01616090630

So you're saying CVS has never admitted liability for an increase and made a payment to a client in recompense for such an outcome? I can tell you they most certainly have.

Can you share any more information on this please?

Utility Bill Helpline Ltd
Alarming Evidence

I am always concerned when I see businesses vocally criticising other businesses operating in the same industry - the reason they discredit competitors (possibly decently reputable companies in their own right) is usually to persuade you to sign up to their services at the expense of other companies - because it is firstly very poor business practice, and one usually finds problems closer to home.

I am therefore going to investigate www.utilitybillhelpline.co.uk to look at their own bold claims, and test the trustworthiness of their company using information already in the public domain.

On their website, they use the following contact address: Coopers House, 65a Wingletye Lane, Hornchurch, Essex RM11 3AT
This is their Registered Address as required by Companies House.  However they do not publish their actual trading address.  Why would a company not wish to provide this?
The Registered Address is a building used by Haines Watts Group which is an Accountancy firm - and presumably their accountants - so should you have a complaint against Utility Bill Helpline Ltd, you would not be able to physically find them.
They do NOT provide a telephone number, NOR an email address, so contacting them could prove problematic.
The Company Director as recorded at Companies House is Mr Gary Davies.
Gary Davies has a string of dissolved companies behind him which have been G DAVIES CONSULTANTS LTD (which was struck off after going into voluntary liquidation) and BUSINESS RATES HELPLINE LTD (which is showing as dissolved with a First notification of strike-off action in London Gazette (Section 652).
At the same home/service address provided to Companies House, Mrs Carron Davies, and Mr Marcus Reece Davies were Director and respective Company Secretary of DUNCAN REGENT ASSOCIATES LTD which was dissolved after being struck off after going into voluntary liquidation and was also a Business Rating Appeals Company which has been reported to be a SCAM COMPANY.
There is a lot of unhappy clients here http://www.unknownphone.com/search.php?num=01204388189 who claim they were RIPPED OFF.

Already there seems to be a string of Business Rating Appeal Companies who appear to have misled and lied to companies, running off with substantial Up Front Fees.  The very thing Utility Bill Helpline are alleging other companies are doing before telling us that they have amazingly managed somehow of getting up front fees back to companies who have been ripped off by other companies!!!!!  How?  And then claiming to have saved them thousands of pounds through their own appeals?!!!!  Is that really a likely story?  When DUNCAN REGENT ASSOCIATES LTD and the BUSINESS RATES HELPLINE LTD seem to have developed quite a negative reputation of their own doing?  It doesn't convince me I'm afraid.

It is deeply concerning that the Utility Bill Helpline Ltd, also seems to be very much centred upon offering the services of Business Rate Reductions and would definitely occur to me to be a very large red flag.

This company has a LOT of Testimonials which name Companies which Gary Davies claims have misled and lied to consumers, and defrauded.  Having looked at the evidence, there are a tremendous amount of similarities between the 'customer testimonials' which lead me to form an opinion that they are fake.  Remember this is only my own opinion.  However, if they are fake, then please be wary of the comments they have made in relation to other companies in the same industry to them, because they may be lies.

Trading Standards will be asked to look into this case, and it will be up to Gary Davies to substantiate his Testimonials.  If they are indeed false, this constitutes 'canvassing business away from a trade or business' which is a criminal offence, by means of false representation (which is another). Not a concern when the whole thing has the potential of being a scam; locking customer's into costly and lengthy contracts on unfair terms.

If you trust this company or any of it's Claims and fantastic 'Testimonials' on their website, then look at the facts before you believe what you are told.

LETTER FROM CABINET SECRETARY FOR CULTURE AND EXTERNAL
AFFAIRS
SUPPLEMENTARY WRITTEN EVIDENCE
Following my recent evidence session I would like to provide further
information on aspects of the Europe and External Affairs budget to the
committee.
International Development
We work across Government to maximise the impact of the international
development fund budget and leverage in money from other areas. As an
illustration of this, in 2013-14 the International Development Fund budget
within my portfolio was £9.0m, however the total Scottish Government spend
on Overseas Development Aid was £11,339,747. This total included
contributions from Energy & Climate Change, Hydro Nation, Cashback for
Communities, Commonwealth Games Legacy and other budgets within the
External Affairs portfolio.
Migration Strategy
I can confirm that from the Migration Strategy budget line £150,000 is core
funding for COSLA to participate in the Strategic Migration Partnership. This
supports local authorities in their work with asylum seekers and migrants in
Scotland and promotes understanding of the Scottish Government’s policies
on Migration and Asylum. The COSLA team undertakes research work aimed
at increasing the stock of knowledge of migration issues around Scotland. It
also disseminates information to elected members of Local Authorities, senior
officials and the general public aimed at promoting better understanding of
migration issues in Scotland.
We also provide £268,000 funding for TalentScotland to provide advice and
guidance to potential highly skilled migrants to Scotland. Services include a
website which offers FAQs, links to sources of official information e.g. the
Home Office for visas, as well as information promoting Scotland as a place to
live and work. TalentScotland has taken over the functions of the Relocation
Advisory Service, which was previously part of International Division in the
Scottish Government, in offering immigration advice to migrants who have a
job offer in Scotland.
The remaining £312,000 in the Migration Strategy budget line supports
migration policy development and advice to Ministers. It also pays for the
employment of specialist immigration staff, providing specialist advice on
immigration issues and associated activities intended to develop immigration
policy.
European Strategy
The committee were interested in the increase in the European Strategy line.
As I explained the bulk of the increase is due to a transfer of the office running
costs into this line from Administration costs. The table above contains an
illustration of the breakdown.
EU Competitive Funding Programmes
As I explained during my Committee appearance it is difficult to give a
comprehensive picture of all the money Scotland receives from EU
competitive funding programmes. This is because, in Scotland as in the wider
UK, government will not always be party to (or funders of) many of the
projects in which partners are involved.
However we are taking steps to improve our knowledge of the EU funding
landscape and are working with Scotland Europa to develop an internetbased
EU Funding Portal which we hope will launch in the first quarter of
2015. The portal will provide a one stop shop to potential applicants for funds,
providing comprehensive information on all EU funding instruments
(competitive and non-competitive), advice on how to apply for funding calls, a
brokering service linking potential partners and a database of past projects in
which Scotland has been involved. I hope that this will go some way to
dealing with some of the questions that the Committee have had on this issue
in the past. My officials will stay in touch with the Committee clerks as this
initiative concludes.
Below I have also outlined a few examples of how Scotland is benefitting from
existing competitive funding mechanisms and how the Scottish Government is
contributing to those.
In the field of European territorial cooperation Scottish stakeholders are
expected to draw down a final total of over €50 million of ERDF grant funding
2014-15
£m
2015-16
£m What it buys
European Strategy
– Top Line
0.500 1.664
EU Office 0 1,049 Supports the running of the Scottish
Government's EU Office.
EU
Programme
0.500 0.615 Facilitate increasing strategic engagement with
key EU countries, including actions identified in
the Nordic Baltic policy statement. It will support
a programme of policy and cultural events in
Edinburgh and Brussels, Government
secondments to the EU institutions and
increasing Scotland’s return on EU competitive
funding programmes including Creative Europe.
from the 2007-2013 INTERREG programmes, supporting projects with
Scottish partners that also complement the work of our regional European
Structural Fund activities. These include actions across a number of projects
and programmes with an ERDF value of over €1 million to address
demographic change and improvement in the health and welfare services that
can bring new innovation, business, skills and employment opportunities to
communities.
For example, the societal and economic benefits from wider use of
telemedicine are potentially huge. However, despite the benefits and technical
maturity of the applications, the use of telemedicine services is still limited in
Europe. NHS24, the Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare, and
partners from 8 other European regions, are establishing a Regional
Telemedicine Forum to deliver innovation at the regional level. Actions will
contribute to ensuring that regional policies respond better to today's
economic and social challenges and complement the work of other regional
projects using Structural Funds in the eHealth and telemedicine fields, and
focused particularly on interoperability issues and the testing of new
telemedicine pilots. The total value of the project is €1,977,831 with an
INTERREG ERDF contribution to Scotland of €147,000.
Horizon 2020, which launched this year and its predecessor, FP7, are
important competitive funding schemes in which the Government has been
engaged, focusing on research and innovation opportunities. Scotland
secured over €725 million in the 2007-2013 funding period which is 1.6% of
the total allocated FP7 budget. The €725 million also represents almost 11%
of the UK allocation (€6.8 billion). Secured funds to Wales and Northern
Ireland are 2% and 1%, respectively, of the UK allocation.
Under the new Horizon 2020 funding stream the University of Edinburgh has
just submitted a bid to establish a Life “Knowledge and Innovation Centre” (or
Life-KIC) to focus on Healthy Living and Active Ageing. A decision on the bid
is expected in December.
The project, which has the backing of the Scottish Government and Scottish
Parliament, will bring together six of Europe’s most innovative regions, with
Colocation Centres in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and
Spain built upon excellence in education, research, business and the delivery
of public services. Edinburgh University, the project coordinator, will lead the
UK Colocation Centre.
Total EU funding for the Life-KIC over 7 years is expected to reach €428
million. The Life-KIC is expected to generate a substantial return on
investment, estimated at over €5 billion during its first 10 years of activity, with
€3 billion directly attributable to EU funding. Key overall performance
indicators during this timeframe include the creation of 500 new companies,
over 1500 collaborative R & D

Utility bill helpline is helping itself to your money. It scams you and as it is a monthly payment you don't think it can be that bad. After a year or so of the motnhly payments for nothing try and find them....

Are CVS connected to Utility Bill helpline? If not maybe the poster should make a utility bill helpline page rather than adding to this one. This post is about CVS from Manchester whose activities on business rates have been reported unfavourably in the Daily Telegraph on many occassions. Anyone reading this should just google to find out more.

Why would they do this when it is clearly a caught out business rates scam artist who is posting on here about this helpline? If not why don't they put their full details on here rather than hide behind this irrelevant American site. By the way many of the other posters on here have also got nothing better to do rather than moan about CVS and they are also probably either failed business rate agents who can't compete with CVS or just some low life who has a grudge to bear against them!. CVS charge on a commission only basis so I fail to see what your problem is with them regardless of a bit of bad press in the papers which is no different to what many other UK corporate companies get from time to time and you wonder why no one believes a single word on this site. The only issue with CVS is there billing for the years 2015 on wards and anything else in irrelevant as the business who signed up with them should have read the contract to which they agreed.

If any business wants to appeal their business rates contact The Valuation Office directly as this is FREE and if any genuine business has a real issue with the services of any so called business rates agent then depending on how serious their complaint is either contact your local TRADING STANDARDS OFFICE or contact ACTIONFRAUD.

They rip you off and then contact you again through the new company sending a different salesman.  Avoid

These are very bad people! They will use your information for fraud and harrasement! They are hiding behind the business to commit crimes call the police

Cvs is a fraudulent company deal with them at your own peril! The company is owned and run by criminals!

how can you make such ridiclous caims without having to back them up......what is this site.

See earlier all earlier comments on this site  complete with names connected to CVs and reference to court judgements !!! This company is a scam run by criminals!

See earlier comments on this site complete with court cases and judgements relating to fraud by these people

Deep down....you know he's right, don't you?

ARE CVS STILL GOING

Can I ask you did they have a claim? I am going through a similar experience after a cancellation fee was demanded and unpaid.

North Yorkshire trading standards officers uncovered a massive scam that fleeced tens of thousands of businesses countrywide, Leeds Crown court heard.

They were working jointly with colleagues in Cheshire, Lancashire and Manchester in what is believed to be England's biggest ever trading standards operation, said Robin Spencer QC prosecuting.

He outlined how over four years five company directors used five companies to con small businesses out of hundreds of pounds each.

Each firm was operating a scam involving a promise of business rates reductions.

But the torrent of complaints from their victims, particularly in Yorkshire, prompted North Yorkshire trading standards to investigate the operations of three of the companies, which all used the name Oldfields.

Mr Spencer said that the Oldfields operation at one stage had a turnover of £8 million a year with 43,000 business customers who were conned into handing over at least £200 for no return.

And when one of the five, Jason Clarke, 32, started up the fourth and fifth companies using the name Strattons, their activities prompted the trading standards officers of Cheshire, Lancashire and Manchester to get involved.

Clarke, pleaded guilty to four offences of fraudulent trading with the Oldfields companies and two fraudulent trading offences with the Strattons companies.

Peter Hilton, 57, pleaded guilty to four fraudulent trading offences with the Oldfields companies.

John Stenson, 36, pleaded guilty to two fraudulent trading offences with the Strattons companies.

Lee Hilton, 30, unrelated to Peter Hilton, pleaded guilty to two false trade descriptions offences involving the Strattons companies as did Strattons and Co (Consultant Surveyors) Ltd.

Anthony Dardis, 31, of Birmingham, pleaded guilty to two fraudulent trading offences with the Strattons companies. All but Dardis come from Manchester.

Judge Peter Armstrong signed a bench warrant for Peter Hilton after he failed to attend court. The others will be sentenced later this week.

The UK’s largest business rates specialist has been accused of acting “unfairly” by a group of unhappy customers, after the company continued to demand payments after its apparent five-year contract.
CVS (Commercial Valuers and Surveyors), which trades as CVS, negotiates business rates bill reductions on behalf of its clients on a no-win, no-fee basis, charging 50pc of the total savings.
Business rates are re-evaluated every five years but in 2013 the Government announced it was to review the way they were calculated, and deferred the start date of the next “rateable period” by two years. CVS has required its customers pay until 2017.
A clause included in the fine print of its standard contract states: “Rating period is the five-year term from one re-evaluation of a rateable value to another.”

“What if the Government extended the period for 20 years?” said Grahame Connor, the founder of accountancy firm Connor Warin, who has been invoiced for £5,000 by CVS for the two-year period. “What would happen then?”
Colin Noble, founder of PEC Packaging, which manufactures automotive packaging on behalf of clients including Jaguar Land Rover, has paid CVS £70,000 over five years. “This two-year extension is just the sting in the tail,” he said. “It’s unfair.”
Keith Tuckley, licensee of the Earl of Chatham pub in London, is another unhappy CVS customer. He said: “They’ve had £20,000 out of us and I do not want to pay another £10,000.”
Sandra Spearing, founder of South West Reclamation, which sells antiques and renovation materials, is being billed £1,000 a year by CVS, including VAT.
“I feel so stupid,” she said. “I didn’t even realise we had to pay every year. 50pc is so high, I thought it was a one-off payment. Now it could be another two years of payments.”
CVS' website claims that it has processed more than 58,000 business rates appeals since 2010. In 2013, the company turned over £22.4m.
CVS’ board boasts a number of well-respected directors. Chief executive Mark Rigby is chairman of professional rugby union team Wasps, while Peter Chappelow, CVS chairman, is non-executive chairman of OKA, the homewares company owned by Lady Astor, mother of Samantha Cameron, the Prime Minister’s wife.
The largest shareholding in CVS is owned by convicted fraudster Jason Peter Clarke, who was successfully prosecuted by North Yorkshire trading standards in 2000 for using the promise of business rates reductions to con tens of thousands of businesses.
Mr Clarke pleaded guilty to six offences of fraudulent trading through the Strattons and Oldfields companies.
CVS is regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and is a member of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation and the Institute of Customer Service.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors confirmed this week that it was launching a full investigation into the allegations against CVS.
“I’m refusing to pay up,” said Mr Connor. “I’m hoping that if enough of us get together, we can launch a class action.”
A spokesperson for CVS said: “The Government’s decision to postpone the next business rates revaluation has had dramatic and damaging consequences for businesses across the UK. In this context, CVS’ professional surveyors work hard to reduce businesses’ rates and we only ever charge clients when they are saving money.
“These complaints reflect only a handful of cases from our 50,000 clients, for whom we have saved £600m since our incorporation. We are fully regulated and our contractual terms are very clear, but we are always willing to discuss any instance in which a client is in some way dissatisfied.”
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is responsible for business rates, said: “The Government postponed the revaluation to provide certainty for businesses and avoid sharp changes and unexpected hikes in business rates.
“The Enterprise Bill announced this week will create a faster and more efficient appeals system that limits the number of speculative appeals allowing the speedier resolution of genuine appeals. This should reduce the costs and frustration for businesses and ensure that businesses receive any reduction in their rates bill more quickly.
“While the issue at hand is a private contractual matter between the individuals concerned, the changes outlined will help ensure that undue profits cannot be made from the system."

Don’t look at this company based upon mysterious and unfounded web complaints, unless you first do your very own due diligence for you to verify if the allegations are really precise. Many of these kinds of bogus gripe domains are nothing more than coercion racket platforms, from where the agents request a small fortune from the business organisations to clear away the web-pages. Competitors and ex employees misuse these sites to malign companies. They only use these types of sites as they are based in America and above English Law. This is one of hundreds of sites where this is happening to companies like this. Let's see how long this post remains on this thread?

Yes poor CVS, I mean Strattons, sorry I meant Oldfields - getting all these online complaints, it's just NOT fair is it? It must be really distressing for the owners who are just trying to run a legitimate business rates reduction company after they were imprisoned for their involvement in a multi-million pound business rates reduction fraud all them years ago. Pesky American websites with their due restrictions above the UK law, who do they think they are? Hopefully Trump will put a stop to these sites and allow convicted Mancunian fraudsters to continue with their underhand and dubious business activities unhindered. That way many more business owners can be scammed or duped into signing penalizing contracts that are designed only to benefit the company who prints them. This coercion racket is abhorrent - it's almost as abhorrent as a group of glorified telesales agents calling businesses and using pressurized boiler room tactics in order that a glorified sales rep masquerading as a surveyor to sign paperwork designed to rip off the business owner. You can't really make a complaint about these websites being parasitic when your very company is and will always be a parasite.