Kudos Concierge Ltd, dodgy company, BE WARNED!!

clever_kiwi

Kudos Concierge Ltd, dodgy company, BE WARNED!! I have today reported this company to the Trading Standards Authority who are investigating their breach of advertising as they DO NOT give out these Harrods gift cards as promised. Also I have spoken to Harrods who have no corporate account with them and are themselves currently taking legal action against them for illegally using the Harrods logo on their website and stationery. I have also alerted their other "suppliers" as listed on their website to let them know the situation. I received an invite in a mail shot about 2 weeks ago to attend a 1 hr presentation of their services, which is offering discount holidays and the like with a massive joining fee. I went to their swanky offices along with a small group of others, and got a hard sell 3 hour presentation. I did not sign up to the membership club, but I was promised in writing, a £150 Harrods gift card unconditionally that would arrive in the post. Anyhow the short story is this is a scam and I am glad I never gave them any money. They said all sorts of crap like they have been running for 7 years with a membership of 400,000 but I looked up their name on the Companies website and they were registered in June 2007 and I found out ther website was only completed in July 2007. And the Director is the same guy that did the sales pitch in the seminar! Anyhow, watch this space, I will also make sure they get investigated on Watchdog and The Real Hustle....!!! Spread the word...

michaelhot

I also attended the same promotional seminar, at the Kudos Mayfair offices on Wednesday 12th December 07. However, my views and opinions are slightly different.....We were invited to attend the seminar in Mayfair and in return for our time we would receive either a Harrods gift card for the value of £150 or a choice of other gifts (All very nice!!!). Whilst we were in the offices of Kudos we were treated totally professionally and all their staff came across very polite, it certainly wasn't a 3 hour high pressure presentation. The product and concept they were offering was excellent!!! In fact, the massive joining fees you mentioned???? I spend over £3000 pa and the main reason for us attending was because our friends have been using their product and service for over 5 years (we have been away with them on 2(Two) trips organised by Kudos, great accomodation, very well looked after from door to door) At the end of the presentation no-one was hassled in anyway and all of us left with a good impression about the whole thing. Today in the post we received as promised our Harrods card, so I don't quite understand your statement "DODGY" "BE WARNED"....Instead, I would say "REFRESHING TO MEET A REAL COMPANY, THAT OFFERS A REAL SERVICE". I would also like to add, that we didn't join Kudos, we were advised by the presenter that our friends membership can be extended for us to use, which we have already sorted....so I DON'T understand your moan, then again some people are never happy and always want a FREE LUNCH!! Maybe you could comment or you should speak to our friends who also feel the same as us.

hollydays

Nothing wrong with a free lunch-unless you want to charge us £1500 for booking it ,£50 for drycleaning and commission for calling the taxi.:rotfl:
edit-they have now changed their name to the Kudos Collection Limited.

SoYouThinkYouAreSmart

I also received the invitation letter, me and my husband went over there, loved the concept, believed an excellent presenter and signed the contract to go for a three year trial with a possibility to add up for indefinite use of the offers. We were told that we needed to pay 495 pounds upfront and they will do credit check for 7 days. If they declined our profiles we would receive the money back. We never signed anything to allow for credit check and so they did not have a legal right to do so.

We got home, made our research and found all that I will mention below and eventually called our bank and blocked the card the number of which we gave to pay for the upfront fee. All this happened just ast Saturday (2 days ago).

Today on Monday (not after 7 days but on the first working day after the presentation) I received a call from Kudos asking me to call the bank to allow the transaction. I told them it was blocked and I did not believe them after the research. We did not find anything negative but nothing positive either. I will put the presenter's comments as well below.

So what we found:
1. The presenter was called John. The company owner is John Holmes (John is a popular name though). Company was registered in summer 2007, the Club Concierge which is the other party on the contract was registered in 2006. Today on the phone John said that he is not the owner and that the parent company was registered in Dubai 7 years ago. I could not find any public resources to prove that but maybe it is true.
http://www.whois.org/whois_new.cgi?d=kudosconcierge&tld=com
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/ec046097d2b28d31c7f14d40078dbdf5/compdetails
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/cf1a262c9f89dee819a799a59298bd51/compdetails
2. We were the rare clients who did not want Harrods card but instead wanted to go for a pilot lesson which is an alternative through their partner (see their site). Every single (of all three) person was very surprised of this option and asked several times to make sure this was what we wanted. When we signed the contract, they gave us the gift and recommended to ask over the phone for Adam Winter. As it turns out the same name Adam Winter is their marketing director. Bizarre I would say.
http://www.uspwebsolutions.co.uk/recent-clients.html scroll a bit down
3. The club class concierge is registered at the company named Costtel and have a look at their website.
http://www.whois.org/whois_new.cgi?d=clubclassconcierge&tld=com
http://www.costtel.com/ simple blank page, no info apart from email
4. Weird think on UK market – they asked for cash, that is the options to pay those 2995 pounds for 3 years membership were to be paid either in full now with 10% discount or in total within 3 months (not 6, not 12 months as other companies offer)
5. michaelhot has posted all of his posts (so far 7) defending Kudos which often indicates that it is someone from the company…
I think it is quite enough. I believe that the company is managed by just several people (the three that we saw and a couple more like Adam Winter). Even if they do what they promise (attractive prices, good service, huge discounts on prices for travelling, concerts, etc ) I think they do it out of the money they get now for membership. Which means that it is a simple financial pyramid and they will go bankrupt at some point of time. I may be wrong and miss an excellent opportunity.

hollydays

SoYouThinkYouAreSmart wrote: »

I also received the invitation letter, me and my husband went over there, loved the concept, believed an excellent presenter and signed the contract to go for a three year trial with a possibility to add up for indefinite use of the offers. We were told that we needed to pay 495 pounds upfront and they will do credit check for 7 days. If they declined our profiles we would receive the money back. We never signed anything to allow for credit check and so they did not have a legal right to do so.

We got home, made our research and found all that I will mention below and eventually called our bank and blocked the card the number of which we gave to pay for the upfront fee. All this happened just ast Saturday (2 days ago).

Today on Monday (not after 7 days but on the first working day after the presentation) I received a call from Kudos asking me to call the bank to allow the transaction. I told them it was blocked and I did not believe them after the research. We did not find anything negative but nothing positive either. I will put the presenter's comments as well below.

So what we found:
1. The presenter was called John. The company owner is John Holmes (John is a popular name though). Company was registered in summer 2007, the Club Concierge which is the other party on the contract was registered in 2006. Today on the phone John said that he is not the owner and that the parent company was registered in Dubai 7 years ago. I could not find any public resources to prove that but maybe it is true.
http://www.whois.org/whois_new.cgi?d=kudosconcierge&tld=com
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/ec046097d2b28d31c7f14d40078dbdf5/compdetails
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/cf1a262c9f89dee819a799a59298bd51/compdetails
2. We were the rare clients who did not want Harrods card but instead wanted to go for a pilot lesson which is an alternative through their partner (see their site). Every single (of all three) person was very surprised of this option and asked several times to make sure this was what we wanted. When we signed the contract, they gave us the gift and recommended to ask over the phone for Adam Winter. As it turns out the same name Adam Winter is their marketing director. Bizarre I would say.
http://www.uspwebsolutions.co.uk/recent-clients.html scroll a bit down
3. The club class concierge is registered at the company named Costtel and have a look at their website.
http://www.whois.org/whois_new.cgi?d=clubclassconcierge&tld=com
http://www.costtel.com/ simple blank page, no info apart from email
4. Weird think on UK market – they asked for cash, that is the options to pay those 2995 pounds for 3 years membership were to be paid either in full now with 10% discount or in total within 3 months (not 6, not 12 months as other companies offer)
5. michaelhot has posted all of his posts (so far 7) defending Kudos which often indicates that it is someone from the company…
I think it is quite enough. I believe that the company is managed by just several people (the three that we saw and a couple more like Adam Winter). Even if they do what they promise (attractive prices, good service, huge discounts on prices for travelling, concerts, etc ) I think they do it out of the money they get now for membership. Which means that it is a simple financial pyramid and they will go bankrupt at some point of time. I may be wrong and miss an excellent opportunity.

Just captured your post in quotes,because most of the others who complained on this site (Warnings and rip-off board "Kudos Card"),mysteriously withdrew their posts (perhaps after being offered an incentive to do so?)!

hollydays

clever_kiwi wrote: »

Kudos Concierge Ltd, dodgy company, BE WARNED!! I have today reported this company to the Trading Standards Authority who are investigating their breach of advertising as they DO NOT give out these Harrods gift cards as promised. Also I have spoken to Harrods who have no corporate account with them and are themselves currently taking legal action against them for illegally using the Harrods logo on their website and stationery. I have also alerted their other "suppliers" as listed on their website to let them know the situation. I received an invite in a mail shot about 2 weeks ago to attend a 1 hr presentation of their services, which is offering discount holidays and the like with a massive joining fee. I went to their swanky offices along with a small group of others, and got a hard sell 3 hour presentation. I did not sign up to the membership club, but I was promised in writing, a £150 Harrods gift card unconditionally that would arrive in the post. Anyhow the short story is this is a scam and I am glad I never gave them any money. They said all sorts of crap like they have been running for 7 years with a membership of 400,000 but I looked up their name on the Companies website and they were registered in June 2007 and I found out ther website was only completed in July 2007. And the Director is the same guy that did the sales pitch in the seminar! Anyhow, watch this space, I will also make sure they get investigated on Watchdog and The Real Hustle....!!! Spread the word...

including several from this person,as I remember.

This reminds me of something someone told me once -slightly different-but same concept. A relative of mine bought something from Ebay-the company had great reputation,on the site,on paper at least.He had terrible problems with them.After posting a question on Ebay (forum maybe) he was privately messaged by loads of people saying what a terrible company they were,but in effect they bribed you if you complained publically,to "remove" the negative comment.Hence not many negative comments could be found about them....

edit-now changed their name to The Kudos collection Limited.

Goldengirl

I'm new to these sorts of postings. Is anyone interested in hearing about my visit to kudos concierge? I also gave them my credit card for the deposit, went home (after being there over 4 hours) and thankfully friend of mine helped expose many inconsitencies in what the presenter told us.
Interested?
Glodengirl

Goldengirl

Oh look, theyv changed the name!! To get away from this probably!!

clever_kiwi wrote: »

!! I have today reported this company to the Trading Standards Authority who are investigating their breach of advertising as they DO NOT give out these Harrods gift cards as promised. Also I have spoken to Harrods who have no corporate account with them and are themselves currently taking legal action against them for illegally using the Harrods logo on their website and stationery. I have also alerted their other "suppliers" as listed on their website to let them know the situation. I received an invite in a mail shot about 2 weeks ago to attend a 1 hr presentation of their services, which is offering discount holidays and the like with a massive joining fee. I went to their swanky offices along with a small group of others, and got a hard sell 3 hour presentation. I did not sign up to the membership club, but I was promised in writing, a £150 Harrods gift card unconditionally that would arrive in the post. Anyhow the short story is this is a scam and I am glad I never gave them any money. They said all sorts of crap like they have been running for 7 years with a membership of 400,000 but I looked up their name on the Companies website and they were registered in June 2007 and I found out ther website was only completed in July 2007. And the Director is the same guy that did the sales pitch in the seminar! Anyhow, watch this space, I will also make sure they get investigated on Watchdog and The Real Hustle....!!! Spread the word...

hollydays

From their website-The kudos collection limited.
15,Stratton street,Mayfair. W1J 8LQ Another dodgy scam?
Did you get your cards Goldengirl?

saintscouple

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

IRDman

Goldengirl wrote: »

Oh look, theyv changed the name!! To get away from this probably!!

i agree. they have registered under a new number. there old registartion number was 06278327 and there new number is 06513446. the new company was incorporated 26/2/8. the old company was incorporated 13/6/7.

All this info is free on the companies house website.

I was one of the lucky ones to get my vouchers because i complained a lot. i knew the deal was too good to be true but i had time to waste. if i got the vouchers then it was a bonus. I decided to pursue my vouchers as they said it would only take an hour of my time. it took 3 hours. after many abusive phone calls it got what was requested. Ill like to know if anyone else was successfull in getting any free stuff.

thanks