Slowly but surely, pressure is growing on the European City Guide and the suspiciously similar array of other directory frauds, that use misleading forms to con people into signing up to a virtually worthless website or magazines for a fee of around 1000 euros a year, with scant opportunity to cancel the contract.

The number of complaints made to the European Parliament’s Petition’s Committee about the ECG last week resulted in a discussion about how best to combat the companies that send out these endless series of forms.

Jules Woodell, who runs the stopECG website, blog and support group, was invited to the meeting and explained how the companies worked. He made abundantly clear the trouble the ECG poses for small businesses and the bullying victims face if they refuse to pay.

I took the opportunity to make proposals to take matter further with the committee agreeing to draft a report that will look into ways and means of dealing with directory scams: whether a change in legislation is needed, how to co-ordinate national measures, mutual information on prosecutions and the results of court cases.

There is still a lot of work to do, particularly because the ECG is so quick at adapting to and bending regulations, but finally there is a real possibility that the EU can outlaw these scams or at least regulate them to the point where people can not be fooled.

Read Jules's account of his trip to Brussels by clicking here.