[andy east sussex]

had fantastic day untill last job bang on customer door trading standards standing there dunno why i got worried as ive done nothing wrong but i thought oh **** what have i done lol aprently customer called them about someone else aprently and guy only said to me from trading standards bet you dont clean like that at home lol

[andy east sussex]

anyone experienced them before

[M.Acorn]

Yeah but not directly, had to go and see them about my invoices, apparently I had to put my name and then trading as.
Not sure how they got wind of that though

[andy east sussex]

oh thats what made me think if something was up with me surely he would of said something

[Jim_77]

I bet you kicked the box of Daz under the van quickly before he saw it

[wynne jones]

Were they after a smug swarthy guy in leathers called Dan?

[Carpet Dawg]

I wouldn't worry about trading standards. They are useless tubes anyway and dont full up on anything, just tell you to use the compliant form on thier website.

[andrew stone]

a bloke who was in the same class as me in school is nowserving 7 years in jail following a visit from trading standards!

they unearthed the biggest ever ebay scam - millions of pounds worth of fake golf clubs sold throughout the world.

he had properties in thailand , australia, even a share in a yacht.

he is now up to his neck in the sh**.

before all this he had a cleaning business!

andrew

[Buckland]

Where possible it is a good idea imo to know something about your local county trading standards people and what they do - they are a very good source of information and we pay for them in council tax so why not try to get something back! In Hampshire they started the Buy With Confidence Scheme which is an excellent  idea - the website is not that good but they are working on it!

First of all if the worst comes to worst and you get a conjunction of an error (who can say they have never had a job go TU) made by you or an employee with an awkward customer and they end up going to Trading Standards then you already have a line of communication set up and you know them and they know you - when you join the scheme you have to tick certain boxes and they visit and interview you and look in detail at your operation and randomly select 10 customers from your database and follow up with those people

The scheme has been adopted by lots of other councils in Southern England and it is a scheme that cowboys just would not join - first they would not get past the interview stage and second they would not be arsed to do it - our membership costs 200 pa - I am not sure the 'other' organisations are quite so fussy about who they take on board!

dave

[jon barnes]

 the buy with conifidence is a good idea but poorly executed. we've been with it since the start and to date i dont think anybody has asked us about it - mainly because nobody knows who they are.

[Buckland]

like all these things they are part of the marketing mix and it depends how you use the scheme in your company - they (the BWC participants) do need to get their act together on an all singing all dancing website especially as they are now putting feedback on as well - it is a very professionally run scheme with good literature and handouts etc(in hants anyway cant speak for w sussex) and definitely helps when you are talking to customers - you can say you are Approved by Trading Standards - it won't transform a business - only people can do that!

[Ian Gourlay]

a bloke who was in the same class as me in school is nowserving 7 years in jail following a visit from trading standards!

they unearthed the biggest ever ebay scam - millions of pounds worth of fake golf clubs sold throughout the world.

he had properties in thailand , australia, even a share in a yacht.

he is now up to his neck in the sh**.

before all this he had a cleaning business!

andrew

They had that on Fake Britain. Fail to understand how people think they can get away with it on Ebay

[andrew stone]

ian

the ebay scam involved half a dozen people from my town.my old class mate was the ring leader.

before he got involved in this he had already made loads of money- why he got in to this i dont know.

andrew