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The good, the bad, and the ugly - discover what customers are saying about WRT GROUP

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5:46 pm EDT

WRT GROUP Fraud, Lies and Misrepresentation

I own a very small IT business which was set up following a long and totally disabling illness. I had to give up teaching and lecturing and set up the business which is run on a very part time basis as energy levels allow. I have returned to teaching on a part time basis.

A salesman persistently called by phone. Eventually I agreed to meet him at my home.

The salesman offered advertising on a post box in our local branch of Sainsbury's.

I declined the offer due to the very high cost. I explained that I could not possibly risk such a large sum of money as advertising in our local newspapers failed to produce a single customer.

The salesman, on his way to the door, turned round and then misrepresented and/or deliberately lied on several important details, offering a far more attractive deal with much lower costs including the right to cancel at any time and have a full refund on all monies paid (except for initial deposit of £157.58 for artwork etc) if no customers came forward. This is roughly what I would have spent advertising locally and thought it was a reasonably good deal. I again asked him to confirm that I could cancel if there were no customers and he again confirmed that. That lessened the risk considerably. I signed up.

No copy of the "agreement" was left with me.

Artwork arrived after several weeks. It was of extremely poor quality. I had to design my own artwork which was sent to WRT. A copy of my original design was then posted back to me for approval.

The salesman said that the advertising campaign was imminent

The post box advertising started months after the suggested time scale set out by the salesman. It commenced just before Christmas.

Not a single customer responded even during the busy Christmas period.

I wrote a letter of cancellation which I was told I was entitled to do by the salesman. My first letter was ignored. Later I had a phone call demanding money. I explained the situation and was told to email Customer Services. I emailed them a copy of my letter

Other people state that all Customer Services are interested in is prohibiting people from cancelling their contracts and threatening them with legal action. "Don't touch them with a bargepole" is how one of their customers put it.

Customer Services and Accounts at WRT Group plc sent a letter demanding the rest of the entire sum (over £500) and said that I could not cancel.

A further demand for payment later arrived threatening legal action and the hiring of a debt recovery company.

I again wrote to Customer Services repeating the information I had already given them and outlining the problems I had experienced with WRT. I warned them that I would expose them and would contact Sainsbury's (who seem to endorse this particular company - but for how much longer if they treat their customers like this?), Watchdog and others.

As their correspondence indicates they are still insisting on payment of the full amount I will contact the managing directors of Sainsbury, Tesco and all other companies they deal with to let them know how this company treats their advertisers. I will also contact the OFT, Trading Standards, Which? Magazine am seriously considering taking legal action against these sharks. I will demand full repayment on everything plus compensation payments for harassment and the time spent on writing letters etc.

A more detailed letter arrived stating that an investigation had taken place, that the salesman denied making such claims, that the artwork was satisfactory (as I had approved my own copy), that the timescale was within reason (even by their calculations it was many months), that I am locked into a full two year contract with them and there is no facility whatsoever to cancel, despite what their salesman promised and that I owe them the full amount.

I think their attitude is indecent, dishonest, outrageous, greedy and probably illegal and will be taking legal advice in this matter.

It would appear that others have experienced similar problems to me. Just look at comments made on the Internet about this company.

I urge NOBODY to even consider dealing with these LIARS and CROOKS.

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1:10 pm EDT
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The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.

WRT GROUP extremely bad value product

After expressing no interest in this, i finally relented and agreed to meet their sales guy. After canceling and then rescheduling using the excuse his wife had just given birth to twins and then proceeded to show me the pictures. i have heard this tack-tick used before to try and soften potential customers. I eventually sent him away telling him it was far too expensive, about £800 for 2 years. A few days later i got the "we can offer you a discount " phone call and could he come back to see me. he did offer quite a lot money off and i was thought if I only get one job a month out of it, it would cover its costs. OH DEAR! here we are nearly 18 months down the line and not a single phone call or enquiry, oh except from another one of their sales guys asking if i wanted to go to in a sainsbury's. i made quite sure i told him what a total waste of money it was and he seemed surprised, "it's expensive because it works" was his reply. well how do they know it works? i have never had a single phone call from them asking how it's going etc. while i know advertising is hit and miss, it's about experimenting with what works, this does not.. ask yourself this... how many times have i picked up one of those cards in a sainsbury's or anywhere else? question answered! to sum up, i think it's despicable that a well known firm like sainsbury's should endorse such a company, especially when they seem to target small local business's who can ill afford such a scam. STEER CLEAR! i only wish there had been reviews of this firm on the net before i signed up!

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mw motor
North Walsham, GB
Jan 23, 2014 2:15 pm EST

I paid my deposit then agreed a monthly amount of £41.62 but it has now came to my attention that they have taken amounts up to £750 so do not trust this company, took months to get cards in store and never got any work out of it so will be taking legal action against this company!

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matthewsl
Bristol, GB
Mar 21, 2013 6:00 pm EDT

I was told lots of lies by different people from wrt. They told me what I wanted to hear in order to get me to sign the contract.

Anyone having problems with WRT, make a stand, there are plenty of us and its time wrt paid for conning us out of our hard earned cash.

I have just spoken to someone who managed to get his money back, his advice to me was to do exactly what he did which was to complain to all of the below, just write on email and send the same one to each of the below contacts.

Trading standards have complaints about WRT already, so spend 20min writing down the list of lies they told you and email to your local trading standards. The complaints will get sent to their local trading standards. If you have any emails or texts from them where they state they are from Wickes, Homebase or Sainsburys include these.

Send the same information to The office of fair trading. Ravinder Bains, Office Of Fair Trading
REF: EPIC/ENQ/E 137073

If your complaint involves Wickes contact Martin Alden, he is the business to business controller.
martinDOTalden@wickes.co.uk

If your complaint involves Homebase, then you will have to send it to info@homebase.co.uk
[protected], they will be able to direct you to marketing.

He did not do this step, but why not try and stir things up a little by sending a copy to The Sun news paper. talkback@the-sun.co.uk

The more of us that complain, the less likely it is that this company will be able to con tradesmen in the future.

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DelsonJoinery
Durham, GB
Dec 10, 2012 9:15 am EST

Having just signed up to my second year with WRT Group I decided to write a positive review based on my great experiences only to find some people are leaving negative reviews about a service which starts from £11 per week. It has provided my business a steady stream of income every month, without fail - why is it working for me more than you? I ask customers where they find my cards, what they thought about my design etc.. you could be getting business from these cards and not even notice it. Having your cards in well established businesses such as Wickes can do wonders for your business.

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pissed plumbing
romsey, GB
Oct 03, 2012 2:00 pm EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

i paid wrt £2000 for my miss sold advert exactly 1 year ago and have to this date not received 1 referral for work. does any one know if there is a way to get back my money?
thanks

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rustyy
Preston, GB
Apr 14, 2011 8:28 pm EDT

i am currently on 3 sainsburys stores started of on one store and then went onto 3 stores! this is my sixth year! and YES IT DOES WORK! it costs me £10 per week per store best thing i have ever done.

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hb009
Birmingham, GB
Aug 06, 2010 9:52 pm EDT

I think it depends upon the type of business / service you offer. If it is for high invoice value it could be profitable as you would only need 1 or 2 jobs a month to make it cost effective.

They do adopt high pressure sales tactics, suggesting that you us take up the offer there and then, when in reality there is no time pressure as most of the card stands have some vacant slots. At 2 of the Sainsburys that I visited one had only 4 in use, the other 3 spare. My issue was that despite it being in a prominent position the overwhelming number of people pass the stand by without even paying it a glance. I asked a couple of charity collectors who were standing right beside it how many people took a card that morning and the response was zero.

Nevertheless I suggest people carry out due diligence first and check the site out and work out whether it will suit their business. The small print clearly states that there is no cooling off period and that the artwork must be completed in 14 days regardless.

I ended up declining the offer as I doubt it would be beneficial to our company. If you don't like salesmen that won't take no for an answer then don't let them make an appointment in the first place until you have been to a store and feel confident that it is something you want to get involved with. (they re-visited my premises twice after the first meeting, when I told them clearly that I would get back to them once I had looked into it.)

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mike mcveigh
, GB
Jul 20, 2010 5:57 pm EDT

i couldnt agree more with the comments above, i can only assume you had a bad experience with a sales rep and not the company itself. i went into a tesco in amersham to promote my plumbing service and it was the best thing i ever did. it wasnt life changing but i had steady work from it. i knew full well it was 2 years and thought 800 pound was very reasonable especially when you compare it to the local papers and my return far out weighed the cost.
i know many companies that swear by yellow pages and get absolutely nothing so are they crooks?
there is never any guarantee in advertising so i suggest you stop being so bitter and focus on repairing computers because you are wasting your time. i can understand if you were told that you could get your money back but its your fault for not reading the terms and conditions. all i can say is i went into eyes wide open and was very pleased with the results but its each to their own i suppose.

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V Alante
Chester, GB
Jan 11, 2010 8:59 am EST

No one would have forced anyone to sign up else it is extortion and the police would have a duty to act, i'm sure the company would not be trading, nor would such high profile high street names be dealing with the company if this was so. People always look to blame other people for things that is really there own fault, if you put an advert in the paper for a week and it cost £250 you wouldn't call them fraudsters or crooks if you didn't get a response from it. Advertising is speculative. Golden rule is if you can't afford it, don't spend it on something that doesn't guarantee a return!

The company would have expense with producing and printing the advert and distributing it as well obviously some kind of payment in whatever form to the chain its displayed in, as i understand it (from downloading the sample pack of their website) they give you 0% interest free payment terms (with no credit application or checks required) this alone is a huge risk exposure for the company, most would tie you in to a credit agreement or ask for the payment in full so they are protected from any "bad debt" exposure. I guess this means they are a trusting company.

Another thing is that people always go out of their way to post the BAD and never the GOOD, if someone is happy they don't feel the need to shout about it, if for whatever reason they are unhappy they will go out of their way to complain to anyone and everyone who will listen. Think about it, when was the last time you wrote a letter to a company when you were happy with them? I personally go out of my way to do this! Especially where people i deal with (usually call centre staff) go out of their way to help me.

From looking at what they do, it seems like a good idea, local shops advertising local businesses in that area where 10, 000's of people will go through in a day, certainly more than would read the local rag nowadays anyway.

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the anti-whinging crusader
Lincoln, GB
Jan 08, 2010 2:34 pm EST

daw-naw you're an idiot (just like john above), don't you realise how much advertising costs? Companies spend hundreds of thousand pounds on it everyday & your complaining at a couple of hundred quid for 2 years?! They didn't force you to sign up & as you say & everyone knows it's not a perfect science. Yes they target local business to take out adverts because the customers at the supermarket are potential local customers for your local business that's the point. If you spent the same amount of time whinging as you did trying to find new customers the money you spent would be irrelevant.

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John
Gravseend, GB
Jun 12, 2009 2:25 pm EDT
Verified customer This comment was posted by a verified customer. Learn more

Please see my complaint under WRT Group Sales Point Dainsbury

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