OTTAWA – The Competition Bureau announced that
eight charges under the misleading advertising provisions of the Competition
Act have been laid in Toronto against three individuals and two companies
for allegedly invoicing businesses for unsolicited Internet directory
listing services.
The charges stem from a Bureau investigation of complaints it received
related to documents mailed under the names “Yellow Business Pages” and
“Yellow Business Directory” to more than 500,000 businesses and charitable
organizations across Canada between May and September of 2000.
The mailings, dated May 25, 2000, July 25, 2000, August 24, 2000 and
September 24, 2000, asked recipients to send a payment of $25.52 to a Postal
Box in the Toronto area for an Internet directory listing containing their
business information. The first mailing of May 25, 2000 was sent under the
name “Yellow Business Pages” and the three subsequent mailings were mailed
under the name “Yellow Business Directory”.
The charges allege two offences for each of the four mailings for having
made false or misleading representations.The first misleading representation
charge alleges that the mailings were made to appear as invoices or bills
when they were in fact solicitations. The second alleged misrepresentation
was that recipients were misled to think they were existing customers of the
Internet directory service. To date, the Bureau has received more than 1,500
complaints.
The two companies charged are Yellow.com Business Pages Corp. and 1421628
Ontario Limited. Charges were also laid against Alan Benlolo and Elliot
Benlolo of Thornhill, Ontario and Victor Serfaty, of Richmond Hill, Ontario.
