02089564000

I used to work for these gangster wannabees....
The yearbook never gets seen, they dont work for or on behalf of parliament and the sales staff, mostly gathered from the magazine "stage" because all the out of work actors make great pitch readers.....

ITS A CON and ya know what, someone should call the GOvernment and Parliament and have them closed down. Both CEO and MD Ms Briers are discgraced directors.

I quit because I found out no yearbooks reached parliament and I realised that some poor schools were paying kids money to promote healthy meals and their money was wasted.... KARMA will have his day with David Blake and co....

Just had a call from the "Parliamentary Office" asking for my MD's name told him I couldn't give such info - Very shirty! but didn't get passed me..lol

Just had a shirty Tom Stevens who was 'oh gosh' absolutely amazed that we're not interested in teh Parliamentary Information Office's offer!

Owen Charles of the Parliamentary office based in London  is the Director of green business and our company has been highlighted by the environment agency as exhalant in Gloucestershire – nothing to do with Parliament or the Environment Agency – Selling Advertising!

They try intenationally. Had Mr. Sterling call me two times, offered 500 words at 3.000€ in the EU parliamentary yearbook. Mentioned loads of names (Stavros Dimas and the like), but never managed to send any written documentation. Told him I'd call back. Which I will obviously not.

Had a call from Alex Major claiming to be head of education @ Blakes Parliamentry Office. Very well spoken guy asking for details of who to contact regarding apprenticeships, I would,nt put the caller through but took details and googled, needless to say the information will now be disregarded.

Had a call from Samantha Segal from the Parliamentery office regarding ID theft wanting to speak to the COO - She asked a director to call back on 0208 956 4041.  I now know it's a scam now I've read the other emails!

I have reported David Castle (obviously isn't his real name) to the Police for verbally abusing my reception staff.

Behind the posh fake accent they are a bunch of scamming little boys who take great pleasure in either scamming the wealthy (if they are stupid enough) or verbally abusing reception staff.

Don't fall for this scam, there is no official document that has lots of other high profile companies onboard so keep hold of your £2700 and put the phone down.

Had a call from Adam Green 02089564000 who said he was from Blakes Parliamentary Information Office.  Very bad pretend posh accent.  
He was trying to maintain that our company had been invited to supply information by the Department of Transport as they were really interested to know about our company and the future plans we had.  Said it would be in a bound yearbook and delivered to all the relevant ministers.  He threw in a few big industry names to try and give it some credibility.  
When asked, he said that Blakes Media and The Blake Organisation were seperate organisations.  I let him rabbit on a while then told him what I had found on the net about Blakes. "Oh, you've not been on those silly websites have you", was his reply... I asked him not to call back.

Our office received a call from a 'Ben Parker' who was extremely rude and patronising.  Claimed to be working for the 'Government' and had to speak to the CEO.  He proceeded to explain what he was 'selling' but was adamant that he could only speak to the 'Decision maker' and no other person would do.  I explained the situation to him and even offered to transfer his call to a colleague within my office but he just assumed that my colleague would not be able to help him.  I advised him that he was a very rude person and that I would terminate the call, which I did.

Had a call from Elizabeth Darlington from Blakes Parlimentry saying they wanted us to write an editorial on a government report on Equality and Diversity...after reading these comments I don't believe they are genuine and if they call again I will ask further questions!

Just had a phone call from the 'Parliamentary Office' for the 2011 Parliamentary Year book.  Trying to sell me an Editorial on my company in the next edition of the year book, plus lifetime On-line.  All for only £2750 for the 500 word edition, and £4950 for the 100 version.  Background was very noisy, call centre, and had to listen to high pressure sales for 10 mins.  Said that if we agreed we would not get invoiced until editorial full approved betwen 4 and 5 months down the line, and that we could pull out at any time.  Michael King was the contact.  Said would think about it and got 4 phone calls back within 10 mins.  Checked on this page, and will not answer any further calls.

I echo Wendy above...Had a call from Elizabeth Darlington from Blakes Parlimentry saying they wanted us to write an editorial on a government report on Equality and Diversity...after reading these comments I don't believe they are genuine and if they call again I will ask further questions!

Just had a call from the "Parliamentary Information Office" from someone called Amanda, she wanted to talk to the Managing Director or CEO of my company and I explained that I'm a sole trader running a very small part time consultancy business, she asked my name and went onto talk about equality and diversity work and the new Equality Bill published by the Government earlier this year.  She said she had heard about the work I've done around equality and diversity and to cut a very long story short spoke to me about showcasing my work in a publication that is circulated to MP's, local authorities, education departments, other public sector bodies and 250 of the largest companies in the country.  Common with other people, I was told they had filled 5 of the 6 slots for case studies and wanted me to consider taking on the final slot - then came the "sales pitch" - there were two options - one costing £4950 and one costing £2750.  I explained that as a small part time sole trader I couldnt afford anything like this she then put me on hold while she spoke to a colleague about "overcoming the financial barrier" and then a guy called Michael came on the line and offered me a 20% discount.  I told him this was still way out of my price range and he thanked me for my time and hung up.  I was very suspicious about this call within the first 10 seconds but decided to let it spin out until i could work out what it was about.  Beware!  Then again, who has that kind of money to spend at the drop of a hat and who would spend it without doing a bit more research into what this supposed publication is and what the benefits would be from having an entry?

I am another one who used work for these guys years ago.  I was there six months.  I didn't have the heart for the conning people the way these guys did and was asked to leave.  The sales staff are casually recruited, consisting mainly of out-of-work actors but also other random unfortunates who drift into the company.  

The sales floor is literally like a boiler room operation, where idle banter is combined with high pressure sales calls.  The staff are leaned on to make as many calls as possible and to accumulate a lot of 'call-time' - in an average eight-hour working day, a salesman is expected to spend at least 2-3 hours on the phone.  There is no organisation in the way the leads are handed out - they are culled from either business directories, the phone book or the internet, hence why increasingly irate companies keep receiving repeated phone calls and why small or one-person companies or even international organisations are targeted.

The sales staff are handed a script, which is a standard sales pitch 3-4 pages long that is worded to sell advertising space in connection with whatever is topical that day, Olympics, healthy eating, waste disposal, etc.  The culmination of this is the selling of an advert in the yearbook for either 4,950 pounds or 2,750 pounds.  Yet even this is modest as some more experienced salesmen can sell the adverts for as much 7,000 pounds.  As well as this, the staff are handed a purple book filled with replies for any potential rebuttals they might have to overcome.

The staff are instructed to target the 'decision-maker', that is the head of the company, whoever that might be.  They are ordered not to speak in detail of the pitch to receptionists, secretaries, PA's or 'oilies' (derogatory slang meaning non-decision maker).  Predictably, the sales staff take a lot of abuse from the people they call who can quite clearly see that it's a con.  Many sales people on a lot of calls don't even get past the receptionists, hence the abuse that's been reported by others here.

However, it is not a legitimate sales organisation.  The yearbook does exist, but it is not connected with Parliament in any way and is a largely worthless document containing speeches supposedly written by members of Parliament and adverts from the people they've pitched into giving away their cash.  See the website blagger.com and the entry by Bunty on Blake's payment methods which are quite scary and very hefty.
 
Only someone with considerable legal expertise and enough financial muscle at their backs might be able to bring Blake and his company to task, but we'll see.  In the meantime, if you are called, steer clear.

But out of all the other training organisations "in your specialised field", Bruno wanted us specifically.  His company had received only very positive feedback about us.  Jeepers, we'd be mad not to fall for such flattery and hand over £2750 immediately! I felt soooooo special!  I queried why someone would be looking through a parliarmentary book in order to find somewhere to learn hypnotherapy.  That threw him.  But he'd obviously kept his finger on the page as he was quickly able to find where he was in his script and return to reading it out to me.
He did refer me to www.parliamentaryyearbook.co.uk when I asked for more info - but that is Blake's site and there's reference to anything my-new-best-mate-Bruno mentioned.
How do these people live with themselves knowing the 'service' they are selling?

Hello this company called today the noisy background is a bit of a give away insinuating they are from the Government or Ministry of Defence, the poor lad when he did not understand the words pertaining and capacity I knew it was a con, the young man will call back Monday I'm so excited hopefully I will have raging PMT

Blakes, 35 years and going strong, must have heard of us, we're the parliamentary office responsible for the regeneration publication, going to everyone under the sun, it will include everyone under the sun, a circulation wider than the circumference of the Earth (and the sun), a posh accent worthy of a sketch show spoof, only 4950 for a two page spread, no, sorry I meant 500 words, a drop in the ocean for your company, you should be interested...you're not?  Can I ask why ever not?  What do you mean 'go away and die somewhere quietly'?  Can I ask your CEO instead?  Well I am sure he would want to, but we've got the Mayor and leading politicians, well, er, do you want to go to the website and, what's that?  Hello, hello?  Hello....click...

Today I returned home to find a message on my answering machine saying that Adrian Sterling from the parliamentary information office wanted to talk to me about a government initiative on renewable energy. I am not a business so this was obviously a wrong number, I phoned back anyway.
Very nice guy indeed.
Incidently I do know of the Parliamentary Yearbook and I do think it is a worthwile publication, to see a physical copy of the document you can just pop into a reference library as I did, and you will see the likes of Coca Cola and Virgin Holidays alongside Stavros Dimas himself. It is quite simply an advertising platform but it does perform a valuable role. Telemarketers have a job to do and they do it, much like myself, I'm an accountant, I do my job.

Have been pestered by these guys before.  This time they are posing as Blakes Parliamentary something or other and wanting to include us in a report on the rail industry.  Richard Knight, apparently.  Steer well clear!