[WCE]

Just to say Jeff that i agree he has capitalised on the whole renting a round out and you are right he has done it on a massive scale. IMO it is okay to rent rounds to people as long as you do it on fair terms but what he has done is con people and used underhand methods to keep the customers eg bad mouthing other companies, deliberately undercutting rivals etc. It his methods that have caused the problems . Like I said Duke was there at the start before any of these bad business practices  became apparent and also like I said Duke was the only person he hadn't ripped off  or s*** on some way so I expect he was lured into a false sense of security if i had been in that situation then I would of probably done the same. Remember this guy is good at one thing canvassing. He has a base of 2000-2500 Customers. What makes that even more amazing is he always seems to be able to find more customers even bearing in mind he charges them £18.00 at the door via a standing order before they have even seen any window cleaning take place. To top it off  he once told me his cancellation rate was 35-40% but he always managed to replace them (indeed of that % a fair amount have come to me and said they will have nothing to do with him again) so it is no wonder that Duke has fell into his trap. Is he greedy yes think about it  2500 customers x £18.00 = £45,000 and thats before the guy does any window cleaning he now also wants 15% of the window cleaners takings and the best bit is he is not vat registered and has no intention of doing so. It's enough to make jdemarco proud!

               

[WCE]

The other point I should add is that as this guy like to target people who have no experience of window cleaning and puts a jazzy advert in the local paper to recruit He tells them they can earn £8-15 per hour window cleaning (compare that to factory work etc) and sucks them in from there I happen to know that when he moved here and started his business Duke had been going for a couple of months and had between 45-60 Customers of his own. I had never worked in window cleaning before and I know he promised us both at least 50 new customers per month each until the round was built up. With his sweet talking it seemed a very attractive offer and he did deliver those targets but only short term.  I am sure many in the same position a newbie being offered that many new customers a month would of took it.       

[Davo]

Duke has learnt a valuable lesson, and tewksebury sounds a good area to go and get some work IMO. Squeeky its only 41 miles away, 49 minutes using aa route planner, insterad of banging your head against the wall in chepstow why not go there?.....its a bit more work but it sounds like it has alot of potential, keep you busy, which may not be a bad thing at the moment for you.



Mark

[Ian_Giles]

This guy seems to think he can get around the employment laws...I think he is wrong, and I further think he needs to be reported to the tax man/ VAT man.

Talk about giving window cleaning a bad name...

Ian