The Bowling Green Area Visitors and Convention Bureau would likely have fallen victim to a company impersonating BellSouth’s Real Yellow Pages if not for a quick-thinking employee who knew how to spot a scam.

Katie Frassinelli, marketing director for the visitors bureau, said she took a call Monday morning from a salesperson who claimed to be the local yellow pages.

She was directed to the Web site, www.theofficialyellowpages.com, owned by Maine-based Thompson Hill Publishing.

Representatives of Thompson Hill Publishing didn’t return phone calls.

Frassinelli said the company called her to say they were verifying the bureau’s existing listing in the phone book to renew for next year.

But Frassinelli started asking questions and said she knew the salesperson was lying when the company had outdated information and suspiciously lower prices for listing quotes.

&#8220It was a different price than what we had been paying for years,” she said.

Frassinelli even asked the company for a callback number and for them to fax her something in writing on letterhead.

&#8220They wouldn’t do it,” Frassinelli said. &#8220They said it would come in my invoice. They actually never called me back because (they knew) I had figured out they weren’t legitimate.”

BellSouth spokesperson Dave Weller said L.M. Berry handles all its phone book listings.

&#8220If they’re not calling from L.M. Berry, they’re not from BellSouth,” Weller said.

Weller also said that since AT&T – the company who originally put out the yellow pages phone book – never copyrighted the walking yellow fingers symbol, there is nothing that stops companies like Thompson Publishing from saying they’re the yellow pages.

There are three other phone books in the area besides BellSouth’s Real Yellow Pages, including TransWestern Publishing’s Yellow Book, Bluegrass Advertising’s Bowling Green and Warren County Community Directory and Verizon’s Super Pages. TransWestern’s Yellow Book is the only one that features the walking yellow fingers insignia.

This isn’t the first time such incidents have happened, Weller said.

&#8220We may be on the beginning of another wave in Kentucky,” he said. &#8220Unfortunately this has been happening for years and it’s not the first time I’ve heard of it.”

Maine’s Better Business Bureau records show Thompson Hill Publishing has an unsatisfactory record based on unanswered complaints, a pattern of complaints and one or more unresolved complaints.

In the past 12 months, the BBB has handled 47 complaints for issues with the company’s business practices, 20 of which identify the company as having deceptive selling practices.

Businesses told the BBB that Thompson Hill Publishing claims to be from Verizon or BellSouth and asks for verification of a company’s name, address and phone number.

Thompson then bills the companies for about $299.99, claiming the business authorized advertising, using a recorded phone call as legal means for the charge.

Charlie Mattingly, president of the Better Business Bureau serving western Kentucky, advises people to simply say &#8220no thank you” and report them to the BBB and the Federal Trade Commission, the governing body that can take legal action against companies with deceptive practices, he said.

Anyone that has dealt with Thompson Hill Publishing or any other company with questionable business practices can go to the commission’s Web site, www.ftc.gov, to file a complaint.

Frassinelli encourages people in the area to ask questions and don’t be quick to agree to something you aren’t sure of.

&#8220If they called us, they are probably making their way down the phone book,” she said.