01618723897

Just had yet again another call...told him to f** off...he then rang back to put a complaint in against me...WTF......they dont like being caught out !!!
Wot goes around comes around SJ ASSOCIATES...

I think I been caught out by this scam myself, last week after a lot of pressured calls and offer for a free consultation of 15 minutes I agreed for the guy to come and have a look, I am going to pull all those picture from the CCTV as evidence, He thought there might be a case in rates reduction and will advise us, he told me that once he has ascertained that the rates department will entertain an appeal and I am shown how much I will potentially save, there will be no fees and if I chose no to proceed on assumption that there wasn't much gain to be made, then that will be it. Today I receive a call saying yes they can proceed and want to come and do a survey and take some photograph and measurements, I always as a cautious person asked her if she could put it in an email or in writing what we are taking in saving as a ball park figure, to be honest if they were going to save me £1000 and take £850 in fee, I will rather pay the council the current rate, at least it will go to do good for the county. She categorically refused to put it in any form of writing, I ask her if she could arrange for the guy dealing with it to call me and tell me what king of saving we are to expect, she told me no he has to come down and show me in person, as he is busy off site and cannot call. Now that raised my suspicion, I told her that unless she puts it in writing the deal is off, that's when the bombshell was dropped, she said in that case you owe us £400 something pounds, I asked wasn't the consultation for 15 minutes free as you stated, she said no. I wouldn't deal with them unless I get in writing what they intend to save me at least in general. If they send me a bill I will dispute it. As my wife signed the paper work under duress and I am the director of the company I will take my chance in court. Business is hard as is, counting every penny, and comes these scammers hoping to make easy bucks, any one with info get in touch with me.

I suspect the guy above me is working for SJ. Otherwise, why would anyone reply if they are not looking up details/reviews on SJ?
Sj is a doggy company as many have discussed here. They call you up, tell you no win no fee. Then the contract they present says in small writing a upfront fee of £700+ AND 25% of refunded rates. Greedy business practice if you ask me. Plus, they DO NOT GRANTEE you will get a refund!!

If you try to change your mind. THEY WILL PEST YOU CONSTANTLY! with PRIVATE NUMBER! I have not seen any company who constantly calls people with PRIVATE NUMBER!

AVOID!!!! You  have been warned by people here as well as other discussion sites. There are also news regarding their scam practices online. SO

Search, think, DON'T BE FOOLED!!!!!!

called me 4 times in 40 minutes on my private mobile they are not blocked the

*now blocked

I currently work for S.J and have done for about 2 years now, I go out to potential clients assess the property and the rates they pay to see if they can save money, I do actually turn down around 30% of clients as they are either not paying enough to the council or there saving wouldn't cover the fee because shock horror I am an honest person who works damn hard to earn my pay.

Once assessed and I believe I can save them money I sign the clients up, send paperwork into my office, who use former VOA workers to check over every detail to confirm its all correct, If correct they then phone the client again to ask if they wih to proceed with the case, If yes we then send the case files into the VOA and await reply, If the VOA say no to the claim, then there is NO CHARGE whatsoever!! If however the VOA accept the case, then I or another Senior Assessor will come out and survey the place, thats when Our charge of £695+ VAT becomes payable, The case then can take anything from 6 months to 9 months to reach a decision, Once a decision has been made on the amount of savings per year we then take a 25% fee from ONE YEARS SAVING.

Im not going to lie and say I'm 100% successful on all claims because I'm not, But once the case has been accepted by the VOA its very rare, and I mean VERY rare that I save the clients less then the fee I've charged them. I Could quite easily leave 100 numbers of different businesses I have saved a hell of a lot of money for who will more then happily vouch for how good a job I do for the businesses in my area!

I understand that not all workers are going to be 100% honest, any multi million pound company the size of our's will always have at least one dodgy salesman, But at the end of the day the choice is yours and yours alone to sign the paperwork! you are given a choice when you take the first phone call, a choice when I come out and assess, and one final choice when you receive a phone call after I've assessed the business! Quite often I don't sign clients up on the same day, I leave paperwork with them for a few days and let them mull it over, no hard sell, no high pressure sales techniques, just honest facts and figures!

Can I also add to the person who wrote on here about the fact we dont guarantee savings, We cannot give you guaranteed savings on paper as everything with the VOA is negotiable! we argue over prices per square metre, the classification of rooms and the size of rooms, we present evidence as to why someone should be paying "x amount" per square meter, then negotiate it to that price. So If anyone writes you a statement that guarantees you they can save you a certain amount, they are LYING! everything is negotiable, though we have been doing this job long enough to know that if someone is paying £50 per sq mtr and we think it should be £40 per sq mtr, were going to get pretty damn close to that estimate!

S.J. Associates is NOT a fraud company, they are a company that saves thousands of companies thousands of pounds each year! We can't save everyone money, and not all cases turn out as well as you hope, That my friends is just life! Get over it and maybe own up to the fact that YOU made a mistake, you didn't listen properly and are now paying the price for it!

They cannot guarantee you a saving, no company can guarantee you a saving, if they do say this they are LYING! Every case is negotiated by the rating assessment companies and the VOA.

The only savings that are guaranteed are if there have been structural changes to the building, i.e if a room has been demolished!

Andrew you are being economic with the truth.just because an appeal has been accepted by the vo means nothing.it does not mean there are any grounds for the appeal.before youput an appeal in you should have an argument why the assessment is wrong.if you cannot agree with the vo go to tribunal.when I trawl the vo website I find many of your appeals have been withdrawn or dismissed by the vt.does this mean you have not bothered to put a statement of case six weeks prior to the hearing otherwise it will be struck out

Sorry mr jones your comments make no sense.rates are based on 2008 rental levels followed by toning levels.why do firms have to take seven hundred pounds up front just because there appeal has been acknowledged by the vo.an acknowledgment means nothing.any reputable firm takes no money upfront.why don't you look on the vo website to see how many cases have been dismissed.

very simply DONT TRUST THEM ,,,,I did even with litagation I dought ill get my money back , ..they lied and lured me in,, to be honest on my nievity,,

Customer Service was great at first but went quiet after a while. Called to see what was going on and was told they would call me back as soon as the council got back to them. Within a week or so I started to get worried but to my surprise, I then received a call to confirm they had got me a reduction. Did have to wait about 5 weeks for a refund from my council but after the cheque came through, I paid SJ their commission and was still left with just over £7,000. Only downside was the time it took as the paperwork did say an average of 6-9 month and for me it took 11, but after the result I got, I am not complaining! Great result and thankful for all the help and future help I will get from them until 2025! Referred them to a number of businesses in my area and they then informed me about this site and after reading a number of the reviews, I can definitely say I do not agree with the majority and thought it was only fair, to share my experience with this company.
When the rep from SJ came out,I was given the paperwork but as my husband was not in the office, I asked to run through things with him before signing. They were more than happy to leave the paperwork and for me to post back to them or they could even re-visit. They were more than happy to come back out and pick up the paperwork and after the call to confirm my details and that we were happy to go ahead, the ball started rolling.
I would 100% advise any business to read the full paperwork before signing anything, no matter what the service/company etc, and to make sure you fully understand all aspects. This is one of the reasons I asked to leave the paperwork, so I could fully read the contents of the 3 forms I was about to sign. All in all, I received a great service/result and if I did not receive a reduction, then I would still have no complaints as they confirmed in the paperwork I signed, that they cannot guarantee reductions. Again, I was aware of this as I fully read the paperwork and made sure I understood the contents!

Thank you once again SJ for a great result!

Mrs Bennett would you be prepared to give us your adress and post code to check what you say is correct.we expect a response shortly.

MESSAGE FOR HEAD OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
"You appear to be following the fiery path I once did"

SJ Associates are scammers, trying to get me to pay £695 plus VAT, the have said that they would give me a firm saving then i can decide as to whether or not to continue. The are now harrasing me for payment and also threatening me saying that i have signed a contract and you have to pay to get out of it. The sales man did not tell me the correct information to make an informed decision instead just a scam to get money off me. Spoke to a girl called Rhian, very rude, spoke to me like [***] then hung up. Then called back to speak to a Mr Harrison who is named on there paperwork they post to you. basically tried to fill me with bull [***], then when i told him the service he was selling me was not what i was told i would be getting he basically said tough.. you have signed your contract. They have not actually done anything yet as they also told me that negotiations have not taken place yet. [***]

Any chance of letting us know the post code and adress of the premises where you stated sj saved you 68000 in overpayment of rates.looking forward to a response.

had a call from these fly-by-nights, when I informed him I had looked into it, and it wasn't worth my while, he got really sarcastic, these companies are a bloody nuisance