More than 200 Bulgarian firms filed complaints with the Bulgarian-Swiss Chamber of Commerce (BSCC) after being allegedly lured by the Swiss company Intercable Verlag AG to be included in a business catalogue, BSCC managing director said, as quoted by Sega daily on October 22.

The companies were told they would be listed in the Trans World Business & Buyers catalogue and they signed an application form without paying attention to the fine-print note that thus they were entering a contract for a permanent presence in the catalogue, costing 785 euro a month. Now, Intercable Verlag AG had been sending them invoices for the amount and if not paid reminder letters were to follow. The Swiss firm had also been typically employing receivables collectors and had been threatening with court action.

A few years ago, similar complaints against Intercable Verlag AG were filed in Poland and the Czech Republic. In Bulgaria, the company had been operating for a year.

Prosecution authorities in this country had not yet been warned but the Swiss economy ministry and the Swiss embassy in Sofia had been notified, Vurbanov said.  He added that if businesses would show firmness and refuse to pay they would most probably be left alone. The Intercable Verlag AG case was well known to Swiss authorities. Since 2005, there had been an ongoing investigation of the company, which has been operating worldwide for 17 years, Sega said.