South West MEP, Glyn Ford, warns residents over European City Guide Scam

Glyn Ford MEP, Labour Party South West, has warned individuals and businesses across the region not to be fooled by the European City Guide (ECG), which is part of a family of deceptive mailing scams that targets small businesses in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The scams use misleading forms to con people into signing up to a virtually worthless website or magazine for around 1000 euro’s a year with little chance of cancelling the contract.

The ‘contracts’ that many have been tricked into signing has been judged as deceptive by the UK Office of Fair Trading, and many victims have been bullied into paying money to ECG or its sister debt collection company, despite them having no history of taking people to court. The scam uses continuous bullying and abuse in order to harass victims into paying money into the scheme.

Labour MEP for South West, Glyn Ford stated:

“A vigorous campaign to halt these scams is underway at national and European level, and my colleague, Richard Corbett MEP, has been campaigning against the European City Guide for several years. A subsidiary debt collection company connected to the ECG is also under criminal investigation in Switzerland.

I would implore anyone taken in by this scam to not pay anything and then to contact the Consumer Protection Directorate in Valencia, Spain and ask for the contract to be cancelled[1].”