Threatened with small claims action Tutorcare.co.uk.Please help.

[chinoky]

Hello all.

I wonder if anyone can help with this issue.

 

We run a restaurant and a company contacted us to teach us health & hygiene that said they will issue certificates.

We agreed a date over the phone.

 

Next day we phone the council and they said it's not a recognised certificate. 

 

We phoned the company back and they said we owed the full amount for cancellation even though nothing was signed

. They now threatened taking us to a small claims.

 

 Is there anything I can do to avoid paying this?

They want us to pay almost£500 which is daylight robbery.

 

Thanks in advance.

[hello12345]

I wouldn't either I think they are trying to scare you. I cant see them winning in court and I think it would be too much hassle just for £500.

[dx100uk]

where's the signed contract..there isn't one.

sc@mmers!!

[BankFodder]

Please will you tell us the name of the company you are dealing with and also their website link.

I suggest that you go and put up some reviews on trustpilot and on Google as well

 

[chinoky]

The company is called tutorcare.co.uk.

The person that's been harassing me is Marta. A awful company with absolutely no ethics.

Surely a few emails from her phone is not acceptable as official notices but they listed that on the claims form from the debt department.

[BankFodder]

Please could you post a link to the course that they were offering on their website.

I think it is important that you don't give in to these people. At the very worst you could be liable simply for administrative losses caused by any breach of contract by you. However I would tend to be arguing that it was part of the contract that any certificate they awarded you would be a recognised certificate.

Please provide a link.

I think it will be important not to go silent on them. I think they will eventually need at least a single letter from you telling them that you consider that it is they who are in breach of contract as it has transpired that they are not providing you with a course leading to a recognised certificate and that if they want to take it further you will be happy to see them in court.

I believe that your business is somewhere in the north of England and they are in London and so if they decide to see they will be obliged to travel north and also risk the outlay of a claim fee and a hearing fee.

Of course there is a risk that they would pursue the claim against you and that they can win – however we will help you.

Reading the reviews on trust pilot I see that there are 19% of the reviews which are two star – or mostly one star. This is not the kind of standard of quality or of service that I would get involved with. Also, many of those reviews are telling a story which is fairly similar to your own.

If you haven't done so already then add to the reviews and start hunting around the Internet for people with similar stories to your own. Take screenshots of anybody who's got a similar story and if it does end up in court then you will be producing that as evidence as well to show that this is their way of doing business.

[chinoky]

I just posted a review on trustpilot

the reviews are shockingly bad there.

 

I can't find the link from the website as it was all arranged over the phone.

There was no invoice or anything.

 

the first letter we received was the cancellation fee payment.

 

I'm planning on writing a formal letter to them telling them come to a small claims near us.

 

Any advice on how i would legally word it?

I'm so confused.

Thank you all for your help, it is much MUCH appreciated.

[BankFodder]

You don't need to worry about using particular legal language.

Do you happen to know if they recorded the call? Did they give you any warnings?

[chinoky]

I just spoke to the counter staff (only she had direct contact with them).

They never explained anything and just said 'be aware of our terms and conditions'.

Nothing was sent to our inbox or address to check/read.

 

Since cancelling, we only get emails asking for payment .

What legal rights do they have at this point?

[dx100uk]

They do obv know your address yes?

Pers id ignore them

Bounce/block emails and wait their letter of claim?

Or i can see you playing letter tennis forever here?

 

Dx

[ericsbrother]

They wont want to go to court because they have misrepresented themselves and the service they have offered.

You dont owe them anything because they could never perform to the contract they have supposedy offered so it will be a frustrated contract if it existed to begin with.

 

Now B2B proof of contract is less than you would need for a consumer contract so it isnt cut and dry but as said, they want the money, not a court fight where they are likely to lose and have to pay you a considerable sum as well for their troubles.

 

they refer to T&C's so were these made available before you said yes

-it has to be specific even for B2B so they needed to ahve told you to look them up before you agreed to anything

 

expect begging letters from some toothless DCA nest. Block emails and record phone calls, it isnt unknown for soem bandits to record and then edit a call to make it completely different to the original.

 

lastly never say yes to anyone who contacts you, always be the one to decide who to call. If they were any good you would have got recommendations for them from others you know