It’s one of many ‘misleading contract’ con-tricks that continue to pull in millions of dollars annually around the world.

In case you think these people are credible or have any real case against you, it’s worth reading this 2009 letter from MEP Sarah Ludford. That should begin to reassure you.

The World Business Directory email comes with an attached pdf that you’re invited to fill in for your ‘free listing’.

Boxes at the bottom of the form invite your signature & co. stamp – reinforced by the words “please fill in the form completely” in bold.

One small sentence tells you only to sign the form if you want to place an ‘insertion’ – a deliberately uncommon word.

A dense pile of even smaller print tells you that signing the form constitutes a contract to place an ‘insertion’ at £980 per year – minimum period 3 years.

It’s up to you to decide whether you think this is a cynical fraud or not.

This might help you decide. I know where I stand and so do people of many other countries where this occurs (word for word). Click the thumbnail (left) for a detailed look at their form -and a spanish one for comparison.

This also might help you: a letter from MEP Sarah Ludford to one World Business Directory victim.  You might also like to see the letter that same victim then sent to the so-called ‘collections agency’ operating on behalf of WBD.  Nice one, Mary.

One thing’s for sure, if you rush ahead and sign and return this form thinking you’re going to get a Google-boost from this free directory listing, be prepared: you’ll end up with on of these (right)

What gets me is that Barclays Bank are happy to take the money. Nasty.

Here’s another variant of this scam offer.

[Update] Now operating out of Utrecht, Netherlands [Update]

PS – if we’ve saved you €980 or helped end your worries, please support our work by clicking through to our sponsor sites (under our picture on the right there –>). Thank you!

Welcome to The Mu Show #3. This weeks Moo Marketing Tip we look at the 3 basic steps to managing your online reputation and what they mean in practice. Step 1. Monitor Step 2. Evaluate Step 3. Respond.

In the Dripping Tap, we hack our way through the bush to reveal just how to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Authority if you’re fed up with the service you’re getting from PayPal. Here’s a step-by-step guide to complaining about PayPal.

In the mukau news, we need help to name that mystery tune and start getting nervous as Clare lines up to perform alongside Joanna Lumley, Kate Adie, Edward Fox and, oh, royalty too.

Thank you to Guy Arnold of Crooked Stick for the voicemail call.

Welcome to The Mu Show #2. This week’s great marketing tip is how to put Google Trends to work with your blog to create huge blobs of traffic to your site – courtesy Guy Dub of dubonlinemarketing.co.uk in Exeter.

And our Dripping Tap is dripping harder and harder on PayPal and we hear from Steve Deeks (over the wail of a warming up F1 engine at Silverstone) about his personal grudge against PayPal. Who knows, maybe they’ll get back to us and tell us they’re ready to listen and stop people scamming?

Also in this week’s tasteful show: saveloy-swallowing animals, breakfast vomit and ‘who’s nicked me pumpkin lid?’

Welcome to The Mu Show #1. This week Mobatalk is the marketing tip. The Dripping Tap starts dripping on PayPal for poor customer service (and making it easy for scammers to do their work) and we check in from Business SouthWest Show 2008.