CONSERVATIVE MEP for the south west Caroline Jackson is calling on the European Commission to take action against a business scam that is losing British companies hundreds of pounds.

The Journal has already highlighted problems Salisbury firms have had with the European City Guide and has passed on these concerns to readers.

Dr Jackson said: "The publishers of the European City Guide are making money from British business in a scam that has gone on for long enough.

"Typically, businesses and organisations in this country are contacted by the publishers of the guide with a simple request for information about their address, contact numbers and nature of their business.

"Once they send these details back to Barcelona, they receive a bill for what has been interpreted as an order and, if it is unpaid, threatening letters promising legal action follow.

"At this point many businesses do pay up, but the guide never appears."

Dr Jackson said she had been in touch with the European Commission and the UK Office of Fair Trading about the guide.

"It appears there is little or no protection available in EU law where such business-to-business transactions are concerned," she said.

"Hence the only advice I can get from Brussels or London is that businesses caught by the City Guide should appeal to the Spanish authorities to take action and we are then back in the very slow lane.

"It seems odd to me that at a time when the European Commission is piling new burdens on business in so many ways, the commission can't be even-handed and help business when it needs a swift remedy for a Europe-wide scam."

She said she had written to the EC, urging it to tighten up existing rules or introduce new ones that will "put the City Guide and other such bogus firms out of action for good".

"In the meantime my only advice for companies that have sent back the misleading order to the City Guide is to send a registered cancellation letter, indicating the intention not to pay," she said.