It’s good to see that Yorkshire Trading Standards has fined a tradesman nearly £2000 as a result of his passing himself off as a member of a trade association, implying professional conduct that wasn’t the case.
I’d like to see more of these checks and fines in the motor industry so that women drivers could be 100% confident that they are dealing with one of the best and honourable businesses. FOXY Choice’s terms and conditions require female friendly garages to self certify their business credentials including current membership of trade associations; there could easily be a degree of sloppiness here because it isn’t always possible for us to check that all trade memberships, for example, are correct or up to date.
Because we favour, promote and reward garage businesses with OFT (schemes operating to a fully approved code and those that have yet to get there), ATA and BSI Kitemark credentials in particular, I’d hate to think we might be misrepresenting this important sign of quality to women drivers in any of our female friendly garage listings… or that businesses might be passing off trade memberships at any stage.
In this instance, David Pearce who is an electrician from York, pleaded guilty to four charges of displaying a trade association logo he was not entitled to and one of displaying a ‘trust mark’ he wasn’t entitled to use.
York Trading Standards claimed that Pearce’s firm used quotation forms bearing the logo of the National Association of Professional Inspectors And Testers (NAPIT) and used a trust mark linked to the same organisation. Pearce also displayed the logo ‘inappropriately’ on his firm’s website.
In his defence, Pearce claimed he had not run a business before and obtained help from a friend in the same occupation. This third party had given him quotation and invoice forms he had copied and he hadn’t realised that his website could be accessed by the public…
Nice try David…
I got this story from the helpful Professional Associations website and am as surprised as they are to not find this as a news story at the NAPIT website yet. I imagine that any professional business association would wish to discourage trade cowboys from making false claims about their membership. After all, this might then flush a few lapsed members out of their cubby holes to conveniently remember to pay a recently lapsed sub!
FOXY Steph
Find out about the lading trade associations that female friendly garages can join in FOXY’s Good Garage Guide.
