Police called in after EPC firm gives out address

A businessman whose home address, a bungalow in Dorset, is given online as the headquarters of an EPC firm, has told of his anguish and fury as bailiffs and angry customers turn up on his doorstep.

Allan Chester, founder and managing director of UK Postbox, a service which digitalises mail, lives in his family home in Dorset.

His address appears on the NextDay EPC website and now on the Assessor Direct website as well. But he says he is absolutely nothing to do with either business and knows nothing about EPCs.

Next to the Dorset address is a picture of a smart looking office which Mr Chester says is in Reading.

He said: “We started receiving post for NextDay EPC and then we found out that they were fraudulently using our address. We called the police and were given a crime number, but they say we are not a victim and will not take it any further.

“We are having bailiffs turn up at the rate of one a week – one of whom tried to barge his way into our home – and we have had old couples in their seventies at our front door, who are trying to sell their homes to move into care, and have been ripped off with nothing to show for it.

“I must also have had at least 20 DEAs here, unhappy because they have not been paid and feel they have been scammed.”

Mr Chester, who has pioneered digital postal services in the UK, claims his chief concern is the damage it could do to his own business, which he says has no contract of any sort with NextDay EPC or with Assessor Direct.

Meanwhile, the man ‘named and shamed’ by DEAs has totally denied having anything to do with any of the companies they claim to have identified, including NextDay EPC.

Complaints online, and claims made in the Energy Assessor Magazine, point the finger at Christopher Whatcott.

The article in Energy Assessor Magazine claims: “Assessors and customers on online forums are continuing to attack EPC provider NextDay EPC, which is only the latest in a long line of controversial web-based providers of HIPs and EPCs run by the same management.

“Many assessors say they have not been paid for EPCs by this and previous firms and some customers have not received certificates.”

The article claims: “NextDay EPC is run by Chris Whatcott, who was also responsible for HIP and EPC providers HipSave, HipServe and ExpressEPC, all of which ceased to operate, leaving a trail of debts in their wake.”

One DEA told EAT that he was owed £400. He said www.assessordirect.co.uk appeared to be exactly the same as NextDay EPC.

He also said that, in a new payment programme, DEAs now have to pay for customer leads and details through PayPal. Clients are then meant to pay the DEA for doing the job.
 
The DEA said he had reported the websites, which typically operate a reverse auction so that the lowest bidders get the job, to Trading Standards.

But Christopher Whatcott told EAT: “I am not sure where that DEA is getting his or her information from, but that website is nothing to do with me.

“It wasn’t that long ago that assessors thought I also owned metro epc and epc worx,  until recent events regarding those two companies have seemingly proved otherwise. I could be wrong, but if my memory serves me well, this was also mentioned in one of your previous articles.

“People seem to think that if it’s written in the DEA forums it must be true. All it seems to take is a single throwaway remark in those forums for people to start believing there is truth behind what is being said.”

Mr Whatcott has previously threatened legal proceedings against those who he says have been campaigning to ruin his business.

Meanwhile, it is not clear who does run the EPC sites being complained about, and it is a mystery as to why the address in Poole has been chosen.

EPC providers are not regulated, despite government enthusiasm for environmental legislation.