First Choice EPC

rsv625

I too received the same email from FirstChoice. Please anyone advice what to do

On 19/11/2014 you ordered an Energy Performance Certificate via our website from your ip Address of: <IPAddress>. As per the terms and conditions of the order a booking fee of £9.95 became payable as soon as the assessor booked the appointment with you. You can view the terms and conditions by clicking here. The booking fee should have been paid prior to the appointment taking place which our records indicate was scheduled for 21/11/2014 at 11:05. We sent you emails reminding you of this process. The process was also highlighted to you as you placed the order with us via the website.

Our records indicate that the booking fee payment was not made by 21/11/2014 at 11:05 and so a late payment administration charge of £14.95 was then added to your order. The combined booking fee and late payment administration charge of £24.90 should have been paid by 22/11/2014 at 11:05 however, this amount remained outstanding and a further administration charge of £50.00 was then added to your order. This brought the total amount outstanding as at 22/11/2014 at 11:05 to £74.90 which needed to be paid by 02/12/2014 in order to prevent further action from being taken and additional late payment charges added.

You have therefore left us with no alternative but to commence proceedings in order to recover the monies owed. A further administration charge of £125.00 has now been added to your order which brings the total amount owed to £199.90. You can pay this amount now by clicking here.

If this amount remains outstanding by 07/12/2014 date then our debt recovery department will pass the account to an external debt collection agency in order to recover the debt that is owed to First Choice EPC. A further charge of £250.00 will be added to the existing balance outstanding in the event the account is passed to our collections department. The total amount that we will seek to recover will be £449.90.

The debt collection agency will add a further charge equal to 15% of the total debt to cover their costs as per the terms and conditions.

In order to help you better understand these charges, we have created a questions and answers page which can be accessed by clicking here.

We strongly urge you to settle the outstanding charges at your earliest convenience.

Regards
First Choice EPC

What I needs to do ?

bukko

Apologies if this has been stated before but the following registered office address is on their website:
Ground Floor, 2 Woodberry Grove, London, N12 0DR

A quick check of Companies House confirms this.

However, Companies House also says that the company was only incorporated on 14/10/2014 although this thread goes back to September.

How is that possible? Were they trading before they were incorporated?
Somehow I don't think any charges which were made before their incorporation date will come to anything.

kev100_2

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE phone action fraud police 0300 123 2040, they are very friendly and helpfull and ask them to investigate that you concider this website a scam website and that fraud is being committed, also contact your credit card company and tell them that you want to make a cgargeback from this company because you concider it a scam and that you have contacted the fraud police and that they are already investigating (I had my confirmation through today telling me they are investigating )

kev100_2

RSV625.

This webite and his terms, and the charge for the EPC are all designed to give him all the rights and us consumers no rights, which I would consider unfair. And an unfair contract can be seen as unenforceable in court.

There is a £42 threshold that below this there are limited cancellation conditions, but there is a clause that says that any additional charges that are added to the service can be included, the company would have known that an extra booking fee will be included and I would argue that due to this then the actual fee is above the £42 threshold, so full cancellation rights should be observed, in view of this he should have provided a full cancellation document ( the cancellation terms on a website are not sufficient for this as they can be altered by the company, you must have a copy that cannot be altered), with this in mind its reasonable to assume I would have thought that he has breached the contract as you have not received a cancelation document and you should be entitled to a full refund without charge.

Remember your statutory rights of cancellation cannot be overidden by anybody. They are YOUR rights and not his to take away by a few words on a website.

You will need to check this with somebody that really knows consumer law though, but I think its your best argument to claim that the contract is unenforceable.

I am going to speak to trading standards tomorrow and give them a copy of his terms to see if they think they are unfair.

I Have also received today the confirmation by the action fraud police that they have begun an investigation and suggested to me to ask anybody else with issues with this company to contact them, so please call them 0300 123 2040, and also call trading standards.

rdr

essexjulia wrote: »

Hello Sorry to hear all your issues with this company but I used them 2 months ago and had no problems at all. Apart from now being on their mailing list with no clear way of unsubscribing. I get a daily email asking me to upload my agent details so they can send them a cop of my epc. They don't have to as I've already sent it but thwy seem to be very keen to do it for me!
Just thought I would add this to the discussion.

I'm also in Essex and had a similar experience using them in June, the whole process worked well. I did wonder how they could be done so cheapy though.
They sent me at least one email a day until I replied asking them stop which thy did.

julia128

Many unfortunate customers of First Choice EPC have been left high and dry and also in many cases been charged for nothing as they operate ridiculous cancellation charges that they chase you for. These costs then escalate to £460 - for nothing!. Its a trap and a known scam by a known scam artist called [TEXT REMOVED BY FORUM TEAM]. A simple google on his previous companies and this current one will fill u in with much information.

I cannot post URLs here as am a new member to this form, however in Google, just enter:

[TEXT REMOVED BY FORUM TEAM] EPC Scam

You will be presented with many links detailing him and what he is about.
Read the forums comments at the bottom of the page of "Is First Choice EPC worth the Risk? on Housing Energy Advisor Website.

Also on that website is another forum called: Beware of online EPC cowboys. The comments are almost all devoted to [TEXT REMOVED BY FORUM TEAM] and his EPC business... such as First Choice EPC, Express EPC, DEA Direct, Pay on the Day, EPClocal.net and many more.

This forum page has a lot of comments about First Choice EPC and how it operates and what you should do if they come after you on baseless grounds for money

Everybody should know this is the person operating First Choice EPC, which is not his first EPC business. He has had many before, all closed under acrimonious circumstances and him owing money to DEAs.

kev100_2

This is very important and applies to every consumer of first choice EPC and his associated companies i.e. epclocal

I have it under very good authority that first choice epc are in fact breaking the new consumer regulations which came into force in July 2014, I will go in depth here and summarize at the bottom because this is going to be a long explanation.

The companies terms and conditions are designed to try and bypass the full contracts and cancellation regulations by using the low value regulation (below £42) which states that the full contracts and cancellation do not apply and only partly apply. The important things in this case that he is trying to bypass are:

1, not having to send to the consumer a contract in a non volatile format

2, not having to send to the consumer the cancellation terms and conditions in a non volatile format

Non volatile in this case means in a form that cannot be changed i.e. by email or by post etc, terms and conditions on a website are not sufficient.

As far as 1, is concerned, if the service is below £42 then he is exempt from sending the contract, this also gives him the right to start the service if the consumer agrees, and in his terms by pressing the "accept" button the consumer is agreeing. If the value of the contract was above £42, he is NOT allowed to start the service without sending the contract confirmation.

As far as 2, is concerned, if the service is below £42 then he is exempt from sending the cancellation terms and conditions, if the contract is above £42 then by law he has to send the cancellation terms and conditions, if he does not he is subject to hefty fines, and also not sending the cancellation terms and conditions makes the contract unenforceable in law.

This is the exact regulation that this points to:

"2. Contracts which are only partly covered:

Low value off-premises contracts (value less than £42) are exempt from the information and cancellation provisions of the Regulations but subject to those on additional payments and charges and delivery and risk."

Now I hear you saying how does this help.

Well very simple.

For this company to conclude the contract, he is charging an additional £9.99 for a booking fee, and an additional £9.99 to retrieve the EPC certificate from his website, the true value of the contract is £59.97, and as such he must comply with the full contracts and cancellation regulations. The reason being is this part in the above regulation:

"but SUBJECT to those on ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS and CHARGES and delivery and risk"

This is there to protect the consumer from traders using the £42 threshold, in the exact way that first choice epc is to try and be exempt from the full contracts and cancellation regulations and still adding more charges.

So to summarize.

1, as the true value of the service is above the £42 low value threshold he has to, by LAW, send out a contract confirmation and cancellation terms and conditions in a non volatile format.

2, he is not allowed to start any service UNTIL he has sent out the contract confirmation. (which means in his threatening emails where he says he has started the service and there is a charge for this. HE CAN'T SAY THAT or apply any charge)

3, until you receive the full cancellation terms and conditions you have a right to cancel the contract at any time with no penalty, the contract is unenforceable until you receive the full cancellation terms and conditions.

4, Nothing he says, no threats he makes, no terms in his terms and conditions in his website can override the consumer regulations or your statutory rights.

In other words. he doesn't have a leg to stand on. if he took anybody to court he would get burnt down in flames.

killarachris

Received my Letter before Action today (and yes I realise I am acknowledging receipt) but shall ignore it as I have ignored all the other previous threats, lies and attempts at extortion. I have retained all the evidence I require to slap this down if it evers gets to a county court but I doubt they’ll want to pay the CC fees to bring the action – it will be very expensive exercise with nil return for them.

Why not just concentrate on providing the service you are selling?

I find it highly amusing that First Choice EPC are quick to reposnd to comments on the other forums where they are getting a good bashing but never replied to any of my requests for an appointment at the time I paid for the service. If they had acted in good faith they would have been able to keep the money I paid and I would have had my certificate. As it is they acted in bad faith and are being dealt with accordingly.

kev100_2

Also remeber his threats of action from debt collectors hold no water,
these ore the powers they have .. or I should say do not have :
Debt collectors can't:

• Visit or enter your home without permission. They are required to tell you when they are intending to visit you, and get your consent.
• Enter your house or take any goods.
• Act in a way that threatens or intimidates you.
• Discuss your debt with anyone else.
• Call you at unreasonable times, or when you've told them not to.
• Visit you at work.
In other words they have absolutely no powers unless you give them permission ...

The only people that can enter your home or take your possessions are court appointed bailiffs, and then there are some limitations to what they can do.

jhalinson

Please stay away from these scammers.
I booked an EPC through their website. The payment page to pay the booking fee wasn't working so I contacted support, nothing. The EPC assessor called me to arrange an appointment the same day which I did and since then I get a £14.95 fine, then a £50 fine and now a £200 fine for not paying the booking fee.
I paid the assessor directly but no way to get the EPC without paying their 'fines'.