Merchants irked by phone book flubs

Owners say directory has substantial amount of address errors for town businesses

By Kim Walter -- kwalter@nvdaily.com

FRONT ROYAL -- A number of local merchants are complaining that the Winchester-Front Royal 2012 Phone Directory is directing some people to the wrong places.

The local directory, which also includes listings for Berryville, Clear Brook, Middletown, Stephens City, Strasburg and Woodstock, has a substantial number of address errors for Front Royal businesses, merchants say.

Ann Arena, owner of Gourmet Delights Gifts and Framing, operates the business on Main Street, but a Westminster Drive address is listed in the directory. After hearing that other businesses also had incorrect addresses, she started checking on firms whose addresses she knew off the top of her head. She found more than 20 with incorrect addresses on her first examination.

Arena noted that important places like the Warren County Government Center, Chamber of Commerce, the Senior Center and the water treatment plant are all listed incorrectly.
"Where did they get these addresses?" she asked.

Another Main Street business owner, Jean Plauger of Jean's Jewelers, emailed Ziplocal, the Utah-based advertising company that published the directory, after finding her address was incorrectly listed.

"They acted like it was no big deal, which to me is very poor business," she said. Plauger went on to say that the company never called to ask for address information.

Craig Laird, president of Royal Oak Computers on Main Street, quickly realized that addresses of other local businesses were wrong, even though his wasn't. Laird had advertised in the directory, as he does every year, he said. After looking up merchants who are located on Main Street with him, though, he saw that their listed addresses were far from their actual locations.

Shortly after realizing the issue, Laird called Ziplocal.

"It was a rather cold experience," Laird said. After being on hold for a while, Laird eventually spoke with acustomer service manager.

"Basically, I was told that nothing would be done about it, and it would be fixed in next year's issue," he said. Laird added that the manager also questioned whether Laird was correct in his findings, and said he didn't have a large enough sample of discrepancies.
"I guess I shouldn't have anything to complain about since my address is correct, but in a sense [the company] is liable because they're printing false information about people and their businesses," Laird said.

There were no issues with last year's directory, according to local merchants. It was just this year that Ziplocal published the directory, the former "Your Community Phonebook." Laird said the book has gone through several changes in recent years.

Jessica MacLean, Ziplocal's senior manager of customer relations, said via email that she wasn't made aware of the issue until receiving an email about it last week. She said that because the company publishes so many directories across the United States, "occasional errors or omissions may unfortunately occur in our phone books."

MacLean added that since being notified of the issue, Ziplocal is "investigating the root cause and we intend to contact those who were affected."