Thinking of becoming a Betterware co-ordinator?

[Kernowman]

At some point in our lives we may find ourselves in a position where you NEED a job.

I signed up with Betterware as a "Co-ordinator" which roughly translated means area manager in charge of several

or more Distributors in a set geographical area. The position was self employed.

 

The job entailed taking weekly orders from the Distributors, collating them and entering the orders online to Betterware HQ.

The entire value of those orders was placed onto your co-ordinator's "running financial account" in your name.

 

 

When the goods arrived they turned up in huge boxes which you had to sort for each Distributor

and more often than not there were missing products where the packer of the consignment ticked the picking list,

but the goods were not in the delivered parcel(s).

 

 

A claim form and the original picking list had to be posted off to B/W's HQ and hopefully those amounts would then be credited to your "running account" - or not.

I am still over £170.00 out of pocket with this system and B/W have all the documents.

 

When you delivered the goods to the Distributors you also had to collect cash from them from previous week's sales,

less any commission they were due, calculated at 20% of sold products.

 

There would be times when the customer wasn't at home despite many visits,

or they simply refused to pay, so the goods were then handed back to me to be returned to B/W HQ.

Commission earned by the Distributor in this transaction = £0.00

 

Under distance selling regulations, the Distributor is obliged by law to give a full refund within 14 days and many times they did give 100% refunds.

Commission earned by the Distributor in this transaction = £0.00

In fact the commission earned from the original sale has now been paid back to the customer so the distributor is now -20% of the good's value.

 

Faulty goods exchanged by the Distributor. Commission earned by the Distributor in this transaction = £0.00.

 

All of these returned items then get handed back to the co-ordinator who gives them 100% credit value on their weekly cash summary.

 

When those goods get returned to Betterware HQ, they then decide to DEDUCT 20% OF THE GOODS VALUE FROM THE CO-ORDINATOR

and add that value onto the running account which is debited.

 

I couldn't work out how my "running account" was getting further and further into the red when I was doing the job strictly as instructed,

that was until I discovered this 20% deduction on all returned goods which made me livid.

I quizzed my regional manager about this and was told it was done to recoup commissions already paid on these goods

. It certainly wasn't paid to me that's for sure.

 

If the distributors wanted any plastic bags to protect the catalogues in wet weather, or wanted other paid for stationary

, it all came out of the co-ordinator's running account.

 

The major part of the job though was to recruit new Distributors.

I spent a small fortune on phone calls and petrol running around chasing people that didn't want to work,

or they would spend a couple of hours putting catalogues out then quit,

saying it was "hard work". It was THE most thankless job that I have ever had.

 

You were expected to pay each week a "waiver fee" to supposedly protect you against Distributors running off with goods or money.

This only applied to ONE invoice so I was told, so it didn't protect you against money shortfalls over several weeks,

nor did it protect me from Betterware's own malpractices, as I was to find out.

This "waiver scheme" has not been approved by the FCA.

 

Because I wasn't happy about these all back door deductions coming out of the running account,

so I decided enough was enough and so I quit. I was presented with a bill for over £800.00, payable instantly.

 

I went to Citizen's Advice about these issues and they told me it was a criminal offence under unfair trading and consumer protection regulation

, so they referred it on to Trading Standards to investigate, which to the best of my knowledge they have not done so.

 

 

I have informed Betterware about this illegal activity and they have never once responded, denied or challenged it.

Instead, they took out a County Court summons and got a judgement in their favour,

despite me writing to the court informing them that the debt was unlawfully accrued and therefore not recoverable.

 

The latest news is that B/W have appointed baillifs and the debt has now gone up to over £1,000.

 

All of this really has affected my health which wasn't that good to begin with.

Edited August 26, 2015 by citizenB

[renegadeimp]

Welcome to the wonderful ( not) world of MLM companies. What did the original claim form say? How did you defend it?

[Kernowman]

Welcome to the wonderful ( not) world of MLM companies. What did the original claim form say? How did you defend it?

 

Betterware isn't an MLM company. You might have been thinking of Kleeneze which is.

 

I went to the county court to defend it but this idiot got the time of the hearing mixed up. I thought it was 2.30pm but it was at 2.00pm. I was there at 1.45pm and realised just a minute after 2.00 I should have signed in, but the judge had already gone home worse luck. Betterware didn't appear but sent a letter to the court, the contents of which I have never seen.

 

I applied to have the judgement set aside on the basis that the debt had been acrued illegally and not recoverable in law. They still got their judgement.

[unclebulgaria67]

Is this post to get advice or purely a warning to others ?

 

Be careful, as if they pay the court fee to elevate to high court enforcement, the enforcement fees are much higher. If you applied to set aside and this failed, you don't have much choice but arranging to pay. Keep cars off the driveway just in case of enforcement visit and never allow them into your home.

[renegadeimp]

Bettaware started out as one. It might not be one anymore, but still has similar business style behind the scenes

[citizenB]

Can you provide us with more details of the actual claim please ?

 

specifically, from the particulars of claim where they say why they are issuing the claim.

 

And, can you type up word for word exactly what you wrote in your defence. The bit I have highlighted in your first post, it would appear that your defence wasn't CPR compliant and could well be the reason they obtained a judgment against you.

[Kernowman]

Is this post to get advice or purely a warning to others ?

 

Be careful, as if they pay the court fee to elevate to high court enforcement, the enforcement fees are much higher. If you applied to set aside and this failed, you don't have much choice but arranging to pay. Keep cars off the driveway just in case of enforcement visit and never allow them into your home.

 

It is asking for advice, but mainly to inform others that they are going to be fleeced by taking up this job, plus to highlight that the legal system is heavily weighted against the man in the street.

 

Citizen's Advice were helpful but no more than that. Trading Standards are suffering budget cuts so it is probably more efficient for them to go searching out grubby takeaway joints than spend resouces investigating my complaint. If it is considered to be a criminal offence, the police don't want to know either. The county court system should have rung alarm bells when my written plea for a set aside contained the words illegal, unlawful and criminal. The response back was to cough up £155.00 which I didn't and don't have.

 

I have already dealt with the bailliffs by using the appropriate system. My wife and I are both classed as "vulnerable", her with chronic Asthma and me with a serious heart condition plus insulin dependant diabetes. This whole episode has affected me badly and I now have Angina for good measure brought on by the stress. Her name is not included anywhere in this action with B/W so we have a signed and witnessed Statutory Declaration that everything in our home belongs to her, including the cars. If a bailiff does turn up now, I will insist they leave without entering and call the police if they refuse under trespass laws.

[Kernowman]

Can you provide us with more details of the actual claim please ?

 

specifically, from the particulars of claim where they say why they are issuing the claim.

 

And, can you type up word for word exactly what you wrote in your defence. The bit I have highlighted in your first post, it would appear that your defence wasn't CPR compliant and could well be the reason they obtained a judgment against you.

 

They say their computer system is without fault and if it says I owe the money then there is no argument against it.

 

 

They submitted a printout of the account and it is all numbers which even I couldn't decipher.

 

 

I was going to try and cross check with my records,

but the computer died completely and I cannot retrieve those records.

 

 

The originals of the missing product claim documents are in the possession of B/W,

but I did find all the weekly summary sheets from the distributors that shows all the returns,

faulty goods and missing product figures they put on their summaries which they got full credit for.

[dx100uk]

we've seen this before too

 

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?373523-Betterware-Debt

[unclebulgaria67]

Sounds like you did not actually make a set aside application as such. If this is the case, you might still be able to do so. If you are on low income you might not have to pay the court fee.

 

BUT if you do go ahead with set aside application, i would suggest that you don't make allegations of unlawful or illegal, unless you van prove it. Remember that county court is for civil issues, not criminal. They want to hear about issues with the contract you had with BW.

 

Can i suggest that you look to obtain free legal advice locally. There are legal advice centres around the country. If you search for pro bono legal advice or community legal advice, see what you can find local to you.

[Kernowman]

The latest news is I have had a major heart attack resulting from all the stress this issue has brought on.

 

When I came out of hospital I really wasn't feeling well at all and the bailliff turned up on my doorstep, despite being sent a communication that they were not to do so. I engaged a company called Bailliff Advice (a trading style of P.A.C.E. Associates (UK) Ltd) to deal with the bailliff company whom they ignored anyway and turned up regardless claiming he had not seen the documents sent to their head office. I showed hime the documents and he still ignored them, so that was £150 well and truly wasted on Bailliff Advice's useless services.

[Bailiff Advice]

The latest news is I have had a major heart attack resulting from all the stress this issue has brought on.

 

When I came out of hospital I really wasn't feeling well at all and the bailliff turned up on my doorstep, despite being sent a communication that they were not to do so. I engaged a company called Bailliff Advice(a trading style of P.A.C.E. Associates (UK) Ltd) to deal with the bailliff company whom they ignored anyway and turned up regardless claiming he had not seen the documents sent to their head office. I showed hime the documents and he still ignored them, so that was £150 well and truly wasted on Bailliff Advice's useless services.

 

I am dreadfully sorry to hear of your health problems and I can understand the awful stress that you are under.

 

In the first instance, which enforcement /bailiff company visited you?

 

How much were they attempting to recover from you?

 

I notice from your post that you paid a fee of £150 to Bailiff Advice (P.A.C.E Associates Ltd). Can I just make an important point clear:

 

For almost 10 years I have run a website called Bailiff Advice Online. I do not advertise the site on this forum and neither do I provide links. I do not need to. The site is found by Google links on its own. What is of serious concern to me is the number of websites that have sprung up over the past year or so with astonishingly similar names to mine. The organisation that you have paid £150 is one such example.

 

I am not here to be critical of any organisation but it would help if you could post back to let us know what service they were going to provide to you. Have you spoken to them to advise that a further visit has been made? If so, what has been their response?