new business and 'annuaire professionnelle' (demands for payment by 'phone)

[champiau]

Hello, we have just registered our gite business and although we are aware of the cotisations we now need to pay, we keep getting 'phone calls asking if we want to have an entry in an 'annuaire professionnelle' (ie. our choice), thus which we have not requested and has not been mentioned by any of the official bodies we have been dealing with, but for which we would have to fork out about 400 Euros (which we can ill afford).  We have received nothing in the post about this, but today we received another irate call saying that our entry was obligatory and if we didn't pay today we would be fined. 

We ask if anyone else has had experience of this as it's rather worrying.  I say again, we have received nothing on paper about this, and in the UK, if you receive just 'phone calls demanding money for something which we regard as basically advertising, we would regard it as a scam.

Any information on this would be very much appreciated.

[Val_2]

This is a scam so do not sign or send anything. I get these all the time for the building trades and are from obscure companies in other countries.

 You are not obliged to pay anything as long as you have not signed any contracts. Throw the info away or burn it and do not reply.

[champiau]

Thanks very much - we'd just found some information on a French forum to the same effect - the wording in the French forum was exactly the same as in the last, menacing call.  This is the fourth time this month (our first month of operation) and each time we've asked for information but received nothing on paper. 

Hopefully this might be of use to others after us!

[Val_2]

If they keep harassing you on the phone, explain that you will be passing their details to the local gendarmerie to have verified regarding any legal contract and a possibility of having them done for harrassment which is very serious in France and will also inform the local mairie about harrassing you, hopefully this will scare them off.