A Letter to Alan Duncan MP - House of Commons
Subject: Corgi

Please find enclosed the correspondence between myself and Corgi.

I believe this problem with Corgi’s failure to regulate the industry correctly has been resolved by the Health & Safety Executive.

I was able to expose the problems within Corgi after many months of investigation with no help from anybody, and was then able to supply the HSE with evidence of this gross incompetence by Corgi. I was told by a Corgi employee that I had ‘stirred up a right hornet’s nest’ within Corgi, and that it took someone from the general public to expose the failings within his organisation.

The chairman of Corgi called me on my mobile in the evenings, attempting to reassure me that Corgi had realised their problems and were trying to rectify them, but over a period of time they still continued to occur. He even tried to blame their problems on their new IT system, a senior employee of the HSE informed me in a telephone conversation that Corgi made this same claim two years beforehand and laughed. In this telephone call I was thanked for all the evidence I had supplied to them, and told there would be an upcoming announcement on the HSE website regarding Corgi being able to regulate the industry. Unfortunately and correctly he could not tell me what that announcement would be, but I am so grateful that someone within the HSE took my evidence seriously and took action, I believe possibly saving lives in the future.

Yours Sincerely


Kevin Arrowsmith

I was told by Trustmark to report this matter to the ESC, regarding the dissatisfaction I had with the NICEIC. It took many attempts before the ESC would listen to this problem, but when they did they were initially concerned with the way this matter was being handled. When they contacted the NICEIC, they returned with a verdict that everything had been done correctly, albeit after a significant lapse of time between the initial complaint and the mediation visits. I provided them with more evidence of the work not being safe, and the NICEIC not having been back to inspect the work, but they then informed me that the ESC has nothing to do with the NICEIC and I should not contact them again.

Again, many letters to this organisation were never answered and they will no longer reply to my phone calls.

This is the only organisation that took my complaint seriously, when I reported Corgi’s gross misconduct to them. They accepted the evidence I had and undertook an investigation, which proved what I had told them. I then received a thank you from the HSE, and a confirmation of Corgi’s mistakes. The industry needs regulating now before anyone else is put at risk.

I first contacted Lloyds TSB in February 2007, to see if I was covered in this matter under my insurance, and was immediately told I wasn’t.

I felt that something was not quite right, as I could not get my schedule from Lloyds, so for over 2½ years I have been fighting Lloyds bank.

To cut a long story short, only through my torturous and painstaking investigations and by demanding information and telephone recordings under the data protection act, I was able to discover that Lloyds TSB had been investigating someone else’s insurance by mistake. They then falsely claimed that I instigated the claim under someone else’s insurance, which has since been proven to be a false allegation by Lloyds.

2½ years after I first tried to claim on my insurance Lloyds have processed my case again, this still was not being processed correctly, but Lloyds have now confirmed that I am not covered, because of an exclusion that they don’t list in my policy. You couldn’t make this up. Again there is going to be a long drawn out appeal against this decision.

Lloyds bank refused to take any action themselves for their mistake, but it is left to me to report this matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Before I discovered Lloyds’ mistake I had on one occasion been asked to leave their premises, as I had become a nuisance. This was after they insisted I was not covered when I tried to tell them something was not quite right with my insurance.

The Ombudsman has now made mistakes and accepted falsified information from Lloyds as factual, and has now made false allegations themselves. I am now waiting for a public hearing into what has happened in this case so we can get to the truth.

There is a lot more to this story and I have all the evidence in paperwork, showing the mistakes and false allegations made by Lloyds and the Ombudsman. The behaviour of the Ombudsman in this case is extremely disturbing.

Firstly, I reported Portsmouth Trading standards and Portsmouth City Council for taking me to court over non-payment of council tax.

The Ombudsman confirmed it is correct for trading standards not to investigate this matter due to the council’s resources. It did admit that trading standards put me through a great deal of stress by not responding to me, but were closing my complaint.

The Ombudsman refused to comment on Portsmouth City Council’s behaviour in taking me to court, or the liability order they took out against me, or not supplying information they should have given to me. All I received from the Ombudsman was an acknowledgement that it was unacceptable for the Council to put an incorrect telephone number on their Court summons; there was no thanks for me exposing this negligence.

I had to fight tooth and nail to defeat the council, with no help from anybody. They caused me a great deal of stress and time off work. I had to contact the Valuation Office and arrange a visit from them myself, and they confirmed that what PCC was doing to me was incorrect and they had given out false information.

All this evidence I gave to the Ombudsman, but they did not want to know or comment on these facts, again, this was a complete waste of time.

I then reported Hampshire County Trading standards, again all the facts were ignored. I was even told by the Ombudsman that I (the consumer) would have to take a company to court for illegal advertising, because the company concerned were ignoring the council’s requests. The Ombudsman even refused to comment on the false accusation and all the evidence.

HCC trading standards wrote in a letter to me ‘claiming work has been done and then discovering it had not been completed, has not been something we have previously discussed and throughout our discussions in writing and face to face, this is not an issue that has been considered.’

HCC only produced this statement when I supplied them with the law to which this matter related, but refused to comment on it. The Ombudsman falsely claimed that they had already considered this previously and would not look into this matter, file closed.

The Ombudsman has behaved in exactly the same manner as the council, and told me that I have to take legal action.

The NICEIC refused to investigate this problem, even though I fitted into their consumer complaints procedure and the NICEIC come under the TrustMark scheme. By their own admission this removes the restricted limits of the NICEIC complaints procedures, but this was then ignored by the NICEIC. It took many months of effort by me to get them to investigate this, but that was just the start of my problems with the NICEIC.

On 10th October 2008 more dangerous electrical work was discovered, this was after the NICEIC had told me on many occasions the file was closed, and after they had done their independent review, which is just a joke. They had even let Keystone certificate this work safe themselves, and took Keystone’s word for it.

I even caught the NICEIC inspector fixing Keystone’s faulty work when he was meant to be inspecting it. On his inspection he even got Keystone to admit that they had energised the property, but when I challenged this the NICEIC inspector said it was off the record.

The NICEIC refused to reply to any of my letters, they would not return my phone calls, or they would leave me on hold, until I hung up. The previous Chief Operating Officer was the worst culprit; he never once spoke to me, or returned one of my many phone calls. He would also ignore my letters, but in late March 2009 the new Chief Operating Officer contacted me to inform me that the file was closed. I eventually spoke to the new CEO, and asked her to review the case, which she did, and she has made an offer to correct the electrical installation. I have been unable to accept this offer so far, as the sheer scale of the damage caused by their member, Keystone, means that nothing can be done to rectify their electrical work until all the other damage is corrected.

The new Chief Operating Officer seems determined to learn from this case, and ensure that these mistakes will not happen again. This can only benefit the consumer in the future, but it has come too late for me.