Community Aware Magazine

[Mother Bear]

Has anyone received through their letter box during September, a small magazine, called Community Aware, issued in conjuction with the Police Force, about Home Security, Neighbourhood Watch, that kind of thing?
We were approached by this company, Community Initiative, based in Chester, asking if we would like to advertise our House and Pet Sitting Business in this forthcoming magazine. As our Pet Sitting is regarded as some kind of House Security when folks are away on holiday, we thought it was a good idea. Checked the company out, web site seemed all above board etc etc, and speaking to two different people on the phone, all seemd fine. They assured us that the magazine would be distributed to every household, business, school, office from KW1-KW30, anywhere in fact that had a letterbox.
Now we are in October, and none of my friends and colleagues have seen anything resembling this magazine, not even Thurso Police station.
I just thought I would enquire and see if ANYONE had received one, before I investigate further, and probabaly discover that we have been 'scammed'. Maybe I should have done this before but just done a post code check and found that KW postcodes only go up to 16!
I am only asking if anyone has seen or received such a magazine.....I do not wish to be told what I should, and shouldn't have done beforehand. We all learn on life's journey by experiences, some are good and some are not so good.....this could be one of the latter.
Thanks in advance for any help on this.

[telfordstar]

Im in Wick and sorry to say i havnt seen such a magazine. Hope you didna pay to much for your advert?

[Bobinovich]

Not sure if this (http://www.communityinitiatives.co.uk/communityaware.html) is the group you're on about but its website states

"The Community Aware Magazine is distributed to Police Community Club memebers, local Police Community Support Officers, Libraries, Doctors, Dentists and Businesses"

In which case you should have good reason for a refund through false advertising. I've certainly not had one.

[John Baikie]

On at least 3 or 4 occasions in the last few years I've received a call from similar if not the same lot, telling me I had kindly agreed to advertise in these products some months ago (despite never having spoken to them) and that they were ready to go out to schools etc and they needed the payment. I'm not sure if it's a scam or not but they certainly have a very dodgy way of securing advertising. They put pressure on me saying I had agreed, and used the community/schools/safety aspect to make me feel like I was evil for not paying. The first time I thought maybe I'd inadvertently agreed to it, but when it happened again and again I knew they were at it.


Sounds like the same kind of thing.

[Stefan]

I had the same kind of thing happening to me down south when I was active as a dog trainer. I was told lies about where the magazine was distributed and never got one client out of the advert. They also put pressure on me...
Never again. I learnt from that mistake big time.

[Kodiak]

Nothing received here Thurso Side either, also spoke to someone from the Royal Mail, who would deliver such a Mag as they do all the Door to Doors in Caithness and they know nothing about this at all.

[Tilly Teckel]

My partner had something like this happen to him back in Wales. They put loads of pressure on, we said we'd think about it and get back to them (wanted to check them out first), then we got a bill in the post, and when we rang them they said we'd agreed to it and signed a contract. When we asked for a copy of the contract, they said one would be sent out and we heard nothing more from them. Shame on them for targeting small businesses already struggling to stay afloat!

[Mother Bear]

Many thanks folks for your interesting replies and experiences. We are now taking steps to take action on this and hopefully get a refund, as there was absolutely no advertising up here in Caithness as promised by these people. I am greatly saddened by the number of bad people out there who are out to con people all the time. They think their methods are acceptable, but in fact they are just taking hard earned cash from small businesses. I will let you know in due course if we are successful as regards a refund!