The Truth Behind TrustMark

The TrustMark scheme is supported by the Government, the building industry and consumer groups. It is there to help you as customers find reliable and trustworthy tradespeople, and to give you peace of mind. You know you can rest-assured in the knowledge that a TrustMark-endorsed company has proven ability to make improvements and repairs inside and outside homes...

So what went wrong!.

TrustMark was created and funded by BERR (the government). It is personally endorsed by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and promoted by Gareth Thomas, the minister for BERR.

It was 'created to raise standards and empower consumers by helping them identify reputable building firms that meet a set of competences and customer-care standards'. Please visit their website at www.trustmark.org.uk, and compare their pledges and licence to what has happened to me.

BERR issue TrustMark's, licence, but because BERR sits on the board of TrustMark they refuse to investigate a complaint from the consumer. So as a consumer you have no redress with BERR when TrustMark, TrustMark's scheme operators or members break this licence. The only reply I receive from BERR is that I must take legal action against TrustMark. The only reply I get from telephone enquiries to BERR is 'no comment'.

I have been told by BERR that now only the minister can answer my letters, so far he has not replied to six letters I have sent. I have since been told by BERR that he will not answer any letters from me, and I have exhausted every available avenue to get him to look at this matter.

The Minister Gareth Thomas> continuously promotes Trustmark. I would like to know if, after looking at my case, he still believes that Trustmark is the solution to Rogue traders.

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Trustmark Warranty

When using a TrustMark member the registered firm must give you the opportunity to buy a warranty, and must cover jobs between £250.00 and £50.000.00. Keystone never did this. TrustMark and BERR have supplied no evidence that this warranty was offered and I can confirm that it was not.

TrustMark's licence under section 6 states:-

DETAILS OF COVER OFFERED>:
In the event of a TrustMark registered firm ceasing to trade, and also where possible refusing to complete the work, or refusing to remedy a defect or major damage (i.e. damage due to defective materials, design or workmanship which would require substantial or wholesale rebuilding or repair of the Structure or Building Envelope), the warranty should provide the customer with the following financial protection:

BEFORE COMPLETION:
Protection against loss of deposit or advance payments Extra costs of completing the work to the agreed specification. Minimum limits of protection to be £10,000.00 or 25% of the contract value, whichever is the lower. This protection to be provided for a minimum period of 30 days after an appropriately defined completion date.

AFTER COMPLETION, FOR PERIOD OF TWO YEARS.

Protection against defective materials, design or workmanship. Minimum limits of protection to be 100% of the contract value.
All of the above has been ignored by TrustMark and the NICEIC, and my repeated requests as to why, have never been answered; please don't forget Keystone's solicitor claimed in a letter that all the work is complete.

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Reality

When I first complained to TrustMark, I was told correctly that I must complain to the scheme operator first, which I did. The NICEIC sent me a letter that included a Trustmark Complaint Additional Information Form. In this letter it confirms that, because Keystone are members of TrustMark, the NICEIC Complaint Procedure Limitations have been removed relating to standard of work, materials, customer service and payment disputes. But this was then ignored, and I was repeatedly told that I fall outside their complaints procedures, and NICEIC only deal with safety issues.

This turned out to be untrue. One time when I enquired, 'how do you know if Keystone's work is safe?', the reply I received was 'go and put a plug in a socket, and if it doesn't work then it is safe', then the operative hung up on me. I also received letters from Keystone's solicitor> threatening legal action against me, for reporting his client to the regulating authorities.

I then complained again to TrustMark, who wrote to me and claimed that 'it appears the NICEIC have not followed the complaints procedure correctly'. After several more letters, and dozens more phone calls from me that were never returned, I eventually received a visit from an NICEIC inspector, several months after I first reported this matter. On his inspection, he discovered that Keystone's work did not reach BS 7671 standards, and the property had been energised.

Keystone were then required to rectify these deficiencies in their work. When I asked the inspector what he was going to do about the fact that they had energised the property while it was unsafe and had not tested it to see if it was not safe, he replied 'that was off the record, I don't want to get involved in that'. I then told him we could have been killed, again he replied 'that was off the record'.

The inspector claimed that TrustMark's Core Approval Criteria did not apply to the NICEIC, and they are only concerned with the safety issue, and not the standard of work or of customer care.

This work was then self certificated safe by one of Keystone's directors, Gary Smith, and TrustMark and NICEIC claimed the file is now closed. Claims were then made that an NICEIC inspector had visited the property to inspect these corrections, this was untrue. The picture you see was discovered 5 months after the self certification was issued; this was only discovered because I insisted that the NICEIC had not sent anybody out to inspect the rectified work. This was then proved correct, and an inspector visited again.

On this occasion I caught the inspector rectifying Keystone's work himself. He then told me that TrustMark see me as a nuisance, and he could not understand why I just don't pay someone else to repair my home. I replied 'I paid your member £23,000.00 to do the work, but they have caused £29,000.00 worth of damage'. I have no more money; I could not believe what I was hearing.

There have been reports into my case involving TrustMark, and the NICEIC, they have corroborated evidence, and I or a representative has been excluded from all meetings, which is against their licence.

In one report sent to BERR dated 6th January 2009, regarding a meeting that took place on 12th November 2008 only after pressure from me, numerous false allegations were made against me, which can and have been disproved, but this is ignored.

In this report it even states that no action will be taken against their member, but Keystone will be re-educated in the errors of their ways, whatever that means. I have been refused on numerous occasions an explanation of what this means or what were the errors of their ways. TrustMark, even claim that I owe monies to Keystone; again they have no evidence of this. They even claim that I have used Keystone before, this is untrue, and again they have no evidence of this false allegation.

The worst claim they make in their report is that I did not use them because of Keystone's TrustMark status. This is untrue, but even if it was true, what difference would this make to TrustMark following their licence correctly?

In the report TrustMark also claim that the matter was somewhat protracted due to legal issues. Again this is a false claim, as I confirmed in a letter dated 4th January 2008 stating that no litigation action was proceeding. They cannot provide any evidence to substantiate this claim.

There is so much more evidence I have in my possession of Trustmark not following their licence.

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Keystone Construction

Keystone entered into a CVA under the insolvency act for debts totalling £480,943.33, on 13th November 2008. This CVA failed on 24th February 2009, as they did not make one single contribution to this CVA. They also did not pay the administrators a single penny of their fee, and they have now petitioned for a winding up of this company.

They also have had several CCJ's against them, stretching as far back as 28th July 2008. I have evidence that TrustMark and BERR were in possession of the CCJ's against Keystone as far back as 25th October 2008, and Keystone's CVA back on 23rd November2008.

During this period they continued to claim to the consumer that Keystone are checked on their trading record, financial status, regular on site inspections, relevant insurances and that they still meet the government endorsed criteria. There are so many more incidents in my case where the licence has been broken, but they would be too long to list.

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Please click on the box TrustMark's Core Approval Criteria, and compare the evidence in my case against this licence issued by BERR, which everyone in this case must adhere to, and you will see the numerous cases of disregard of this licence.

You can see from TrustMark's download of 'Find a Trustmark Tradesman' dated 25th May 2009, that the consumer is being badly misled. Keystone have been trading under a different company name for many months now, which can be seen on their website Stonewood Construction.

This is their old website, same logo, same directors, same pictures and even falsely claiming Stonewood is NICEIC registered, and all the time TrustMarksupports and promotes them as Keystone Construction UK Ltd. This download from Trust Mark and NICEIC's 'find a tradesman' is over two months since Keystone's failed CVA.

Please look at a letter I sent TrustMark, this is one of dozens, and you can see the frustration the consumer has when trying to communicate with TrustMark. Most of my correspondence was sent recorded delivery, but was never answered, or I was told they were never received. I know this to be untrue as I have the evidence that they were received.

A letter sent on the 31st March 2009, which was asking several relevant points, was answered with this reply from TrustMark, with no answer to my relevnat points,

I made a request under Section 7 (1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 for all facsimile copies of any data held against my name from TrustMark. TrustMark then refused to adhere to this, claiming they only had my name and address on file. I then reported this to The Information Commissioner's Office as TrustMark's actions are illegal. TrustMark then requested a fee of £10.00 from me, which they are able to do, for releasing some of the data to me.

When I asked for the remaining documents I was denied these in a sarcastic letter on the 20th May 2009 and also a letter dated 4th June 2009, from their Chief Executive, Roman Rossocki.

I am in possession of evidence of TrustMark advising the TrustMark Scheme Operators not to be drawn into conversation with Mr Arrowsmith or to discuss his case. Why would TrustMark do this, if it has followed its licence correctly?

I am also in possession of evidence of TrustMark and the NICEIC corroborating their evidence, before producing a joint response to Mr Arrowsmith, the Minister, BERR, and Mark Hoban MP. I had claimed this was the case many months ago, but no one would believe me.

I also have a copy of a request from the NICEIC to TrustMark, asking that all media enquiries relating to NICEIC are passed to the NICEIC, and that TrustMark do not respond on the NICEIC's behalf. This should be agreed immediately, and it is important that they agree this in relation to Mr Arrowsmith. The Trustmark and NICEIC have denied all my requests to be present or be represented at all of their meetings.

One piece of correspondence I have in my possession from the NICEIC to TrustMark states 'A coordinated response to Mr Arrowsmith would be advantageous to both our organisations!'

I have tried to contact other scheme operators within the Trustmark scheme, but I have met with hostility from many of them, and I have subsequently discovered that >Senior Members of these Scheme Operators have been invited onto the board of TrustMark.

With all this evidence of collaboration, what chance does the consumer have, when they complain to TrustMark with a gross misdemeanour by one of their members and scheme operator? You are treated like an irritant, as I have been and still continue to be.

"I don't believe anything we do will satisfy this guy, and as such, I will not be taking the matter any further"
"Lets see what comes of the Electrical Safety Council's Investigation."

Email from TrustMark to NICEIC (August 2008)

"Before this matter gets totally out of hand, may I suggest we all get together, review the evidence, the actions taken to date, and then produce a joint response to Mr Arrowsmith, the Miinister, BERR, and Mr Mark Hoban MP, who is Mr Arrowsmiths local MP, and who has been involved in recent correspondence on this subject"

Email from TrustMark to NICEIC (October 2008)

"Word has it they (Keystone) have a number of CCJ's against them and that they have ceased trading."

"I have attempted to contact Keystone via several different phone numbers, but without any luck."

Email from TrustMark to NICEIC (March 2009)

"A co-ordinated respose to Mr Arrowsmith would be advantageous to both our organisations !"

Email from NICEIC to TrustMark (Feburary 2009)

"Until such time as TrustMark has a thorough, agreed, communitactions stategy in place to deal with issues such as the ones discussed at our meeting, please can you ensure with immediate effect, that all media enquiries relating to NICEIC are passed directly to me and that Trustmark do no respond on our behalf?"

"This is to ensure that our organisation maintaines satisfactory internal control over what is being said regarding NICEIC

. It is imporant we agree this now in relation specifically to Mr Arrowsmith."

Email from NICEIC to TrustMark (April 2009)

"TrustMark is happy to comply with your request, and in any case, we would never make any comments to the media regarding NICEIC, without first consulting you"

Response Email from TrustMark to NICEIC (April 2009)

"Mr Arrowsmith is still trying to get support for his case from Government, the TrustMark Board and other TrustMark Scheme Operators, without success."

Email from TrustMark to NICEIC (April 2009)

"We would advise TrustMark Scheme Operators not to be drawn into conversation with Mr Arrowsmith or to discuss his case"

Statement from TrustMark (May 2009)

The Chief Executive of TrustMark's response to the matter of Keystone's activities...."You will have to sue Keystone"

My response was... "How? They are half a million in debt, but you supported them as financially sound and they follow the Government Standards"

His reply was to.... HANG UP the phone.

The Chairman of TrustMark informed me this matter has nothing to do with him and I should not contact him at work again.

TrustMark will not respond to where my offer if a warranty is.