Janet Entwistle, the chief executive of Peverel (soon to be reborn as FirstPort), has ruled out mediation with retirement residents scammed in the Cirrus collusive tendering scandal.
Any “unhappy individuals” should make a complaint directly to her, she says in minutes of a meeting with Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation on October 10.
Having orchestrated a price-fixing racket for four years (between 2005 and 2009), Peverel got off scot-free after the Office of Fair Trading gave it leniency accepting the preposterous fiction that Peverel had turned itself in rather than been rumbled.
Four years later – in December 2013 – when the OFT at last ruled that 65 retirement sites had been cheated, Peverel offered a “goodwill” payment of £100,000 to the affected sites.
(The whole OFT inquiry cost £500,000 and resulted in one fine of £1,777 to Owens Installations, the smallest stooge in the scam.)
The minutes of the meeting with Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation (below), hosted by Sir Peter Bottomley, read: “If any site has information to show it has been charged more than the goodwill gesture we have paid, we would be prepared to look into individual cases. Peverel will continue to be open to look into any individual cases.”
Frustratingly, the 65 scammed sites are actually facing an open goal.
The OFT itself could not be clearer that if any site takes legal action against Peverel its report provides all the evidence required for proper compensation, rather than whatever Peverel wants to pay in “goodwill”.
An OFT letter to one Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation reader says: “Subject to the Decision not being successfully appealed, the OFT’s findings in respect of these 65 tenders can be relied upon by those people who consider that they have suffered loss as a result in ‘follow-on’ damages claims.”
Although it was suggested by Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation that Andy Davey, the head of Cirrus during some of the period when price-fixing took place, attend the meeting, he was not present. He is now “director of business excellence” for the Peverel group.
Although Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation has long believed that 70 per cent of Peverel’s management business comes from the Tchenguiz Family Trust, its former owners, it was minuted and corrected by Peverel to read “around 50%”.
Related posts:
The Oldie reports Peverel / Cirrus price-fixing scandal
Janet Entwistle says no current Peverel staff ‘linked’ to Cirrus scam
Janet Entwistle to Bottomley: £100,000 ‘goodwill’ payment over Cirrus scam stays and she welcomes meeting with MPs and the Campaign against Residential Leasehold Exploitation
Three MPs tell Entwistle to pay up more over Peverel / Cirrus scandal, or accept binding mediation
Davey and Bottomley quiz OFT over its leniency deal with Peverel over the Cirrus price-fixing scam
LKP election manifesto … as minister thanks LKP for official leasehold figure of 4.1 million private properties
No change over Cirrus Retirement Scam, says Entwistle,
Chas Says:
Does this mean that the Scams are still being carried out?
Janet Says:
Although Peverel leaves an open goal for compo claims?
Chas Says:
Sebastian/Martin as you are aware I have emailed Janet Entwistle regarding the Price Fixing Scam at Ashbrook Court. The Director of Customer Services, Chris Owens waylays the emails and refuses to allow any further comments.
The OFT in its report into Collusive Tendering, took from December 2009 until December 2013 to produce the Report. In The Report it explains the Model used by Cirrus/Peverel/Jackson to cheat us pensioner. Cirrus/Peverel/Jackson were involved in 37 Price Fixed Developments that they owned up too. It has been stated by Insiders that Peverel Group only admitted to 65 Developments, those being where the Area/Regional Managers had moved on?
Seb Says:
Janet Entwistle, the chief executive of Peverel (soon to be reborn as FirstPort), has ruled out mediation with retirement residents scammed in the Cirrus Collusive Tendering Scandal.
Janet Says:
Any “unhappy individuals” should make a complaint directly to her, she says in minutes of a meeting with Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation on October 10.
Chas Says:
This is not possible, as Chris Owens receives the complaint and either SPINS that Cirrus/Peverel/Jackson, did not Price Fix us at Ashbrook Court. Chris Owens refuses to provide the Contract or the Reports that deemed the Warden Call System was OBSOLETE.
Seb Says:
Having orchestrated a price-fixing racket for (Five Years) not four years (between 2005 and 2009), Peverel got off scot-free after the Office of Fair Trading gave it leniency accepting the preposterous fiction that Peverel had turned itself in rather than been rumbled.
Chas Says:
Was it not the Times Newspaper that rumbled them in September 2009, forcing the Peverel Group to OWN UP and contact the OFT in December 2009?
Seb Says:
Some 4 years later in December 2013 – when the OFT at last ruled that 65 retirement sites had been cheated, Peverel offered a “goodwill” payment of £100,000 to the affected sites.
(The whole OFT inquiry cost £500,000 and resulted in one fine of £1,777 to Owens Installations, the smallest stooge in the scam.)
If what Janet says is true, then set up a meeting with LKP, Myself/Representatives and Peverel?
I have copies/records of the first meeting Feb 2007, when we were informed that the Warden Call System was supposed to be OBSOLETE. Plus other documents that were provided that proves that Cirrus/Peverel/Jackson colluded in the Tender Arrangements at Ashbrook Court.
When I asked for information on my friend Chris (Spin) Owens on Internet Explorer, it brought up a heading which stated that Chris Owens was a Director of Customer Services.
I understand from the letter where CSO replied to my MP by SPINNING the facts again.
The facts are we had already been chosen as one of the hundred developments that were to be Price Fixed as our Retirement Development was coming up to the 20 years of age where we didn’t get the key to the door, instead we had been chosen as the next lucky development to have our Warden Call System replaced.
Ashbrook Court was the next on the list it was 2006 and our development had reached its 20 Birthday. We were now Ripe for STING as we were only Retired Pensioners, who show no interest in the Budget Figures, and we have Peverel Retirement to look after our interests???
What Cirrus/Peverel/Jackson did not tell us was that this was the next stage of the STING.
THE sting, like the other 65 plus Retirement Developments was by declaring the WCS as OBSOLETE who was going to Challenge them???
Just by stating that the Warden Call System was OBSOLETE was the First Part of the Sting.
It cleared the way for the next part of the STING which was for Cirrus to price the replacement as they did.
The Next Part of The STING was to provide 2 OPTIONS,
1. STRAIGHT REPLACEMENT
2. UP-DATE costing £5500
The Gods decide to hit Ashbrook Court with a Lightening Strike, this renders the WCS Damaged. It also gives Peverel the chance to Update the WCS as an Emergency so the S20 Notice is Ignored.
Now Cirrus provides the cost of the Tender to Jackson who 10 days late, puts in the late tender (which should have been disqualified) where they add 20% to each item and sent in a Tender knowing that it will be £5,000 above the Cirrus Tender.
As was usual, Cirrus is given the contract, but as the other Fixed Contracts had to be undertaken they ask Jackson the loosing Tender to undertake the work, but as Cirrus has won all the Price Fixed Contracts they can not undertake the works for over 8 months.
So from the date of the Lightening Strike 20/06/2007 it took until the 01/04/2008 some 9 months for our WCS to be replaced.
Norwich Union the Insurance Company then paid out 99% for the Up-Dated WCS which was deemed by our Area Manager Roger Cooper to be OBSOLETE??????????
This reflects Cirrus/Peverel o how they operated, simply because the Elderly Residents were Easy Picking and Ripe for the Next Sting.
Cirrus are currently installing a replacement system in Homefarris House Shaftesbury SP7 8AU at a cost of £26,071.88 (vat included) it is referred to as “Emergency Call Upgrade”
The work is said to take approximately 3 weeks and will be supervised by AHR BUILDING CONSULTANCY LTD.
It started on the 1st December 2014.
The “Contingency Fund” is likely to look pretty sick after that .
I have to say that I do not like living here. My faith in Managements is at rock-bottom. Peverel/First Port seem to do what they want to do and not what we the residents want done. (i.e. We have been asking for a ramp at the rear exit for years but they came up with a recommended tender of £4,400. So high that residents turned it down. But the steps at the back door are dangerous and many residents use walking aids.
Its just too frustrating to get it across to “glib-tongued”” young officials who talk down to us in clichés.
24/04/2012 by Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation:
Entwistle acknowledges that improving the group’s reputation is a priority.
“I’m not saying everything everybody did was wonderful — it wasn’t,” she says. “But if we look at how to change the business, customer service has to be absolutely at the heart.”
She is now canvassing opinion from a wide cross-section of stakeholders — from management level within the business, down to the people behind a rash of snappily titled websites that featured tales of residents being “ripped off” by the company — to try to devise a new strategy for the group.
We have to look at how we communicate, so customers have a better understanding of their position.
Chris Owens and communications???
I Was checking some facts today and realised that on the 13/12/2013 the Guardian wrote a piece on Price Fixing the following day, that should be aired again regarding the people who Peverel Know and the OFT Know, but we do not Know who it was in both Peverel and Cirrus who conspired to cheat 65 Developments, possible over 2000 retired pensioners out of their pensions by:
1.. Informing the developments that Warden Call Systems/Fire Systems/Smoke Alarms, were OBSOLET when they were working OK, but slightly dated, and were reaching 20 years of age.Peverel Management Services Ltd had decided that they can readily make between 13 and 16 development per year, update systems that worked, giving them an income per year, of approx. 3000 Thousand Pounds Per Year, yes £300,000 per year, a ready home made market.
2. By informing the developments that the systems were OBSOLETE they guaranteed work for Cirrus Communications of approx. 1.6 million pounds worth of work for the next 5 years.
3. The OFT refused to name those who were responsible as it was Not In The Public Interest???
The Guardian reported:-
The Guardian is publishing a major report into the Peverel/Cirrus price-fixing scandal in tomorrow’s newspaper 14/12/2013.
It is written by Patrick Collinson, the personal finance editor, and will appear on the front cover of the stand-alone Money section.
It is understood that the report gives the background to the sham tendering that Peverel engaged in, and the disgraceful decision by the Office of Fair Trading to do a leniency deal with the company.
The scandal inevitably raises questions over Andy Davey (above), former head of Cirrus, who is now Peverel’s director of business excellence.
Everything about this OFT inquiry is scandalous. It is almost as serious as the cheating undertaken by Peverel.
The OFT was either suckered into accepting a leniency deal with Peverel in December 2009, or complacently went along with the fiction that Peverel had somehow “turned itself in”.
The demonstrable truth is that Peverel owned up to the practices because it had been rumbled.
The Cirrus scam had even been outlined in the Times on December 4 2009.
Then the inquiry only got underway in April 2011 – 16 months after Peverel supposedly turned itself in.
When the OFT announced its findings last Friday, it declared that the stooge companies involved in the price fixing cartel would be fined £53,410.
Chas Says:
The OFT investigation cost £500,000 pounds and collected £1,777 in fines with Peverel/Cirrus having their wrist slapped and informed that they can Carry On.
What a Farce, they could make a film about Carry On Peverel-Staring Andy Davey, Janet Entwistle, Chris Owens, Peter Whalley and the supporting cast of those who saw fit to rob and cheat Residential Pensioners who are a Easy Target as they bury their heads in the Gardens.