Advent Computer Training (Barclays Partner Finance)Info and discussion thread

[Skinnypinz]

Bet you're right there, Turfs! And a reminder sticker on it saying 'give no straight answer'.

 

If anyone is interested, here's the letter I sent to MD Paul Noble back in April.....

 

"Re; Refund of my course fees from Barclays Partner Finance linked loan.

 

Dear Mr Noble

 

Following the collapse of Advent Computer Training, with which I was signed up to do a Master CIW Designer course, I have written several times to Barclays Partner Finance Customer Relations regarding a refund of my £4,950 course fees (paid for with a linked loan from Barclays PF).

 

This remains unresolved and I have only received mass-mail replies, the last of which was frankly insulting to my intelligence. I attach, for your information, the last response from your supposed ‘relations’ team and my last letter, dated 31 March, in response.

 

Computeach is NOT a suitable provider by any stretch of the imagination for all my listed reasons in the letter to Ms Thompson.

 

• They do not provide the course options I signed up for with Advent.

• They do not provide unlimited attempts at the exams with no extra charge.

• They do not allow extended ‘flexible & at your own pace’ study – if you don’t complete the course within 12 months you PAY more. This was not the deal with Advent which was one flat fee, regardless of how long it took to complete.

• Their exams are only taken in Dudley, not at any local exam centre as Advent promised, using a voucher system.

• There is no dedicated recruitment team, as Advent promised, sourcing work placements within a 10 mile radius of my home.

• They provide atrocious service and have been found wanting by Dudley Trading Standards, the Financial Ombudsman and their own students who are currently taking legal action against them!

 

I signed for a course with Advent and they no longer exist. I did not sign a contract with anyone else, nor does my loan agreement give Barclays permission to fob me off onto a course with any other provider against my better judgement.

 

There has been a clear Breach of Contract under S75 of the Consumer Credit Act, as I have been without any service provision since 27 January 2010. You are therefore obliged to refund me for a course which I have not, and am not, receiving.

 

As Computeach charge several thousands pounds less on average for their courses than Advent did, may I ask why Barclays expect all the ex students to now go along with a course that costs less to start with than the £4,950 average paid to Advent? Who is benefitting from this difference in fees and pocketing the money?

 

I am writing to you to alert you to this situation and hope you will now act on these complaints by myself and over 2,000 other ex-Advent students. We do NOT want to be palmed off onto Computeach in order for Barclays to be able to wash its hands of us and sanctimoniously say it has provided its customers with a training course that is claimed (laughably) to be ‘of equivalent if not better standard’ when it is clearly not!

 

As you will see, I asked Ms Thompson for a response within 14 days of my letter to her.

My complaint is lodged with the Financial Ombudsman and Bristol Trading Standards, who I understand are also writing to you regarding my complaint.

 

I hope this will be resolved before I am obliged to take further legal action."

 

Here's his reply to Bristol Trading Standards, who also wrote on my behalf.

 

 

All duly noted and copied to the Financial Ombudsman, thanks Mr Noble - you're lookin' good on paper, guy!

 

"Our aim is to resolve all complaints internally...."

Well, they're doing a good job there then!!!

 

 

 

Hi Fuzzbutt,

I read this today on my lunch break and then low and behold I received a letter from Barclays after work as I was reading it, I thought to myself gee this sounds very familiar. I have received the same letter and where they have referred to yourself by name they have just replaced it with 'you'.

I have signed up to the legal representation you are organising and thought it might be of note that I send this through as further evidence Barclays don't care, they don't read or investigate our complaints and couldn't even have the manners to refer to me in the first person

The thing that makes me even more concerned is they clearly haven't even investigated my case as it states ''you continue to have obligations under the terms of the loan, including making repayments'' thing is I obtained a third party loan via another lender to pay the loan before the interest kicked in, so I don't owe Barclays a penny but they are so up themselves, they must assume I owe them for something.

Let me know if you think a copy of my letter, with their reply, the letter I received today and the letter confirming my debt with them is clear

 

Also mine was signed by Customer Relations Department and not Mr Noble interesting???????

 

Rgds

Skinnypinz

Edited December 31, 2010 by the_shadow
Removal of quoted attachments

[Fuzzbutt]

I'd definately forward copies to FOS, Skinnypinz.

[pigwig]

Here you go: Petition to: Request money back for students of the collapsed IT Firm Advent Consulting Ltd. | Number10.gov.uk

 

i dont know if i'm just being a complete idiot but i can't see where to sign it!?

[Penny Mitchell]

I'm afraid I can't see where to sign it either ....??

[THE ROADIE]

New petitions and signing petitions were closed because of the election, and now they have a message up saying "The new administration is currently assessing how best to proceed with the e-petitions service. We will update users as soon as practicable."

 

So there is a chance the e-petitions service may be closed. Just have to wait and see now.

[pigwig]

thats crap! now they won't even know how many signatures they have missed out on with all this!...silly people!

[Mustard2243]

Another call from the bonus hunters today they must be calling from somewhere else now because their number was barred before. I give up i just say im not in or give the wrong date of birth.

[Lankus]

Another call from the bonus hunters today they must be calling from somewhere else now because their number was barred before. I give up i just say im not in or give the wrong date of birth.

 

This is probably a long shot, but aren't BPF breaking the Data Protection Act by passing your phone number on to other people?

[Mustard2243]

i am not sure apparently they called last night while i was at work, i can't be bothered to talk to them anymore. All they do is talk over you and try to scare you, and i am done with them.

[raj4u]

i'm also getting calls from 01514711776..these guys are leaving voice mails to call back BPF on 0844 number..i used to get calls from 0845..and they used to leave blank voice mails. seems to be they passed our details to some other party or might be they moved to a new place..

[Penny Mitchell]

I am getting calls from that 0151 number on my home phone and immediately afterwards on my mobile and also calls from the 0845 number leaving answerphone messages to call them urgently. I will not answer any of their calls.

[DjOneel]

I answered the call, told them i'm awating FOS decision and don't want to be bothered with chasing of payments and they;ve held the account for the 30 days while it's being investigated. I would suggest answering if you don't want them to keep calling.

[ReloadG]

Hi Ever One

 

What do you think i sood do i havent payed any money (not a penny )to bfp .when i was with advent i only got 1 book be 4 they went under ..at the moe im telling bfp that i have cancelled the course ( im lieing 2 them )with advent be 4 they went under and i must send them a letter saying the course has been cancelled...sood i just make a cancelled letter 2 send 2 them Twits...or just go along with that CT is Crap ....what sood i do ..i havent payed any money so i havent lose out on any thing but at the same time they are still trying 2 get some thing out of me

 

please HELP

Edited December 31, 2010 by the_shadow
Attempt to bypass swear filter

[lowdown]

i'm also getting calls from 01514711776..these guys are leaving voice mails to call back BPF on 0844 number..i used to get calls from 0845..and they used to leave blank voice mails. seems to be they passed our details to some other party or might be they moved to a new place..

 

 

I was gettimg this a few weeks ago.

I called BPF, and told them i was in dispute [ had sent letter]

and if the calls did not stop from the point of this phone call,

i would complain to FOS and trading standings about the calls, and this would be ON A PER CALL BASIS [ just set a template letter and just change the times and dates] until the dispute was settled. And pointed out this could amount to fines worth more than the loan is worth.

They stopped from that point to this.

This all happened while the stupid girl was trying to talk all over me...

Idiots just after their bonus and target.

 

I do believe the 0151 is Liverpool code.

So that will be a bunch of clowns called Mercers - BPF dept collection dept.

Not an outside dept collection agency...so dont worry.

This lot are verbally nasty who think they are a law unto themselves.

Just Google 'Mercers' and you will get the picture...

 

Just remember that they are just hiding behind a telephone - they would never say it to your face.Dont be intimidated.

Edited May 25, 2010 by lowdown

[gfunkasaur]

BPF may not be breaching the Data Protection by using Mercer(nary) but surely they have breached it by giving our details to Computeach in the first place without asking for our permission? And obviously they have passed this information on to CT or CT wouldn't have been able to send us emails/letters.

[Penny Mitchell]

Thank you for that. (:

[Mustard2243]

I think they probably did breech data protection in the sense that Barclays gave them details of everyone on an advent course. Although Compufail and Barclays will argue that they are not in breech as the assets what Computeach bought from PKF probably consisted of a singular server that contained details of advent's students.

[cashins]

So that will be a bunch of clowns called Mercers - BPF dept collection dept.

 

 

Yep.

 

Mercers Debt Collection Ltd is a subsiduary of barclays Bank - their in house debt collector.

 

David

[pigwig]

Hi Ever One

 

What do you think i sood do i havent payed any money (not a penny )to bfp .when i was with advent i only got 1 book be 4 they went under ..at the moe im telling bfp that i have cancelled the course ( im lieing 2 them )with advent be 4 they went under and i must send them a letter saying the course has been cancelled...sood i just make a cancelled letter 2 send 2 them Cu*t's...or just go along with that CT is Crap ....what sood i do ..i havent payed any money so i havent lose out on any thing but at the same time they are still trying 2 get some thing out of me

 

please HELP

 

I wouldn't make up the letter if I were you cos that could be fraud/forgery or something! You could keep trying to go along with the story but don't forge anything in writing, it could come back to bite you!!

[Bluedo]

Hi,

I have till now ignored the phone calls and now I am receiving up to 4 calls a day sometimes a hang up when I answer one answer phone message was left at 7.30am, there is another place to report them to but I see they have been reported in the past. They don't seem to care about any regulatory body in any form. I thought if I let the calls increase and I keep a log then it'll be worse for them.

 

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/comp_bull_index/comp_bull_ocases/open_all/cw_905/BCs128090708.pdf

 

Section 1

1 Notification under section 128(1) of the

Communications Act 2003

1. This notification is issued to Barclays Bank plc, trading as Barclaycard (“Barclaycard”),

registered company number 1026167 and registered address 1 Churchill Place, London

E14 5HP.

2. This notification:

a. sets out Ofcom’s determination pursuant to section 128(1) of the Communications

Act 2003 (the “Act”);

[raj4u]

I sent the dispute letter long time back, still had no response to my letter..when they called me for payments, i mentioned about the letter and also refused to pay them..also told them not to call me again n again until i had response to my dispute letter. But still they are calling 4/5 times from different numbers and asking for payments. i'm so sick of the situation and just want to send a strong letter to them to stop calling me..does anyone have a letter format of this kind to send to BPF..thanx.

[lowdown]

This post is from another site...

 

The lastest posts are at the bottom, it shows what you are up against.

Its just laughable..

This one is interesting.

 

Posted by: Cardinal_Hildebrand on 25/03/10 at 12:02 PM

Hi,

 

Im an ex-employee of Mercers. boo! hisss! No seriously, I worked there briefly a while back, and I hated it, could not leave quick enough. Its a bit of a call centre set-up for one thing, timing you in and out of your seat which was not me. But I think most people get used to that. For me what did it was the aggression, of 'take payments, take payments' mantra drummed into us in training. We were told what we were doing was 'helping customers', 'getting their accounts out of arrears, and putting their finances on an even keel'. But in truth they did not really care about customers. They want money, and they will use all kinds of threats to get it. These threats, they euphemistically called, 'levers', with which to get money out of people. I've seen some borderline blackmail tactics used too. By all accounts they can get away with less than some tactics they were using 20 years ago. Ultimately, I totally agree with this post about 'not for profit' collections agencies. This is because all the permanent staff at Mercers are on bonuses for payment collection on the phone, especially if payment plans they set up hold. Some are very good at the job and have been there for years. Taking payments sometimes adds up personally (for that agent) to a third extra on their annual income. They even have daily bonuses of wines, chocolates, ipods, everything. Collection agencies are probably a necessary evil in a capitalist system, like brokers, lawyers etc, but I do not see why it should be in private hands, surely a publically owned system is much farer, taking true account of the individual's circumstances, removing all these bloodsucking debt management companies and debt collections agencies out there.

 

Some quick advice, as a person in the know, as most of you know Mercers are Barclaycard. They are in-house. And, they have to accept, in the end - down the line - any settlement amount you say you can afford. Even if its only a pound a month. 'Door-step collectors' another 'lever' used, is a bluff, they can't come in to your house to start taking your property. They are just a hollow threat, tell them to go away if they come around. Personally, I wouldn't pay them, I would take the hit, go bankrupt/IVA, 6 years bad credit rating. Start again after that.

Edited December 31, 2010 by the_shadow

[lowdown]

Beyond belief really...

The only way BPF will stop this fiasco is being dragged into court..

Edited May 25, 2010 by lowdown

[Fuzzbutt]

I answered the call, told them i'm awating FOS decision and don't want to be bothered with chasing of payments and they;ve held the account for the 30 days while it's being investigated. I would suggest answering if you don't want them to keep calling.

 

Maybe answer and state coldly you are taking legal advice and will contact them in due course - play their game! ;-)

[lowdown]

Maybe answer and state coldly you are taking legal advice and will contact them in due course - play their game! ;-)

 

This really is the best advice.