14 April - No Trading Standards has consequences
Now that Bexley Council no longer has an accessible Trading Services Department and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau is not
always an adequate replacement, scammers can roam the borough with impunity. Yesterday
the crooks who
spent 40 minutes fixing my displaced block drive after quoting for four men
taking a whole day were looking for new mugs in Crayford.
If you see a maroon coloured van emblazoned with ‘Lion Steam Cleaning’ steer well
clear and if you are given a quotation haggle it down to about 20% of the
initial figure and then watch their every move.
Thanks to Conservative Bexley being a Trading Services free zone Lion Steam Cleaning are not
the only charlatans on the prowl. When my criminal friends were first featured
here, @tonyofsidcup told me he had met more than his fair share of shady operators but conceded that his were
not convicted burglars and rapists.
His tale of woe included a Sidcup based plumber who failed to fix a leaking tap but broke it instead
and walked out leaving chez-tony to flood.
A so called flooring specialist from Abbey Wood was asked to lay wood costing £50 per square metre
but sneakily bought an inferior product from B&Q at less than half the price.
Opening up an old fanlight proved to be too much for a Sidcup based window company but @tony’s
big squabble has been with Bexleyheath based Kent Rendering and Repointing Ltd
which he eventually took to the County Court. He was not the first to do so,
there had been four unsatisfied judgments made against the company in the previous seven months.
@tony added to Kent Rendering’s travails with another £1,500 judgment. (Extras brought it up to £2,300.)
Getting judgment and getting the money are of course two very different things.
Along the way @tony managed to get two emails from the company owner…
…the second of them conveying a menacing message.
The police paid the company owner a visit.
The foregoing is a totally re-written account of @tony’s submission to BiB. To read his
original words, names and all, click here. (PDF.)
Bexley Council cuts have consequences. I used their Trading Services when it existed; a man
came out and immediately took action against the offending business. They ceased
trading soon afterwards. Now there is little standing between residents and the con-artists
and when they put up illegal adverts on Council lampposts, Bexley Council doesn’t care.
Five adverts in the vicinity of the Danson underpass, reported August 2022.