First Choice EPC

killarachris

ignore it - empty threat

rsv625 wrote: »

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 ?

killarachris

Excellent history and write up detailing the many failed businesses, unfortunatley I cant post a direct link o you will neeed to navigate to energyassessormagazine.com and look for the article of 28 Nov 2014 titled
EPC BOSS DENIES PANELS LINK

kev100_2

Would be interesting to know if anybody has had any so called debt collectors come to try get some money ... obviously 100% sure nobody has .. I invited these scammers to take me to court and try recover whatever money they think I owe .. No court summons as of yet .. just the latest threats of debt collectors, they quite obviously know that they will loose in court, and that judgement will then be applied to everybody they have tried and have scammed, and opens the door to claimbacks ...

Moneysaver100

I can't thank everyone enough for their warnings I was JUST about to book an EPC with this company :eek:
Does anyone have any recommendations?
Regards

kev100_2

I did a search for a local EPC assessor, called him up by phone, he came the next day and I had my certificate the following day, cost £49 and paid on the day, try find somebody with a local address or local phone number, its not worth trying to save 10 quid for tha hassle you get with these scam artists.

kev100_2

My bank have refunded me the £39.95 while they are continuing with their investigation into this scammer,

I am surprised I have not yet had a court summonds for £10,000 (as per the terms of his small print) because of all the comments I am making about him ... I wonder why that would be, probably because they are all true.

Oliver22

I have just had to phone my bank to get the money back from this company. Please don't use this company, I stupidly tried to save £20 and like a previous poster said, it just isn't worth the hassle.

kev100_2

Oliver, please report him to trading standards and the action fraud police .. the more people that complain the better chance they will shut him down sooner and less people getting conned, there are contact details within this thread and its a pretty painless 10 minutes just explaining to them how he scammed you.

Have a look at these 2 sites too, we are by no means just a few people having problems

http://www.housingenergyadvisor.com/blog/is-first-choice-epc-worth-the-risk/

http://www.housingenergyadvisor.com/blog/beware-of-the-online-epc-cowboys/

kev100_2

copied from another forum

Maybe, just maybe… finally the authorities are going to do something about Whatcotts scamming websites. There is hope.
http://energyassessormagazine.com/probe_into_controversial_panels.html
Here is a excerpt from the article:
PROBE INTO CONTROVERSIAL PANELS
Fraud line acts on First Choice EPC complaints
27 January 2015
Police and Trading Standards have been asked to look into the trading practices of three controversial panel websites which have allegedly left some assessors unpaid and left many members of the public feeling harassed and frightened after receiving demands for hundreds of pounds which they say they don’t owe.
A government minister has now said that such demands are illegal, and that consumers have the right to seek compensation from businesses for “misleading or aggressive commercial practices”.
EAM has already featured several articles on the behaviour of websites First Choice EPC.com, DEADirect.com and EPCLocal.net, which have been the subject of public complaints to police, Trading Standards and consumer helpline Action Fraud.
Following an appeal by EAM Editor Terry Wardle, Jo Swinson (left), Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs, has revealed that Action Fraud passed information about the businesses in November to police in Hertfordshire, where the sites are believed to be based.
She said: “I can confirm that Action Fraud disseminated the potential frauds, to which you refer, to Hertfordshire Police in November 2014.”
A spokesman for Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Financial Investigation Unit told us yesterday: “Both Hertfordshire Constabulary and Trading Standards have been informed of the reports via Action Fraud. Trading Standards are currently looking into these reports.” The spokesman added that if criminal allegations came to light as a result then the force would investigate them.

The_Voice1

I stupidly clicked on the link for them yesterday and paid for it on credit card without checking them first as I was in a hurry. I have just pinged an email of to them as I have not been contacted by anyone so it will be interesting to see what they say.


I will keep you (and others.....) up to date as to their response.


I also think that Google have a responsibility in coming down on these companies as the link I clicked was a google ad.