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SimonB:
I posted the wrong link!
This is the story in this week’s Mirror. Shocking.
If this quote is from Steve, your boss, than I don’t see that we are so apart in our thinking!
Steve said:
I run a training school and have found these brokers are full of promises but don’t deliver.
If anyone is going to do a truck driving course you must go and see the school any good training provider should welcome you to have a look around, our office has a shop front so anyone can just walk in. pay in person by credit card not over the phone, see if they have their own trucks if not why don’t they. Don’t just go by a website anyone can gloss one of them up.
Peter Smythe:
Sorry but to me that stinks and for me personally, and it appears others on this thread, he has lost a degree of credibility.
Ok. I took that risk when I posted. I knew it was risky but thought I’d be able to put up a sufficiently robust argument for my actions.
For anyone to say
he has lost a degree of credibility.
worries me - to put it mildly. I am well known for being straightforward and honest in my dealings with both suppliers and candidates. I’m not prepared to risk my reputation for the sake of any broker so I have issued instructions to the office not to accept any more work from any broker with immediate effect.
Please can I have my credibility back? Pete
Certainly you can, and have some more respect from me too.
There is a huge difference between trainers and brokers. I know from Peters website he is genuine, because Google Earth told me so. I can see his training vehicles. I can see his training site. I can even see what he was doing in his office when the Google car passed. 
Peter Smythe is here for new drivers, he answers their questions. Peter has answered mine. He has invited everyone to go and have a look before committing. Rick at Data Academy did just that for me too, although he wasn’t there at the time. He allowed me to see part of his operation from the inside.
Myself and many others have mentioned about building fancy websites. I know because I have built some myself, it is easy to get caught out by them, I am even tempted to send myself money 
Latest news…
Blackwater HGV, LGV Specialist and Highway LGV (all the same company BTW) have gone bust.
hgvlgvtraining.co.uk/blog/20 … l-go-bust/
Whats your advice on that one Simon B. ?
Roger did ask who actually employs you now. Could you please respond?
hgvlgvtraining
Hi hgvlgvtraining
I do admire what you are trying to do with your website in much the same way as this board provides a vast amount of good relevant and free advice. Brokers have only been around since about 2004 when Clearstone began. We all talk about the problems with brokers and how they scam etc etc but very few actually do anything to break their stranglehold.
Many people truly believe you get what you pay for. Therefore the dearer something is the more they think they are getting. That is really how the brokers survive. Portray quality, include guaranteed employment, high earnings etc. They are selling the dream but at a price. Take a reputable training provider, and there are many: What dream are they selling ? “We use DSA trainers” or “we use modern vehicles” or “we have our own reversing area” (not having a go Pete just an example). The customers expect that from whoever they choose much like expecting any car to be supplied with a steering wheel. It is not exactly an exciting Unique Selling Point. But “We guarantee to get you a job earning £50k” is.
Once the canddiate has paid the broker and lost their cash the majority either cannot afford to start again (after all it could happen again to them) or they become disilussioned with the whole idea of LGV. They lose out and the decent trainers lose out.
SO IS THERE A SOLUTION ?
Every problem has a solution and there is no point waiting for the Govt to bring in legislation. If they made instructor DSA registration compulsory firstly it would take about 3-5 years and secondly how would that stop the brokers. The trainers they use would just be DSA Reg. The Govt will not introduce legislation that prevents free enterprise anyway. They are banking on the private sector starting new businesses and brokers are just that.
THE SOLUTION AS I SEE IT
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Trainers must become the new brokers. Let 60-70 (1 in each county) form a consortium
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Run under their own names but also under 1 common group name. There is a National Dangerous Goods consortium for ADR with 76 separate members (see ndgtc.co.uk/), so why not a national LGV Training Consortium. Even JAUPT who operate the Driver CPC training permits the use of consortiums. A company could be formed with each member holding 1 share.
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Each member contributes to the marketing cost say £20 per week each. That sort of budget would ensure the consortium remained at the top of the Google searches.
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A consortium website, probably similar to hgvlgvtraining.co.uk could ensure candidates were allocated to members based on their home addresses.
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It would not be difficult to put together a plan for all consortium test passes to have access to those companies that will consider newly qualified employee drivers.
Perhaps this plan is too ambitious for an unregulated industry that currently has no barriers to entry. Perhaps with the right amount of will from the right people it could be achieved. Please don’t any trainer reply saying “it has been tried before and failed”. Thomas Edison once said “We now know a thousand ways not to build a lightbulb.” It’s a good job he didn’t give up.
LGVTrainer:
2. Run under their own names but also under 1 common group name. There is a National Dangerous Goods consortium for ADR with 76 separate members (see ndgtc.co.uk/), so why not a national LGV Training Consortium. Even JAUPT who operate the Driver CPC training permits the use of consortiums. A company could be formed with each member holding 1 share.
would a consortium like that only require one approved dcpc training centre?
I believe the biggest barrier to that is the lack of regulation to quality of training.
How would you be able to guarantee that a student got a set quality of training no matter which part of the country they live.
If there was some way to guarantee that, then I could see it as a very good proposition.
The marketing would need a great deal of investment so that it came high on search results.
John
I am in virtually total agreement with your statements and suggestions. I am currently working on a plan which is similar - but not quite the same. Quality control/consistency is a major issue. When I’ve finally got it “de-bugged” I’ll present it to the industry. But I’ve been working on this now for years rather than months so don’t hold your breath!!
ROG
I believe such a scheme could operate as a JAUPT consortium - but it’s fraught with difficulties and I’d rather paddle my own canoe in that department.
Pete
Peter Smythe:
JohnI am in virtually total agreement with your statements and suggestions. I am currently working on a plan which is similar - but not quite the same. Quality control/consistency is a major issue. When I’ve finally got it “de-bugged” I’ll present it to the industry. But I’ve been working on this now for years rather than months so don’t hold your breath!!
ROG
I believe such a scheme could operate as a JAUPT consortium - but it’s fraught with difficulties and I’d rather paddle my own canoe in that department.
Pete
I am in agreement with John on this and hopefully Peter, but I would prefer something like the ADR Consortium to JAUPT, look how bad the DCPC has been accepted.
The following post was from this thread
olsenxiii:
Hi there around september time was feeling really peed off in my job, i have always fancied taking up driving so after browsing the net i opted to give Advantagehgv a bell get a bit more info etc cause on there website it says payment plans available, after a 10 min chat with the guy he tells me the price and what i would get it was £1600 i thought thats not too bad to get my foot on the ladder he asks me how much deposit can i give i said how about £100 he baulked and said it was at least £500 i was a bit shocked so asked about the payment plans to which he didnt want to tell me about he asked how was i paying i said credit card so after a bit of silence i agreed to putting down £500, as im writing this i realise how [zb] stupid i was at the time but like i said i was really ■■■■■■ off at work and wanted a new goal to aim for, anyways the convo ended, ill set up ur online theory he said ill call u back. So he calls back and says this is really important that u do this now and i activated my online training, when u buy stuff online u get a 7 day cooling off period where u can get a full refund if u had maybe RUSHED into something without thinking or without reading the T&C’s (distance selling regulations) so as soon as i activated that theory it had cancelled out the 7 day cooling off period before i had even received confirmation of payment, so then he gets back to money he says seen as though ur paying on ur credit card u may as well pay the full course so then as soon as u have passed ur theory we can get straight on to the practical without any more hassle of payments etc, ok i said( still cant belive what was going through my mind to be so naive). So within half an hour i had paid £1600, so even if i said 5 mins later i have changed my mind i dont want to do it, it would have cost £900 because i had activated the online theory.A month later he rings again nice as pie Hi how u doing on theory etc then oh did i not tell u about pass protection another £400 none refundable when i said NO ill take my chances he soon changed from being nice as pie!!, i thought wow what have i got myself in here looked at every angle to try to get out of it but you cant well u can but its gonna end up costing u £1000 for nothing. so i carried on i passed my theory test 3 week ago then i the guy rings up to tell me about the CPC module 2 and 4 which because i passed my test on Jan 14th 1997 is gonna cost me another £399 i said no it ill do it in my own time his response was cold again saying in the new year the price is gonna go up to £500 well tough m8 i cant afford it, if i want to cancel now how much money will i get back ( it has cost me £1997 to date) the reply was after this that an the other it come to £500 so basically !£1500 for a theory test. I spoke to them today asking when i can do my practical, end of february they said when i asked where she said she doesnt know where the Training center is off the top of her head i was flabbergasted, they just want u booked in regardless because as soon as ur booked there is no going back at all the staff on the phone are so rude and unhelpful and u can tell they do not give a [zb] about you all they want is ur money.So to date im waiting for a traing date to become available that is actually near where i live, on the whole my experience with this company has left me feeling totally ripped off and powerless-think and research before u agree to anything not like me feel stupid writing this but i am soo ■■■■■■ off with this companys attitude that i had to write this and hopefully no one will use them ever again.
SimonB:
I posted the wrong link!
This is the story in this week’s Mirror. Shocking.blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation … ses-f.html
And with reference to all the companies you mentioned:
Highway (went bust last Monday)
Qualitas (bust)
Sterling (bust)
Network (bust)
1st Class (bust)
Active Logistic (bust)
Blackwater (bust)
Direct (still going - just)
Flair (not a broker)
Focus (bust)
Pathway (bust)
TRG (don’t know)
HGV Express (bust)
Highlife (bust)
EasyasHGV (still going)
HGV Training Academy (bust)Out of the 16 companies listed, only 2 are still in business! So I was right in my descriptions of them.
Si.
This tells a story
burnie1:
SimonB:
I posted the wrong link!
This is the story in this week’s Mirror. Shocking.blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation … ses-f.html
And with reference to all the companies you mentioned:
Highway (went bust last Monday)
Qualitas (bust)
Sterling (bust)
Network (bust)
1st Class (bust)
Active Logistic (bust)
Blackwater (bust)
Direct (still going - just)
Flair (not a broker)
Focus (bust)
Pathway (bust)
TRG (don’t know)
HGV Express (bust)
Highlife (bust)
EasyasHGV (still going)
HGV Training Academy (bust)Out of the 16 companies listed, only 2 are still in business! So I was right in my descriptions of them.
Si.
This tells a story
You can add AdvantageHGV… It just gone into administration 5 days after your post. I hope all the trainers accepting their customers suffer as we do. The problem is not to use the brokers, but to use well known dishonest brokers. This let them to trade and cheat people. shame on you all
Also shame on British law let them to walk away with our money!!!