

We too have been unaware of the rollover contract for a further 3 years if we did not give 42 days notice prior to the end of our contract. We have not been contacted at all by the company and this clause was never pointed out to us. I too have asked for a copy of the supposed e-mail sent to me the day after signing the contract. This contract is clearly designed to catch consumers out, otherwise why have it. Broden Lloyd, Barrowford

Had a great experience with PH Media, always helpful and service is prompt, product is quality and works well for us.

My company has just been stung with PH’s 42 day rule. After reading the reviews online this appears to be nothing more than a scam. I would be interested to hear from anyone else currently in the same situation. Take my advice and avoid this company like the plague.

I would strongly recommend you do not deal with PH media group as they use several low and underhanded means to sell and keep you in a contract. When this contract was signed the sales representative made a big deal about crossing out the 3 years contract to a 12 month contract when I told him I did not want to sign up. What I didn't see in the small print was this was a rolling contract so it continued into a second year, this company does not send any statement of accounts, invoices or any formal notice of the contract rolling over or of payments made so 1) it goes under the radar 2) you have no contact details for them. We sent an email in the 3rd year cancelling the contract and 6 months later when we saw direct debits were still be taken we cancelled the direct debit (this happened to be 20 days before the new year contract was due to start) and within a week they contacted us the first communication from them in nearly 3 years, first by accounts telling us the direct debit had been cancelled and then by the sales department telling us we needed to give 42 days notice before the start of the new yearly contract. When I informed them we had sent an email 6 month ago to cancel it but had heard nothing from them I was told they had not received it and as we were within the 42 days before the new contract starts they will start legal action if we did not pay for another full year £1942 or agree to see a sales representative to agree another plan. I am currently being threatened with legal action and expect to be served notice shortly of court proceedings judging by the solicitor letters I am getting. Stay safe and do not use this company they cannot be trusted!

I was treated very badly by this company as an ex-employee... I was treated differently due to race, racist comments were made towards me and in general. When I reported these the entire team I worked in were pressured to back the company instead of myself. It was a drug, sex and ego-fuelled environment. Not surprised to hear these comments above.

Please be careful when dealing with this company as they roll you over into a new 3 year contract without any notification. If you must take out a contract with them (and they are really expensive so please don't even consider it), then cancel the contract immediately ready for the end of the term so that you can't be rolled onto a new one. People leave companies and new staff often don't realise that the contract is up for renewal; this company send you no notification whatsoever, they just quietly and slyly roll you over into another 3 year contract. It's immoral and wrong.

I live in New York, and I own a transportation company for the elderly. I had one of their sales reps come and see me at my office, and it was a total joke. Don't get me wrong, the sales guy was fantastic, and did an amazing job explaining their services and how it would benefit my business. He even did a complete return on investment for me, and even took that one step further by giving me projections that were very low ball numbers, so that it could be as realistic as possible. I was getting very excited about the services, and then he played me the "demos" that his "production team" back in Manchester, UK put together... which is where the companies true colors came out! First and foremost, what they do to put these "demos" together is border line illegal in my opinion. When their inside sales team in Manchester called me to schedule the meeting, they were so incredibly unprofessional and rude, that I really didn't want to have the sales rep come to my place of business in the first place. I honestly only took the meeting because he said that he would keep calling me and calling me until I said yes, so I agreed. What I didn't know about this entire conversation is that they were recording it to use for their "demos". They do this so you can hear what your customers are going through when you put them on hold. They then take that same exact call, and remove what your customers are currently hearing, and put in what they COULD HEAR while they are on hold if I use their service. Unfortunately for the sales rep that came to me (and let me stress that he does not have any involvement with creating these demos), they completely fabricated my "custom demo". The call that was used was actually a recording from a completely different business, but while the callers where on hold, they put the ON HOLD MARKETING that was created for my business on that call. When the sales rep finished playing the demo, he looked at me and asked me what I thought? I told him that it was very good, but that wasn't my company on that call. I could instantly tell that he had no idea based off his facial expression, and it really probably was the first time he found out that the company was creating fake calls to WOW their potential clients. The rep immediately started apologizing about all of it, and stated that he was completely embarrassed about the entire situation. He then called his supervisor "Nigel" on the phone to explain what was going on. I asked to be put on speaker phone so I could hear the conversation, and he gladly said "absolutely", because the poor sales rep had no idea that they were creating these false demos. His supervisor "Nigel" answered the phone, and he had a very strong British accent. The sales rep explained in complete detail with total professionalism exactly what happened, and instead of Nigel being shocked and saying there must have been a mistake, his exact words were "come on mate... don't worry about those details. Your job is to sell, not make excuses for your poor performance!" He then said "Like Mark always says, do whatever you have to do to get a sale! By hook or by crook!", and then just hung up the phone on the sales rep. I asked the sales rep who Mark was, and he said that Mark is his Senior VP of Sales and Marketing, which I couldn't believe that this was their hierarchy mentality. The sales rep continued to apologize to me not only for this entire incident, but also because he completely wasted my time. I own 3 separate businesses, and have been the CEO of my companies for over 30 years, and I have never heard anyone with a legitimate business model say that their mentality is "By hook or by crook"! Before I could even say anything, the sales guy said "thank you for taking the time to see me, but I am not comfortable selling you this service, or anyone else after what I just heard." I instantly gained a lot of respect for that sales rep, but for PH Media Group as a whole, I feel sorry for anyone that works with them in the future and uses their services. My only advice to anyone that is approached by them, just hung up the phone, but before you do, tell them that if they do not delete your number from their system, you are going to report them to the US Government, and make sure that they do not do business in our country anymore.

All in all. The sales rep was amazing, honest, and genuine, but the company is ran by con artist. I really hope that sales rep is no longer working with them, because I guy with that much integrity should be with a company that is not trying to decisive their clients on a daily basis. Based off the look on his face when this happened, I would guess that he is no longer working with them, and is happier some where else.

What a awful experience we just had. Absolutely horrendous sales staff, using bullying tactics to try to nail a sale.
We are small company based in Yorkshire, two Sales reps came to visit us offering there full services. The product itself is very good, however the way it was delivered was very poor. I was often called 'MATE' by one of the sales rep. When i mentioned the product was too expensive they suggested they replied with 'We new you would say that, because your company is small, don not worry about payment we can ignore it for 6 months!'. Which is a load of rubbish! The Sales rep then said to one of the managers 'see you outside' because we decided the service was too expensive!
I would not recommend them, they are cowboys and need a lesson in customer service!

Please please don't have anything to do with this company, you are correct they will bully you as they are totally ruthless and without scruples. They use rollover contracts, a fact which they keep well hidden and they then sue you for thousands if you fail to give the 42 day notice required.